The Official 4/27/13 MCAT Thread

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This might be considered a bit early, but full-time college students need to prepare ahead of time, especially when they are doing a research and volunteering, which requires them to spend at least 30-40 hours per week...

Let's share plans, strategies, schedules, and so on to help each other to crack this exam.
 
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That test ****ed me harder than a two dollar *****. Much, much, much more difficult than any of the 7 AAMC FLs I took. I guessed on probably 25% of each section. I should probably get my backup plan into motion. :laugh:
 
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LaughingMan said:
Mind sharing your AAMC avg? I think me and you were pretty similiar--so if you did poorly.....

🙁🙁🙁🙁
Click to expand...


AZM1P5X.png
 
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I feel great. I got exactly ehat i wanted in terms of passages and the vR was interesting.

Beer time. Congrats everyone.
 
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Just got back from the center! Thought I was going to feel worse coming out of the test but Bio really upped my mood! 😀

PS: Wasn't my strongest performance at all. Passages were easy to understand I thought for the most part but the questions were awkward/different. I felt very similar to how I felt after taking AAMC 11 PS. Seemed some discretes were based on very random information - hopefully those were experimental!

Verbal: Passages weren't tremendously boring, I didn't feel I had to yell at myself to focus, and some were even interesting. Except when it came time to the questions it felt there were at least one or two questions per passages that I either narrowed down to 2 choices or didn't really understand.

Bio: Definitely my strongest section and I went into it telling myself that I had to do really well to help with the previous 2 sections. Couple of experiments which I was really happy about - similar to the Ebola but not really lol. I really hammered some topics hard the past few days that people on here guessed would show up and it turned out that those topics did indeed show up which was awesome! I think only one organic passage which I thought was pretty straightforward but had some organic discretes thrown around that were by far the toughest out of any of the AAMC Fl's.

Overall I think because of my "meh" performance in verbal and physics accompanied with the BS section I think my score is going to sit around the average of my AAMC or perhaps towards the lower end of the range if the curve isn't too nice (30-33). So glad it's over and on top of it I turned 21 today so off to celebrate 2 things by grabbing some food and drinks!
 
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I've taken the MCAT a couple times previously. I'm feeling pretty good that I won't have to again.

PS: Not bad, definitely not the worst I've seen. I was happy that the areas that I know I am weak in did not appear on the test. This section has held me back in the past (as a physics major... the shame) so I'm hoping I finally broke into double digits on this one.

Verbal: That was easily the toughest verbal I remember having, and it's usually my strongest section. Maybe those passages just didn't click with me or something. I don't think I did badly, but I think it'll be a point or two below my average practice test scores (12-13).

Bio: Good, not great. Very little O-Chem (thank goodness). I would be shocked if I went down from my AAMC average (11). I might have done better, but I think I lost focus towards the end and might have missed a couple that I shouldn't have.

Experimental section: Oh my. I feel so bad for any unfortunate souls that run across those passages in a later MCAT (if they make it in).

Really hoping for a 32+. Like everyone else, I'm just glad it's over.
 
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Man, so many different thoughts leaving the testing center. Need probably 48 hours to process how that went. So many question marks and head
scratches, just not even close to what the other AMC full lengths were. I can say for a fact I feel bad for whoever is taking the mcat in 2015, that section was so hard.
 
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str8cashhomie said:
Man, so many different thoughts leaving the testing center. Need probably 48 hours to process how that went. So many question marks and head
scratches, just not even close to what the other AMC full lengths were. I can say for a fact I feel bad for whoever is taking the mcat in 2015, that section was so hard.
Click to expand...

I read a few questions on the social science section and...yeah. Have fun, 2015 MCAT takers! :laugh::laugh::laugh:
 
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It stinks when you feel comfortable with the passages but then confused with the questions. Happened a couple times in all sections. I felt prepared mentally but there is no simulating the anxiety to start the first passage. Good luck all fellow 4-27ers to find out
 
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PS: It was hard at the beginning but became much more reasonable towards the end. It definitely felt harder than the practice exams, but taking that into consideration, I think my score should still be ok. It's hard to say though cuz I marked around 15 of the questions. I had time to look back though and some seemed right to me.

VR: This was easily my worst section. To me it felt like 7 terrible passages in a row, each about as hard as the worst passage in a practice test. I didn't find any of the passages that interesting and I ran out of time on the last one so that doesn't help. Really hoping everyone felt this way as well.

BS: As a whole, this wasn't terrible but some questions really sucked. I felt like I could narrow it down to the last 2 a lot and then I was really confused as to which was better.


Overall, I FEEL like I got around 4 points below my AAMC average of 31 but we'll see what happens. It's so hard to judge though, could have done much better or much worse. Oh well, at least it's over. And hey, I didn't void so there's that..
 
