The Official 01/30/09 MCAT Club

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BloodySurgeon

BloodySurgeon

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Since January is nearby, I decided to refine the January MCAT club to it's two dates. For those of you who are taking it on Friday, January 30th, here is the place where you can vent, discuss, and support each other for this upcoming test. Best of luck guys!
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This has probably been addressed too, but do you have to save at all during the WS to have your typing scored?
If you don't save at all is like you didn't type anything?
Do you have to save at the end to have the last little bit show up?
 
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RRTinCO said:
This has probably been addressed too, but do you have to save at all during the WS to have your typing scored?
If you don't save at all is like you didn't type anything?
Do you have to save at the end to have the last little bit show up?
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nope! You don't have to save. It automatically saves in the end :)
 
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i actually thought the bio was pretty hard they focused on one specific thing throughout most of the test.
 
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Revilla said:
Actually, that was the July exam, which is the one I took the first time. I was thrilled, thought I did extremely well, just as everyone else did. Scores came out and suffice it to say, I'm retaking. I scored 8-10 points lower than my AAMC practice tests.

The June exam (June 13th) was unusually difficult and everyone complained about how hard it was on SDN. When scores came out, most people were quite happy. Many even said they scored higher than their practice exams.
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i hope you are right cause bio was not a walk in the park.
 
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moldovanits said:
i actually thought the bio was pretty hard they focused on one specific thing throughout most of the test.
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What was the one specific thing it focused on? You're allowed to say the topic just not the actual questions.
 
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Genetics and molecular biology for sure, I mean I had something about sry gene. The book obviously did not say anything about that, I havent seen sry gene since I last took a genetics course like a year ago.
 
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This was my second time taking it..

The first time I felt bad leaving it bc I took it in July before I had orgo, bio 1 or physics 2. Needless to say, I didn't do well and got a 23N - 7|10|6 :confused: I'd say I studied a total of 20 hours.

This time... I had finished the core courses (stil without biochem or microbio though), studied using EK Home Study for 200-250 hrs and felt much more prepared going into the test. My practice scores were landing in the 28-30 range.

Unfortunately I left that test feeling EXACTLY the same way I felt when I took it the first time. There was a major time crunch throughout...

PS - Starting running out of time towards the end of the section; felt like they didn't include many of the "classic" concepts in either chem or phys that seem to appear on practice tests

VR - No new opinion here - very long. And I too, was expecting a search function since they had one on the AAMC practice tests :( False hope I spose.

WS - Found these to be MUCH easier concepts to grasp than my previous MCAT. Too bad no schools really care :(

BS - Oh bio bio bio - why do you hate me. I am one of those sickos that loves orgo... I'd also estimate maybe 10% of BS was orgo. And the passages that were physiology-oriented.. seemed very obscure and detailed.

I'm actually still a candidate for Fall 2009 admission. Admission to my #1 choice hinges all on this. :xf:
 
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isaacmn said:
Genetics and molecular biology for sure, I mean I had something about sry gene. The book obviously did not say anything about that, I havent seen sry gene since I last took a genetics course like a year ago.
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seriously same here
 
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isaacmn said:
Genetics and molecular biology for sure, I mean I had something about sry gene. The book obviously did not say anything about that, I havent seen sry gene since I last took a genetics course like a year ago.
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I could not have gotten luckier on this, I'm taking genetics right now and we literally went over this on Monday. :D

I had been scoring pretty well in bio and I felt this bio was tougher than usual, I guess I'm not a bio savant like ksmi117 ;)
 
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if anyone lives in the san fernando area would like to vent and get drunk pm me! lets celebrate!
 
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Wow. I actually feel pretty good about this one. Overall, it was a challenging exam, and there were definitely some questions which I know I didn't get right, but in retrospect, while the passages may have appeared obscure, the concepts, as we are always told, are basic once you see past the BS.

Anyway

PS: harder than what I was expecting, but still think I did well. The one about rocks and sound I thought was the hardest passage. Does each section have an experimental? I hope this was the one. Normally I finish with about 10 minutes to spare, but on this I had maybe a minute. I think it had to do with 'official day jitters' and the idea that I'm going to be extra careful on the real one.

VR: Felt like the AAMC practice exams to me. I thought the passages were longer at first, but perhaps it was just appearing like that cause the font they used seemed to be a little larger. There was a good mix of hum/social science/and natural sciences I thought.

