The Official 4/27/13 MCAT Thread

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brood910

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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.
 
I think I remember something like that. However, if I recall there was one extra carbon on one or something. Though, I could be mixing things up. The orgo questions are a bit of a blur. I don't remember if they were hard or easy or what.

Haha its totally a blur! I think I"m talking about something a bit different not involving the number of atoms.
 
I am the OP of this thread, and I was supposed to take MCAT on this date but postponed it to 5/30.. Im glad I did it -_-..
 
I am the OP of this thread, and I was supposed to take MCAT on this date but postponed it to 5/30.. Im glad I did it -_-..
Lol. But, seriously, prepare your tail off, but remember, you will probably never be fully prepared. It's the nature of the test.
 
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PS is my strongest subject (I'm a TA for one of the two subjects) and while I felt yesterday's section was fair, I can totally see why it may have crushed some people, especially if they're not quick at calculations.

There were a few discretes on BS that really puzzled me though. I was able to formulate intelligent guesses, but it's tough to follow instinct when the answers are missing atoms.
 
The fact of the matter is that the MCAT, as you all very well know, is a beast of an exam. An exam that spans roughy 5000 pages of college science textbook, keeps you on your toes, and makes you think under stress. That is part of the purpose.

So, how does one do well in an exam over seemingly endless material? Besides being one of the super genius types that average 38+, due to their innate intelligence, and not to mention great memory that goes along with that, I think that average pre meds can attain scores in the 30s without luck.

The question really is, how much time you have to prepare, what materials you use, and the last and maybe most important factor, how well you did in your courses/how much you retained in them.

As far as PS goes, there is nothing better than the berkeley review books. These books will get you conceptually sound and up to speed on doing calcs worse than mcat level sans calculator. EK bio is good, I think in combination with a biochemistry text. And the princeton review science workbook is an excellent practice resource. Masterorganicchemistry.com is also an excellent resource for the chem section, or your school work.

I think a lot of people don't do as well as they would like because they stick with one source of information for study, focus on their strengths instead of weaknesses, and of course the added stress of the test and what it means to all of us.

I just wanted to say good job to everyone who took the test yesterday, congratulations on getting over another hump in this long process.

I felt the exam was fair and the VR for me was the hardest I have seen. So godspeed to us all, lets enjoy the rest of our lives. You guys are going to be Doctors someday 😀
 
Took mine on 04/26
PS- alot of chemistry with a lot of crazy calculation. Very hard from Friday census on here.
VR - much easier but I could be wrong ( this is normally my weakest part)
BS - A lot of o-chem experiment that was crazy and tedious biology passages.


from reading 04/27 takers respond, it was almost opposite to ours.
From my conclusion, MCAT is a beast of an exam and also being smart will help you but most importantly LUCK is a key component. Lol this is my own opinion. Lol
 
Took mine on 04/26
PS- alot of chemistry with a lot of crazy calculation. Very hard from Friday census on here.
VR - much easier but I could be wrong ( this is normally my weakest part)
BS - A lot of o-chem experiment that was crazy and tedious biology passages.


from reading 04/27 takers respond, it was almost opposite to ours.
From my conclusion, MCAT is a beast of an exam and also being smart will help you but most importantly LUCK is a key component. Lol this is my own opinion. Lol

Wish I had taken it on 4/26...I can handle tough sciences but our verbal section murdered me....
 
Been too busy partying so just getting around posting this. Jk

PS was indeed calculation heavy. Usually when I did the practice tests, I tend to fill up one side of a blank scratch paper. However, on the real thing fill up two sides and then some. I don't know if it was just me trying to be more careful and do all the calculations on paper instead of my head but definitely had more calculations and obscure topics. Even discretes felt like mini passages. Ugh

VR: I read the first passage and it just shattered my confidence. I still have no clue what it was trying to say lol. Others were not that bad but were definitely longer and more dense than the practice tests. Had ~7 mins going into the last passage. Thank god they saved the easiest one for the last. Finished it in less than 6 mins and had a little time to look over marked ones but that didn't really help because I had forgotten good bit of those passages 😳 This is usually my weakest section so we'll see

BS was definitely more experimental than FLs. I usually finished AAMC FL BS with at least 15 mins to spare but this time I only had little less than 3 mins to review. The passages weren't necessarily harder but they were just so long...I felt like I was doing verbal. The Ochem was fairly easy (especially that one passage). This helped a lot since I was pressed for time and I was able to get through that one passage in 3 mins. Some of the discretes required some thinking.

Haha its totally a blur! I think I"m talking about something a bit different not involving the number of atoms.