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I wonder if anyone else spotted the typo on the exam...

Regarding how I felt:

I always had a VERY tight range in my AAMC FL tests. I took all 8 of them, and my range/average in each section was:

PS 13-15 avg: 14.0
VR 11-13 avg: 12.3
BS 13-14 avg: 13.3
TOTAL 38-41 avg: 39.5

No matter the test, my scores never varied by more than a point from my average on each section over 8 tests.

AND YET, after today's MCAT, I am hoping for a 33, if that tells you anything. All the practice tests in the world cannot prepare you for having to think straight during a massive fight or flight response. The nerves and distractions can really make a big difference I think, though we will see.

In particular, I thought one of the biology (i.e. NOT ochem, which was a joke) passages was VERY hard and I had no clue wtf I was doing on verbal reasoning. I may as well have not read the passages on VR, I swear. Physical sciences was super easy though...
 
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I hope the curve is more generous for the real exam than the practice or I probably got 22. The exam hit just about all my weak areas and avoided my strongest areas.
 
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wiloghby said:
I wonder if anyone else spotted the typo on the exam...

Regarding how I felt:

I always had a VERY tight range in my AAMC FL tests. I took all 8 of them, and my range/average in each section was:

PS 13-15 avg: 14.0
VR 11-13 avg: 12.3
BS 13-14 avg: 13.3
TOTAL 38-41 avg: 39.5

No matter the test, my scores never varied by more than a point from my average on each section over 8 tests.

AND YET, after today's MCAT, I am hoping for a 33, if that tells you anything. All the practice tests in the world cannot prepare you for having to think straight during a massive fight or flight response. The nerves and distractions can really make a big difference I think, though we will see.

In particular, I thought one of the biology (i.e. NOT ochem, which was a joke) passages was VERY hard and I had no clue wtf I was doing on verbal reasoning. I may as well have not read the passages on VR, I swear. Physical sciences was super easy though...
Click to expand...

In retrospect I don't think PS was that bad. Maybe four questions where I had no idea wtf they were talking about, but most of it was straight forward. A few calculations but they were pretty easy. It was definitely way different than anything on the AAMC practice FLs, though.

Verbal was a disaster. The passages were much longer and much more dense. I actually completely gave up on a social sciences passage and returned to it later because I had absolutely NO IDEA what it or the questions were talking about.

Biological sciences was awful. If I remember correctly, there was 1 o-chem passage that wasn't too bad. The BS passages, except for one or two, were incomprehensible -- massive experimental passages that made no sense. I don't know if this is a new thing but there was a discrete that was like a mini experimental passage, with confusing graphs and ridiculous answer choices.

I was shell shocked walking out of that exam. Absolutely nothing like the AAMC FLs, and it wasn't due to test anxiety.
 
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WHY WAS THE VR SO ESPECIALLY BRUTAL?! I was getting averages of 13 on my FL practices in that section with ~6minutes to spare. This one.. I'd be happy with a 8 and had to guess on almost the entire last passage! What were people's strategies for battling the long/dense passages??
 
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cjorgensen754 said:
WHY WAS THE VR SO ESPECIALLY BRUTAL?! I was getting averages of 13 on my FL practices in that section with ~6minutes to spare. This one.. I'd be happy with a 8 and had to guess on almost the entire last passage! What were people's strategies for battling the long/dense passages??
Click to expand...

Verbal has always been my weakest area, but those questions seemed like a random assortment of words and interpreting any meaning from them seemed nearly impossible.
 
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That was not bad at all. The topics that I suck at were at minimum and there were plenty of things that I'm good at. We'll see about the score but I think it's safe to sell all the prep books. 🙂

More random thoughts:

- MCAT 2015. Do! Not! Want!

- I like how you can bring up the periodic table during the psych-social passages. You never know when you'll need it. 😉

- The Spokane test center is pretty good - quiet, easy parking, nice proctors. If you're not sure where to take the test, it's a good choice.

Food/drinks time now!
 
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Glad that is over! I thought PS was okay, but I ran out of time and had to mark many. Seemed calculation heavy but it's kind of blurry. I do remember the first passage and thought it was bs, but whatever. I did have to guess on some because of the time issue so if there is any retake in order it will be due to PS.

I did not find VR that bad or that surprising. Passages longer than AAMC FL's for sure, though. However, same mixture of random subjects. I did not find it to be that bad, so that means I probably did horribly on it.

BS was not very surprising either. The experimental things were sort of as expected. Did not find it any worse than the hardest practice tests. Again, because of this I probably did bad! It never fails. Think you do okay only to get your *ss handed to you in the end.

I have no idea how I did really. It's just so fuzzy. Leaving the test center was very surreal. I did not bother with the trial section. I just wanted to leave.

Now, it's wait time. I won't schedule a retake until I know just how bad PS ends up being.