BS: 2 OChem passages, 5 BS passages, I think maybe 2-3 free standing ochem questions. Genetics, mol bio mostly. More NMR stuff than usual.

In the end, it's still a blur, and maybe I thought it wasn't so bad because I got suckered into all the tricks the evil MCAT writers cackled over last night.

:luck::luck::luck::luck::luck: Good luck everyone! It's going to be a long 30 days.. :luck::luck::luck::luck::luck:
 
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RRTinCO said:
I could not have gotten luckier on this, I'm taking genetics right now and we literally went over this on Monday. :D

I had been scoring pretty well in bio and I felt this bio was tougher than usual, I guess I'm not a bio savant like ksmi117 ;)
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Dude, I'm so not a bio whiz. I'm a math major. haha. But if there's anything in bio I am good at, it's genetics and molecular bio. It's the stuff I've learned so many times, it's ingrained in my mind. And your comment about the writing section totally freaked me out. I never saved. :eek:

But really hearing everyone say how hard bio was is kinda freaking me out. Did I miss something? I was on the last passage with half of my time left. Oh March 3rd, you cannot come soon enough!
 
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ksmi117 said:
Dude, I'm so not a bio whiz. I'm a math major. haha. But if there's anything in bio I am good at, it's genetics and molecular bio. It's the stuff I've learned so many times, it's ingrained in my mind. And your comment about the writing section totally freaked me out. I never saved. :eek:

But really hearing everyone say how hard bio was is kinda freaking me out. Did I miss something? I was on the last passage with half of my time left. Oh March 3rd, you cannot come soon enough!
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I'm sure you did awesome:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

I just hope that you guys with your huge practice scores don't kill the curve for me ;)
 
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I assumed that everyone at my testing center was there to take the MCAT, so everyone would be aprox. on the same part of the test at any given time....not the case. As I first started the PS, the dude next to me starts clacking away on is keyboard. That was a little distracting....turns out he was there to take the GRE.

At least it didn't happen during VR :)
 
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RRTinCO said:
I assumed that everyone at my testing center was there to take the MCAT, so everyone would be aprox. on the same part of the test at any given time....not the case. As I first started the PS, the dude next to me starts clacking away on is keyboard. That was a little distracting....turns out he was there to take the GRE.

At least it didn't happen during VR :)
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Yeah, the clacking during VR... that wasn't too fun... :(
 
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I thought today's test was awful. I actually ended up voiding it and will be retaking in March. I'm sure sitting right next to the door where I could hear the proctor lady's entire phone conversations throughout the test didn't help :mad:

PS: I was off to a good start but got stuck on one passage when I should have just answered and kept going. I ran out of time and ended up guessing on at least 7 questions. Overall though, it wasn't as bad as the bio!!!

VR: really long passages. Had to skim through quite a few. A lot of the questions involved going back to the passage to try to find specific information. I still finished with a minute to spare.

BS::confused: :scared::eek: A lot more genetics than I expected. Also quite a few passages that involved more than one system and focused more on physiology than anatomy.

Overall unhappy with my performance today, but at least I know what to work on for next time. I definitely need to take more practice tests in noisy environments :rolleyes: Now OFF TO THE BAR I GO!
 
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I went to the test center very confident because i know the content really well. For me the biggest issue was timing. Meaning, if i tend to fall behind then i tend to get fluster and what not. I had to be aggressive and work quickly. My ideal situation : Be on question 26ish when there are ~32 min left..

PS..Started of not too bad but the middle passages got tough. They were not as straight forward as AAMC 9 and 10. I felt like i had to use POE alot and make an educated guess and move on after marking since there are still alot of easy points left. There were couple of relatively easier passages towards the end of the section. It seemed that the PS had more gchem than physics. Gchem was not not as straight forward as in AAMC tests. Felt like you really had to consider the passage alot more and had to integrate information from the passage in order to answer the question. Overall, PS was tougher than AAMC 9 and 10. :xf::xf::xf:


VR....Passages were alot longer. I would say around 2-3 paragraphs longer than the AAMC tests. VR seemed more like AAMC 6 than AAMC 9 and 10. I thought AAMC 9 and 10 had couple of killer passages and few intermediate and probably like 1 easy passage. But this real MCAT all passages were Killer or border line killer. Passages were dense so i struggled with the MI and comprehension. I tried coming up with my own answer before looking at the choices but it was kind of hard to do since i was not understanding passages fully. All the techniques are futile if you are NOT understanding the passages. Overall, I felt like Verbal was throwing darts in dark with my hands tied behind my back or may be it feels couple of the passages. Worried about VR the most.