I know the question that you are talking about. I got an answer and I was pressed for time so I didn't bother rechecking it lol. Hope I didn't make a stupid mistake
 
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I had a nightmare last night that I accidentally voided my score. If they don't have it, AAMC should have an "are you sure" prompt if you select void.

God imagine I voided my score.

😱
 
I had a nightmare last night that I accidentally voided my score. If they don't have it, AAMC should have an "are you sure" prompt if you select void.

God imagine I voided my score.

😱

I'm pretty sure that if you void your exam, you aren't allowed to do the trial section, so if you saw the trial section, you didn't void. I had exactly the same mini panic attack about an hour after I got home.
 
I had a nightmare last night that I accidentally voided my score. If they don't have it, AAMC should have an "are you sure" prompt if you select void.

God imagine I voided my score.

😱

They do - it's called a trial section. 😉

I have some nagging feeling that I skipped a question or two and never came back to them but it's unlikely that I've done something that boneheaded. The next month will suck, I can already tell.
 
I'm pretty sure that if you void your exam, you aren't allowed to do the trial section, so if you saw the trial section, you didn't void. I had exactly the same mini panic attack about an hour after I got home.

I've overcome most of my OCD tendencies, but I couldn't shake this.

Thank you for assuaging my fears.
 
Hi everyone,

I have a question for all of you that might help future test takers like myself (5/18) be more prepared come test day:

Seeing as how the real deal took most of you by surprise in its relation to AAMC material, what would you guys have done differently in hindsight?

I'm currently going doing all of the 52-question TBR Biology diagnostics because of their reputation of being more difficult than the actual MCAT. Given recent comments, I'm starting to think TBR-level passages are becoming more closely related to MCAT material (please, correct me if I'm wrong).

Thanks for the help!
 
Hi everyone,

I have a question for all of you that might help future test takers like myself (5/18) be more prepared come test day:

Seeing as how the real deal took most of you by surprise in its relation to AAMC material, what would you guys have done differently in hindsight?

I'm currently going doing all of the 52-question TBR Biology diagnostics because of their reputation of being more difficult than the actual MCAT. Given recent comments, I'm starting to think TBR-level passages are becoming more closely related to MCAT material (please, correct me if I'm wrong).

Thanks for the help!

they are not more difficult than the actual MCAT... in fact, I would say they are slightly easier in comparison to the newer versions of the MCAT.
 
Hi everyone,

I have a question for all of you that might help future test takers like myself (5/18) be more prepared come test day:

Seeing as how the real deal took most of you by surprise in its relation to AAMC material, what would you guys have done differently in hindsight?

I'm currently going doing all of the 52-question TBR Biology diagnostics because of their reputation of being more difficult than the actual MCAT. Given recent comments, I'm starting to think TBR-level passages are becoming more closely related to MCAT material (please, correct me if I'm wrong).

Thanks for the help!

Kind of adding on to your question; What about TPR in terms of FL's?
 
Hey all. Its a blessing to finally tell y'all about my test!

Went in confident and took my faith into the test center. Sat down and did the very best I could confidently KNOWING that I would do well despite mediocre practice tests...I attack every section and I imagined each section as a city that needed to be taken and with Gods help I did!!

I'm so glad to be finally finished. Its been a long tedious 5 months with hills and valleys. Still can't believe I took the test.

PS: gchem heavy to me. But its all a blur.
VR: Also a blur. Passages were straightforward though but I kinda rushed the last passage but oh well!!
BS: LOVED this section. The orgo was stupid.... one or two I was like wtf???

CAN'T WAIT TO GET MY AMCAS ready..😀😀😀

Hope it all went well with you guys

Sent from my Nexus 7 using SDN Mobile
 
I'd say, most importantly, be prepared mentally for the fact that what you'll see is different from what you've practiced. Being mentally prepared is a big factor in doing well, so that you don't retreat into freak-out mode.

From the testing material I've used, nothing really compares to the new test. The TPRH Science Workbook has some biology experiment passages, but I didn't really like them. I think the best way to prepare is by reading some reasonable biochemistry science articles. This way you'll be used to a complex scientific language above the notch of the MCAT. Remember - the MCAT "experimental passages" just take a research article, summarizes it, and asks you questions on what it just summarized. These include long pathways like "A inhibits X, which stimulates C to produce more M." But if you can break it down and get past the long enzymatic nomenclature, they're not horrendous. I actually found them reasonable.

Hi everyone,

I have a question for all of you that might help future test takers like myself (5/18) be more prepared come test day:

Seeing as how the real deal took most of you by surprise in its relation to AAMC material, what would you guys have done differently in hindsight?

I'm currently going doing all of the 52-question TBR Biology diagnostics because of their reputation of being more difficult than the actual MCAT. Given recent comments, I'm starting to think TBR-level passages are becoming more closely related to MCAT material (please, correct me if I'm wrong).

