The Official 1/28/2011 MCAT Club!

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Does anyone have the EK mini-mcats and know if they're any good? I was thinking that if they're decent, I might sprinkle some of those throughout the last 2 months of prep or something just to get more passages in.
 
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ChocoMoo said:
Does anyone have the EK mini-mcats and know if they're any good? I was thinking that if they're decent, I might sprinkle some of those throughout the last 2 months of prep or something just to get more passages in.
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i bought it from a friend yesterday and did 1 test.. its difficult.. but if you go back read the answers.. you'll learn..
 
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Hello guys, I just wanted to drop in and tell you guys good luck with your studying. I started seriously studying around this time last year for my January exam and ended up exceeding all my expectations by putting in some good old fashioned hard work. I wanted to invite you guys to drop by my thread for some useful information or if you had any questions at all.

Hope I can help,

-LIS
 
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LostInStudy said:
Hello guys, I just wanted to drop in and tell you guys good luck with your studying. I started seriously studying around this time last year for my January exam and ended up exceeding all my expectations by putting in some good old fashioned hard work. I wanted to invite you guys to drop by my thread for some useful information or if you had any questions at all.

Hope I can help,

-LIS
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Were you taking classes at the same time? If so, can you give us a rough outline as to where you fit what?
 
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LostInStudy said:
Hello guys, I just wanted to drop in and tell you guys good luck with your studying. I started seriously studying around this time last year for my January exam and ended up exceeding all my expectations by putting in some good old fashioned hard work. I wanted to invite you guys to drop by my thread for some useful information or if you had any questions at all.

Hope I can help,

-LIS
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Thank you, LIS! Hopefully we all exceed our own expectations.
 
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No, I had graduated but I was working and volunteering. It was hard but I think if you're focused enough then it's not so bad. For me it helped getting all my MCAT studying done in the beginning of the day and wake up early to do it. I would come home from work/volunteering and just go to sleep a little while later and wake up in the morning to do MCAT and get it out of the way for the day. Doing it at the end of the day was just impossible because I almost never felt like studying and I found that if I got it done in the beginning then I felt much better about my day as a whole instead of dreading having to come home and study.

Honestly though, I see no way of effectively studying for the MCAT while taking more than 3 classes or maybe 2 regular and 2 easy classes. Either way, you need to be taking a fairly light load for it to be possible. It can be done though, I didn't do it but my work/volunteer schedule was almost as rough as when I was in college.

Hope this helped,

-LIS
 
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Hello, I would like to join this club 2010 Jan. I have a history of rescheduling the MCAT test twice already. I believe that the biggest reasons were the lack of practice. I was really disappointed to myself.... Therefore, I really need to be motivated and need to push myself to take this coming MCAT test. How does this club work? Is it only through this site?
Also, let me know if there is anyone who wants to study together with me around OC california area.
 
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LeoGer said:
I feel so bothered by my classes. I hate spending time on any science topic outside the scope of the MCAT.
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for real. i have no desire to memorize all 20 amino acids, the 3 letter abrev, single letter abrev, pka, and properties. biochem sucks more than studying for the mcat
 
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MilkIsGood said:
for real. i have no desire to memorize all 20 amino acids, the 3 letter abrev, single letter abrev, pka, and properties. biochem sucks more than studying for the mcat
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im taking biochem too! i just don't see the point in memorizing them.. but i guess we have to ace the tests..
 
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MilkIsGood said:
for real. i have no desire to memorize all 20 amino acids, the 3 letter abrev, single letter abrev, pka, and properties. biochem sucks more than studying for the mcat
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Aww..I love biochem. But my professor was freakin' awesome, so maybe thats why the class was alright. I think some biochem actually helps a little bit on the MCAT.

Now physics was a class I could not stand. But GPA-wise I did the worst in ochem 😳
 
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I think Gen Chem was my least favorite. I'm chocking it up to just being a freshman because 3 years later it doesn't seem that bad. For biochem, I think what helped me was memorizing all the cycles with structures in the beginning of the course before we studied them and then everything else made a lot more sense.
 
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Hmmm I think for me, gchems on par with some intro bio classes. Some parts are just so boring though...I'm going to be a gchem tutor this year, so I'm hoping it'll help keep some stuff fresh in my mind for the mcat. We'll see 🙂

Did you guys have to take some intro bio class that covered things like sponges, plants, and worms? I hated that class with a passion -_- it was seriously THE worst bio class I ever had to take
 
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vickpick said:
im taking biochem too! i just don't see the point in memorizing them.. but i guess we have to ace the tests..
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Add me to the 'currently enrolled in biochem' group. I think knowing the amino acids may be helpful. If nothing else it'll ensure that when I see the word glycine I know it's something which doesn't rotate light and is used in the creation of proteins. It's also helping with buffer systems, Hb dissociation curves, blood acidity, etc.
 