BS...Like many of you have already said section was more passage based than discretes. There were couple of hormone questions intergrated with antibodies. Ochem seemed tougher but it was not terribly terrible. I thought the key for BS was to stay ahead and not let any one single question take over. And not spending too much time on a particular question ( which can lead to self doubt = decrease in confidence = overthinking). I think POE was the key factor in BS as well as PS. Really had to eliminate bad answers and use the passage. Also, there are ALWays easy points left in the section. I felt like Bio was harder than AAMC 10 and was in between AAMC 9 and 8. I feel the best about BS and the worse abt the VR.



:xf::xf::xf:
 
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ilovefishing said:
I'm sure sitting right next to the door where I could hear the proctor lady's entire phone conversations throughout the test didn't help :mad:
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That sucks! I'm sure in March it'll be better. That test is on my birthday, so I expect good news from you as a birthday present :D
 
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RRTinCO said:
I assumed that everyone at my testing center was there to take the MCAT, so everyone would be aprox. on the same part of the test at any given time....not the case. As I first started the PS, the dude next to me starts clacking away on is keyboard. That was a little distracting....turns out he was there to take the GRE.

At least it didn't happen during VR :)
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lol ya half the kids in my room were taking the GRE and all I heard most of the time was f'n typing.
 
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I would hate to be seated right next to the door. People are constantly going in and out of the room because everyone is on their own schedule. The opening/closing of the door would probably irk and throw me off a bit.
 
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RRTinCO said:
Me too!!!
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Me = jealous. I'm at my parents' house tonight. I guess I could go back to my apartment and have fun with my friends, but I need to be back on this side of town tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, I get crowned as Queen of a Mardi Gras Krewe (see avatar :D), so even if I don't drink tonight, I'll make up for it tomorrow. Woo!!
 
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I'm glad to see overall everyone is generally in agreement that this was an extremely hard test. Physical sciences was almost a blur at this point. Verbal was long but could have been alot more manageable coming off a more typical AAMC PS practice test. PS really knocked my morale down which set the tone for verbal.

I remember a few bio discrete questions (genetics and molecular bio) that had me pulling my hair out. Organic seemed to focus on Biological molecules and NMR.

Overall the sections didn't deliver that "feel good" feeling that I got even 50% of the questions correct. I can only remember a handfull of questions from the whole test that I was like "this is straighfoward content reiview" so nail it.

We will be fine people... the curve wil help us!!
 
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I can only remember a handfull of questions from the whole test that I was like "this is straighfoward content reiview" so nail it.

I totally agree with you on that.. There were not many pure memory questions!!!
 
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So there were several people taking the GRE as well? I wonder how many different tests were being administered at the same time. When I took the MCAT, I was seated next to a guy (who I thought was taking the MCAT as he looked young) who was taking an exam for sports medicine. He had already completed medical school and most of his residency.
 
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neutropos said:
So there were several people taking the GRE as well? I wonder how many different tests were being administered at the same time. When I took the MCAT, I was seated next to a guy (who I thought was taking the MCAT as he looked young) who was taking an exam for sports medicine. He had already completed medical school most of his residency.
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At my center there were couple of ppl were taking USMLE step 1 and 2
 
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Congrats everyone! Throw yourself a party tonight! Thats what I did, and it was the best party I have ever thrown. Start studying or keep your mind busy for the next couple of weeks, because this is what feels like the longest month of your life.
 
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Yea that test was no fun :( Its good that everyone else thought it was hard.


My biggest surprise was the length of the VR passages (as everyone has stated before). But It was definitely a difficult test. Anyway, can't do anything about it now! This whole weekend will be spent trying to forget it.

Just hoping I wont' have to retake.
 
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RRTinCO said:
I never feel "good" about verbal, but it was quite a bit longer than usual. My internal clock would go off when I should be done with a passage, and I would still have a paragraph to read.
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Yeah see like as i said be4, i started off I thought pretty good and then the time started dwindling and i just wanted to get through the questions - i rly hope that doesnt come back to bite me. all i want is an mcat i can play ball with - i rlly never want to take this horrid test again :thumbdown:
 
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elyswim said:
Yea that test was no fun :( Its good that everyone else thought it was hard.