Thanks for the help!
 
Hi everyone,

I have a question for all of you that might help future test takers like myself (5/18) be more prepared come test day:

Seeing as how the real deal took most of you by surprise in its relation to AAMC material, what would you guys have done differently in hindsight?

I'm currently going doing all of the 52-question TBR Biology diagnostics because of their reputation of being more difficult than the actual MCAT. Given recent comments, I'm starting to think TBR-level passages are becoming more closely related to MCAT material (please, correct me if I'm wrong).

Thanks for the help!

I would say that the TBR Bio passages are fairly different from AAMC's. They might be harder, but not in a way that would make you score higher on AAMC. AAMC tends to test really shallow general knowledge but manages to pick quite a few different areas on the same passage, while TBR tends to get into a lot more detail.

An AAMC passage can describe a complicated experiment with labeling carbons, feeding genetically modified cats and then ask you a question, which at the end boils down to something like "where in the cell is DNA replicated."
 
PR: very straight forward. lots of g-chem, calculation heavy, found myself checking units many times.
VR: as expected.
Bio: experiment heavy, o-chem heavy. needed a clear mind and a great intuition and i may have botched this up.

Best way to study:

ExamKracker's 101 Verbal Passages and TPR's hyperlearning book are most like the verbal passages. Same length (long), same difficulty(variable) and made the AAMC verbal look easy. Kaplan is way too short and easy, AAMC is also too easy.

Bio: find a biochemistry syllabus and read the articles recommended. If you can understand a complex experiment, you can understand the poorly explained experiments and odd graphical representations of the results in AAMC.
 
Hi everyone,

I have a question for all of you that might help future test takers like myself (5/18) be more prepared come test day:

Seeing as how the real deal took most of you by surprise in its relation to AAMC material, what would you guys have done differently in hindsight?

I'm currently going doing all of the 52-question TBR Biology diagnostics because of their reputation of being more difficult than the actual MCAT. Given recent comments, I'm starting to think TBR-level passages are becoming more closely related to MCAT material (please, correct me if I'm wrong).

Thanks for the help!


Absolutely. TPR is equal if not harder than AAMC. The diagnostics are only freestanding questions so don't worry about those-- do the bio passages in the hyperlearning book they give you. And practice passages in the online content. TPR is most like the real MCAT...

Some TPR diagrams are really difficult to read but learning how to interpret a poorly written experiment or a weird looking diagram REALLY helped me on the real test.
 
I think the best way to prep for the Bio portion of BS is to have research experience. Reading journals and interpreting graphs is second nature to me (especially since it's been my full-time job for two years).

I actually think I read the paper that one of the passages came from, but I can't be certain. I'm definitely familiar with the author though.
 
Remember - the MCAT "experimental passages" just take a research article, summarizes it, and asks you questions on what it just summarized. These include long pathways like "A inhibits X, which stimulates C to produce more M." But if you can break it down and get past the long enzymatic nomenclature, they're not horrendous. I actually found them reasonable.

Bio: find a biochemistry syllabus and read the articles recommended. If you can understand a complex experiment, you can understand the poorly explained experiments and odd graphical representations of the results in AAMC.

I think the best way to prep for the Bio portion of BS is to have research experience. Reading journals and interpreting graphs is second nature to me (especially since it's been my full-time job for two years).

I actually think I read the paper that one of the passages came from, but I can't be certain. I'm definitely familiar with the author though.

I really cannot stress these enough.

One of the best things you can do to prepare for your bio is, in addition to do all the AAMC FL's, to read and understand the recent biochem/bio articles. If I can go back to a month ago, I would have tried to read several biochem papers often and try to understand what they are talking about.

Although I took my MCAT on 4/26, there were several bio passages that involved various pathways. I actually had to write down some pathways in my scrap paper like "W -> X -l Y growth but increase resistance to Z," so that when questions refer to such pathways, I don't have to read the passage again but just to look at my notations on my scrap paper.
 
I think the best way to prep for the Bio portion of BS is to have research experience. Reading journals and interpreting graphs is second nature to me (especially since it's been my full-time job for two years).

I actually think I read the paper that one of the passages came from, but I can't be certain. I'm definitely familiar with the author though.

Lol, I'm the opposite in a way. I believe it was aamc#11 that had a verbal passage excerpt by Wil and Ariel Durant that I had read previously. Throughout my career I would have been more likely to have read prior verbal passages than PubMed articles :laugh:
 
I really cannot stress these enough.

One of the best things you can do to prepare for your bio is, in addition to do all the AAMC FL's, to read and understand the recent biochem/bio articles. If I can go back to a month ago, I would have tried to read several biochem papers often and try to understand what they are talking about.