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im a newbie and just started studying today! i'll be doing the EK homestudy schudule 🙂 good luck to us all! 👍
 
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Hey, I hope everyone's studying is going well. It's weird, but I'm actually really enjoying it so far. Although, I'm scared to practice verbal for fear that my "innate verbal ability" sucks. To those in biochem, don't worry because you'll have an advantage. Good luck everyone! We've got about 19 weeks to go.
 
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iMEDatUCI said:
Hey, I hope everyone's studying is going well. It's weird, but I'm actually really enjoying it so far. Although, I'm scared to practice verbal for fear that my "innate verbal ability" sucks. To those in biochem, don't worry because you'll have an advantage. Good luck everyone! We've got about 19 weeks to go.
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That makes it sound like we don't have much time left haha.

You haven't practiced verbal yet? You should take a practice verbal, just in case your verbal does suck. If your good at it, that's one less thing you need to worry about. But if your bad at it, you should start getting a hold of some practice passages and start practicing now. As I'm sure most of us know, VR is the hardest section to improve, and usually takes the most time. The last thing you want is realizing your verbal is weak and not having enough time to improve :scared:.
 
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ChocoMoo said:
That makes it sound like we don't have much time left haha.

You haven't practiced verbal yet? You should take a practice verbal, just in case your verbal does suck. If your good at it, that's one less thing you need to worry about. But if your bad at it, you should start getting a hold of some practice passages and start practicing now. As I'm sure most of us know, VR is the hardest section to improve, and usually takes the most time. The last thing you want is realizing your verbal is weak and not having enough time to improve :scared:.
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yeah, 19 weeks makes it sounds closer. how's everyone's studying going? I'm basically doing the examkracker 1001 books now to brush up on basics- they seem pretty good. anyone doing them?
 
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lexie said:
yeah, 19 weeks makes it sounds closer. how's everyone's studying going? I'm basically doing the examkracker 1001 books now to brush up on basics- they seem pretty good. anyone doing them?
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I got through 3/5 of them, but my problem isn't really with the discrete questions. I usually screwup on passages, especially the bio ones, so I'm kind of doing passages from TBR and TPR books.

My VR sucks, so I do 2-3 passages in the morning from my EK 101 book everyday after I exercise and eat breakfast. It takes me 3 days to get through a whole EK VR test. There always one passage in each test that screws me over and I miss 4/6 of the questions though -_-. Oh well, as long as that doesn't happen on the real thing. That's what practice is for, right? 😀
 
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ChocoMoo said:
That makes it sound like we don't have much time left haha.

You haven't practiced verbal yet? You should take a practice verbal, just in case your verbal does suck. If your good at it, that's one less thing you need to worry about. But if your bad at it, you should start getting a hold of some practice passages and start practicing now. As I'm sure most of us know, VR is the hardest section to improve, and usually takes the most time. The last thing you want is realizing your verbal is weak and not having enough time to improve :scared:.
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Haha that would be a nightmare. Don't get me wrong. I have 40 more FULL practice verbal tests (not counting the full lengths) worked into my schedule. It's just that I'm doing the EK verbal and math exercises right now, which isn't really a diagnostic, more of "learning". Like I said, I'm scared of going head to head with my first full test, but it's on the schedule for next week so it's inevitable. I've just been working on heavy content review. So far, BR Gen Chem atomic theory section is EPICLY long and Nova Physics is absolutely amazing. It's really simple.
 
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iMEDatUCI said:
Haha that would be a nightmare. Don't get me wrong. I have 40 more FULL practice verbal tests (not counting the full lengths) worked into my schedule. It's just that I'm doing the EK verbal and math exercises right now, which isn't really a diagnostic, more of "learning". Like I said, I'm scared of going head to head with my first full test, but it's on the schedule for next week so it's inevitable. I've just been working on heavy content review. So far, BR Gen Chem atomic theory section is EPICLY long and Nova Physics is absolutely amazing. It's really simple.
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hahaha yeah, the atomic theory section is realllyyyy long. TBR in general is long, but they do a good job explaining everything so I prefer them over some of the EK books.