My biggest surprise was the length of the VR passages (as everyone has stated before). But It was definitely a difficult test. Anyway, can't do anything about it now! This whole weekend will be spent trying to forget it.

Just hoping I wont' have to retake.
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I 2nd that not having to retake it over. I am applying this year and i just wanna get it somewhere and start even caribbeans..
 
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i thought it was rather tough...really don't want to take it again.

when do we find out scores?
 
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I didn't get to start the test until almost 8:30 because of the way we were being processed in. The PS almost made me walk out of the test. I don't remember the MCAT invoking that much dread that early the last time I took it. :eek: The VR was fine and the BS sction did seem awfully passage driven.

I came *this* close to voiding but decided to take my lumps.
 
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daithi said:
I didn't get to start the test until almost 8:30 because of the way we were being processed in. The PS almost made me walk out of the test. I don't remember the MCAT invoking that much dread that early the last time I took it. :eek: The VR was fine and the BS sction did seem awfully passage driven.

I came *this* close to voiding but decided to take my lumps.
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I think I took up the whole five minutes trying to decide whether or not I should void my test. :idea:
 
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Jolt21 said:
ugh. thats unreasonable. oh well.

maybe i will sign up for a march exam just in case. is that possible?
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I wouldn't. It's not like you're gonna keep studying while you're waiting for your results. So you'll just end up losing information. I would wait till you get your scores and take an April exam date if things go poorly.
 
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do you all think it's reasonable to assume that the curve is going to be more generous than the practice AAMC curves? I mean, if you really think about it, all those practice tests are pretty old, and obviously the MCAT has evolved since then and has become harder. But since we haven't been given access to any of the relatively new MCATs (which people are saying don't resemble the practice tests at all), we are really surprised by the difficulty of the real exam. But even though we know that recent tests have become more difficult, we still don't know what the curve is going to be like because again, we haven't been given access to newer tests/raw-->scaled score conversions.

So I think it's safe to assume that because everyone thought this test was harder, the curve will be more generous. am i right? like maybe you can miss >10 questions on Vr and still get a 10?
 
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I just want to give a little bit more insight about the test.

For me, it really feels like AAMC has taken a new direction with the way they create these MCAT exams. To say it was hard is neither an understatement nor an overstatement... it was just unexpected.

For as long as I've been studying (which has been since September) I've been told that in order to be successful for this test, you have to KNOW stuff. You have to know biology, you have to know physics, you have to know chemistry, you have to know some organic chemistry. I know all of the above. I really think that if I was given a written test that with questions like "describe the menstrual cycle" or "which hormones control glucose levels in the body?" and things like that, I would have done amazingly well on this test.

So what I'm saying is that I have a lot memorized. Definitely not everything, but enough to (or so I thought) do well on this test.

I know it's supposed to be a "thinking" test as well- thus, the passages. But with my previous experience with my Kaplan course, with all of the AAMC practice tests, with ExamKrackers questions... you had to use your MEMORY too.

With this test I took today... I have no other word for it but RIDICULOUS. It truly was. There were a total of like, 2 discrete questions... lol. ASIDE from that, the passages were not as well organized as all the ones I've previously seen. My friend payed attention to the sources of the passages and a majority of them were from medical journals.

I really don't want to be a whiner- but we're not practicing medicine or even IN medical school yet. The point of this test was to test our basic knowledge of the sciences which I do not feel was properly or fairly tested. It was an unfair test meant to discourage the people taking it. First, rape them with the physical sciences section with the CRAZIEST passage I have ever seen about EVERYTHING. Literally this passage incorporated every topic of physics into one passage... lol.

The verbal was bad- not necessarily that the subjects were hard. They were doable... but by the time you got done simply reading a passage, you would have went through a lot of your time. They were waaaay longer then we were used to. So, although I have practiced verbal so many times, nothing can prepare you for seven passages that were EQUALLY long in length when you've been practicing your pacing for 7 passages that vary in length. The time seriously disappeared before my eyes.

Anyway. I don't know who wrote this test or why they decided to be so mean, but I'm waiting for an email that says "APRIL FOOLS! :) HERES YOUR 225 DOLLARS BACK, WE'LL GIVE YOU A 45 FOR TRYING!" because that's how bad it was.

:luck: Best of luck to all, regardless. I may just be melodramatic :D

:xf::xf::xf::xf:
 
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i think i bombed the essay portion. i thought the essay section was only 30 minutes long so i clicked through it. what happens if you bomb the essay but do ok on the real test?
 
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