Let's celebrate getting over another premed hurdle and hope the outcome is pleasing.
 
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Just remembered a BS question I narrowed down to 2. Got it wrong.

Remembered another BS question I was sure of. Nope again.

So, I probably bombed BS now, too.
 
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adman72390 said:
PS: finished on time but who knows how it went.

VR: felt pretty good about it.

BS: I am a Biology major so this should have been my most confident section. I think the discretes were tough and ate up a little more time than usual. A few of the passages were very straight forward for me however, that is not how the other half of the passages went for me! There were some long experiment based passages that I had to read very quickly and the questions were tough. I know I only got 1 or 2 of 4 questions right on the Orgo. passage. Did anyone else have a hard time with a few of the Bio passages? As in, they were pretty long and difficult to grasp?
Click to expand...

It was pretty in line with AAMC 11 in the passages but even more so on the experimental. But the Ochem... cmon now.
 
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Man. I guess I'm not the only one who thought it was a brutal test.

I've consistently scored 38-41 on my practice tests (both kaplan and AAMC), but holy crud. I felt lost when I came out of that testing center and after each section.

PS: Wow, that was a pretty tough section.
VR: The passages weren't too bad, but somehow I was reading a lot slower than I did on the practice tests, and barely had enough time at the end. I had about 5 minutes to go over my answers.
BS: I found this hard because I forgot some really simple things and had to make educated guesses.

Fingers crossed. I hope I didn't make any stupid mistakes and that my educated guesses paid off.
 
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PS: Pretty good. Finished with ~30 minutes to spare. Felt confident, but who knows.

VR: Had a tough time focusing...definitely harder than I'm used to. A few passages in particular were really rough.

BS: Lots of experimental, but it wasn't bad, you just need to expect it's going to happen. Also finished with about ~20 min to check answers. A couple discretes I didn't know off the top of my head...but I managed to narrow it down. Super easy orgo passage at the end. It's great when there's hardly any words in the passage.
 
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So thoughts

PS- normally my strongest section. A lot more physics than expected, 1st passage threw me off.
VR- my worse section, and the passages made it worse. The one social science passage was a killer.
BS- as a biomajor, there was a lot of guessing, especially one discretes.

My average: 33....Prediction: 29 🙁
 
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This is what I meant in my post where I said "I wonder if anyone else noticed the typo on the exam". There definitely was one, but it should not have affected your answer at all if you even vaguely knew the material involved.
 
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Strawberry7 said:
So thoughts

PS- normally my strongest section. A lot more physics than expected, 1st passage threw me off.
VR- my worse section, and the passages made it worse. The one social science passage was a killer.
BS- as a biomajor, there was a lot of guessing, especially one discretes.

My average: 33....Prediction: 29 🙁
Click to expand...

I averaged a 30.6 and I predict a 25.
 
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wiloghby said:
This is what I meant in my post where I said "I wonder if anyone else noticed the typo on the exam". There definitely was one, but it should not have affected your answer at all if you even vaguely knew the material involved.
Click to expand...

Right, it should not have. But its irritating to see AAMC not being careful w/ this, especially after ripping premeds off like crazy. 4/26 mentioned a typo on there exam as well.
 
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wiloghby said:
This is what I meant in my post where I said "I wonder if anyone else noticed the typo on the exam". There definitely was one, but it should not have affected your answer at all if you even vaguely knew the material involved.
Click to expand...

You could attack this two ways

1. Via the test taking method (counting)
2. Via the "long way" which was a complete typo.

Total BS that this typo made it in. Oh well, I'm confident in the rest of the exam.
 
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Here is my MCAT story:

PS: Very easy for me. I took my time so I was a little rushed for the last two questions in the shade passage (which I saved for last), but I think I only got a few problems wrong in this section. My guess: 12-13.

VR: All of my positive momentum gathered from PS was shattered by the end of verbal passage 2. These passages were SUPER long - they were at least 2 paragraphs longer than the practice exam passages. And because they were so long, it made it very hard to remember all of the authors points to answer the questions (which were NOT easy either). It took me 35 minutes to do 3 passages, and I started freaking out and tried rushing through the last 4 in hope that they were easier, instead the passages ended up getting harder and more complex. The passages were not extremely boring (not enjoyable either), but it was very confusing and difficult to gather all of the points! I Verbal is my weak spot - I average get anywhere between 8-10 on my practice tests, but this killed me - it was so bad that I ended up voiding the test because of it 🙁

BS: After being crushed by verbal and deciding that I would have to void the test, I gave BS an unmotivated attempt. Reading through it, I thought it was very tricky and much harder than any AAMC practice exam. There were rarely any gimmies, and the passages were VERY long! I still thought I could have gotten an 11 on this section, maybe even a 12, but verbal just murdered me.

Retaking the test soon. 👎
 
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