I just started an excel spreadsheet to log my mistakes from some EK VR tests I've gotten through..I hope this helps me a little bit. I'm kind of freaking out about VR even more now after reading some of the MCAT club threads that recently got their scores back :scared:
 
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time to pull out your mcat books everyone - its the weekend. unless of course you've got difficult exams next week.
 
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vickpick said:
time to pull out your mcat books everyone - its the weekend. unless of course you've got difficult exams next week.
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Exams next week? I haven't even started school yet hahah

I think I'm going to do a variation of SN2ed's strategy...I'm kind of worried about how I'm going to be able to consistently study everyday once school starts. I was signed up for the MCAT in May, and the reason why I postponed it was because I just couldn't study consistently everyday with school and everything. It's tempting to push off MCAT studying when you think "I need to study for that midterm" or "I need to get that paper done" or "I just got back from a three hour lab and I'm so freaking tired". Anyone else have this problem?
 
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ChocoMoo said:
Exams next week? I haven't even started school yet hahah

I think I'm going to do a variation of SN2ed's strategy...I'm kind of worried about how I'm going to be able to consistently study everyday once school starts. I was signed up for the MCAT in May, and the reason why I postponed it was because I just couldn't study consistently everyday with school and everything. It's tempting to push off MCAT studying when you think "I need to study for that midterm" or "I need to get that paper done" or "I just got back from a three hour lab and I'm so freaking tired". Anyone else have this problem?
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wow.. no school yet.. thats pretty good...

i've just decided to take it in Jan.. no matter what happens.. get it over with for once.. if i get a bad score, i can retake it.. but for now im just dedicating the winter break towards it..
 
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I am retaking it... I just took it on sept 11th..
Question: Does med school look both grades or just the recent one?
 
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so i just got my scores back from 8/20 test ( my first time) and i did so horrible. I'm feeling so down right now. So you can definitely count me in. Also, my weakness was and is the verbal reasoning. And I am wondering what materials you guys were using.
 
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agapeGodslove said:
so i just got my scores back from 8/20 test ( my first time) and i did so horrible. I'm feeling so down right now. So you can definitely count me in. Also, my weakness was and is the verbal reasoning. And I am wondering what materials you guys were using.
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I'm sorry to hear about your score. I hear that the best advice is to change your perspective on studying the material. Ya, I just did my first verbal diag and got a 6 so I'm feeling pretty down too. I'm planning on using EK Verbal 30 in class, then BR Verbal, then TPRH verbal, then EK 101, then AAMC (as FLs). I know people say not use BR, but in my case, I feel like practice is practice and my problem is reading fast enough. If I have extra time, I usually do very well. I just need to get used to reading faster under pressure because I'm a slow reader normally. Good luck on this round! You joined a very supportive MCAT club.
 
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agapeGodslove said:
Thanks so much for replying. But I have a dumb question, what is the difference between the EK Verbal 30 in class and the EK101
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No worries. That's not a dumb question. EK Verbal 30 in class was my abbreviation for the 30 minute in class exams (there are 3) contained in the Examkrackers verbal reasoning and math book. EK 101 is the Examkrackers 101 question verbal workbook. The 30 minute exams are probably good for me because I'm just starting to look at verbal and they seem to be pretty good. If you're wondering, you have to buy TPRH verbal off of someone else if you haven't taken their class. No questions are dumb. Some are just easy to find by searching, so SDN members get angry when they have to repeat it to someone who could have found it themselves.
 
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I am definitely going to be on this site at least once a week because I am in school and working as a research assistant. Thank you for your support 🙂
 
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Verbal reasoning is the most frustrating thing EVER! Apparently, I can't learn from my VR mistakes because I'm making the same errors over and over. And is it me or are some of the 'correct' answers in EK just like 'uh....what?', idk maybe I'm just mad at EK for my subpar VR skills -_-

I start school in 2 days. yay........
 
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ChocoMoo said:
Verbal reasoning is the most frustrating thing EVER! Apparently, I can't learn from my VR mistakes because I'm making the same errors over and over. And is it me or are some of the 'correct' answers in EK just like 'uh....what?', idk maybe I'm just mad at EK for my subpar VR skills -_-

I start school in 2 days. yay........
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First - I', so jealous ur school hasnt started yet.

2nd.. yes!! some answers are like "WUT?!" in EK.. lol

I started doing Kaplan and contrary to what people say.. I didn't score any higher in Kaplan ones than EK passages..

So either I'm not as good as I thought, or Kaplan being easy is a misconception.. 8-9's are still not a good score, so Im gonna keep on practicing..
 
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vickpick said:
I started doing Kaplan and contrary to what people say.. I didn't score any higher in Kaplan ones than EK passages..

So either I'm not as good as I thought, or Kaplan being easy is a misconception.. 8-9's are still not a good score, so Im gonna keep on practicing..
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I do a lot worse on Kaplan VR than TPR/EK/AAMC. Idk what it is, but even if I have an idea of the main idea, I still bomb the questions and get like 2-3 right per passage. I think it might have something to do with how detail oriented the questions are? I'm not really sure. So far I think TPR is the most representative of the VR on the real thing (besides AAMC of course).

For right now, I'm doing passages untimed. I'll worry about timing a little later once I start getting a good percentage of questions correct. I think starting today I'm going to write a little explanation next to each answer choice of why I think its right/wrong. Maybe this will help me remember what I was thinking when I go back for review.

Last day of freedom...classes start tomorrow. ugh..
 
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Count me in guys! I started a little late it seems judging from the dates of some of the other posts. This'll be my first MCAT. So nervous! :scared: I'm definitely using the EK books for now, and will hopefully switch over to BR before too long. Good luck everyone! :luck:
 
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LostInStudy said:
No, I had graduated but I was working and volunteering. It was hard but I think if you're focused enough then it's not so bad. For me it helped getting all my MCAT studying done in the beginning of the day and wake up early to do it. I would come home from work/volunteering and just go to sleep a little while later and wake up in the morning to do MCAT and get it out of the way for the day. Doing it at the end of the day was just impossible because I almost never felt like studying and I found that if I got it done in the beginning then I felt much better about my day as a whole instead of dreading having to come home and study.

Honestly though, I see no way of effectively studying for the MCAT while taking more than 3 classes or maybe 2 regular and 2 easy classes. Either way, you need to be taking a fairly light load for it to be possible. It can be done though, I didn't do it but my work/volunteer schedule was almost as rough as when I was in college.

Hope this helped,

-LIS
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Hi LIS! Thanks so much for the helpful info... I'm basically in the same situation that you were in last year. Originally I planned to take the MCAT this past May, which meant that I had to devote a good amount of studying while I was finishing up my last semester of undergrad. Needless to say, it didn't quite go well, and I ended up deciding that I want to delay my application till next year. I plan to take the January 28th MCAT, and I will begin studying this weekend. Since I'm applying for EY 2012, I plan to get my Masters in Public Health in the meantime, before I begin medical school. What do you think about this idea?
 
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linac05 said:
Hi LIS! Thanks so much for the helpful info... I'm basically in the same situation that you were in last year. Originally I planned to take the MCAT this past May, which meant that I had to devote a good amount of studying while I was finishing up my last semester of undergrad. Needless to say, it didn't quite go well, and I ended up deciding that I want to delay my application till next year. I plan to take the January 28th MCAT, and I will begin studying this weekend. Since I'm applying for EY 2012, I plan to get my Masters in Public Health in the meantime, before I begin medical school. What do you think about this idea?
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If you like it and that's what you want to do then it's fine but if you're just doing it for med school's sake then probably not a good idea. There's other things you could do, that you would actually enjoy, to occupy your time if you're doing it just to look good. If you're genuinely interested then it should be fine.

vickpick said:
TV shows premiere this week.. ughh so much distraction!!
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The trick is to not get started or keep up in the first place. I was in the same situation as you and just didn't partake. You get used to it in a week or two of your regular routine. Letting TV dictate your schedule can be a big time pain. You could just tivo and watch all that stuff on your free/break time as long as you don't get carried away. If you think you will then just don't watch and catch up as a present after you take your test.

Hope this helps you guys and keep hitting the books hard,

-LIS
 
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agapeGodslove said:
Hey guys! I am wondering what are the average timings you all were using for each passage ( for the sciences and verbal) ?
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IMO, it's too early to worry about timing. It's more important to focus on content and how to attack the questions than speed at this point.

But to answer your question, when I studied for the July test, I used 6.5-7.5 min for verbal, and maybe 2-3 min to read a passage/understand the graphs for PS and BS

Like I said, speed isn't the issue right now. Once you do ample content review and practice enough untimed passages, you'll get a feel for what timing best works for you. Assuming you're not getting 100% of the questions correct on passages right now, timing yourself is only going to make you rush and reinforce mistakes that you're already making. So it's better to concentrate on getting questions right and then worry about picking up the pace later. This is just my opinion though.
 
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