Although I took my MCAT on 4/26, there were several bio passages that involved various pathways. I actually had to write down some pathways in my scrap paper like "W -> X -l Y growth but increase resistance to Z," so that when questions refer to such pathways, I don't have to read the passage again but just to look at my notations on my scrap paper.

To add, just memorizing the various hormones is a recipe for disaster. Try to know their regulatory pathways. I was able to skip an entire passage (and just reference it briefly once or twice) because I was so familiar with the pathway in question. I would say this saved me 5 minutes which is GOLD on the tougher questions.
 
I'm enrolled part time right now at a university, so I have acces to ebsco host and lots of online reseach journals. I know exactly what you mean by confusing pathways. I have been trying to find some good biochemistry articles that have those charts, graphs and convoluted pathways you see on the MCAT. Can someone reccommend a few articles?

Cyclin: A protein specified by maternal mRNA in sea urchin eggs that is destroyed at each cleavage division (Cell). This is an amazing article, I can't find the full version at the moment. The discovery of cyclin is hugely important to the regulation of cell division.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2139823/ - This is a nice tough one on protein discovery
 

I don't think it really matters which articles or which topics. I think the point of this exercise is about how effectively you can understand the paper in a short amount of time.

1) Skim through random articles and 2) If you see random graphs/random genes associated with various transcription factors/random complicated subscripts and superscripts/etc., try those and begin from there.

If I have to choose, maybe any intracellular/intercellular pathways like G protein or NFkB in cancer or any random hormone stuff like estrogen in breast cancer or any growth factors should work. In other words, get used to passages like ebola passage in AAMC 11. I know it's hard, but I think it's better to be semi-comfortable with such passages, instead of freaking out on the test day.

Try to summarize them by 2-3 lines of your "shorthand writing" or "notations" like arrows, etc. You probably don't have to read the whole abstract and introduction, but I would skim the method and results sections, and hopefully you can draw similar conclusions as what the discussion section suggests.


It might seem an overkill. I thought it wasn't necessary and I didn't do it for my 4/26 exam. But, like I said, if I can go back in time, I would have done the above maybe once or twice every week, at least, to get used to it!
 
Hi everyone,

I have a question for all of you that might help future test takers like myself (5/18) be more prepared come test day:

Seeing as how the real deal took most of you by surprise in its relation to AAMC material, what would you guys have done differently in hindsight?

I'm currently going doing all of the 52-question TBR Biology diagnostics because of their reputation of being more difficult than the actual MCAT. Given recent comments, I'm starting to think TBR-level passages are becoming more closely related to MCAT material (please, correct me if I'm wrong).

Thanks for the help!


TBR offers diagnostics? Where can I get my hand on them? I just took my exam 4/26 and I think I am going to sign up to take it again... I already did all the AAMC practice exams and EK 1001 of physics, chemistry and organic chemistry... I think I freaked out on 4/26 and the PS section seemed to be out of left field... but it could just be because I was freaking out... do you all have any good suggestions for more practice material and tests?
 
Absolutely. TPR is equal if not harder than AAMC. The diagnostics are only freestanding questions so don't worry about those-- do the bio passages in the hyperlearning book they give you. And practice passages in the online content. TPR is most like the real MCAT...

Some TPR diagrams are really difficult to read but learning how to interpret a poorly written experiment or a weird looking diagram REALLY helped me on the real test.

TBR or TPR???
 


You will still have people, who will deny this out of ignorance or out of fear, just look at the "changing landscape of the MCAT thread thats floating around here)

Unsurprisingly, it only ever appears that the SDNer's most unsatisfied with their perceived prep are the harshest in judging the usefulness of materials without any sort of actual data to back up sweeping claims.

I don't think yesterday's exam was significantly different from most of the AAMC practice exams (excluding AAMC 3). Obviously, the questions and the topics were not the same but it did not take any longer nor did it feel any more convoluted.

I wouldn't expect any less milski, I'm sure you did great. 👍

Also, in case anyone has any doubt or confusion about the issue of "curving" or scaling of the scores: All questions on the test that count toward your score (not all 52 or 40 questions per section actually do) have been given before and have been rated on difficulty based on the performance of previous test takers. This allows the AAMC to adjust for particular exam forms containing more of the most difficult questions than others, and scale the raw scores to represent performance evenly. Your score has nothing to do with people that test on the same day.
 
Unsurprisingly, it only ever appears that the SDNer's most unsatisfied with their perceived prep are the harshest in judging the usefulness of materials without any sort of actual data to back up sweeping claims.

Unsurprising, someone who has yet to take the MCAT thinks he knows what he's talking about.

For content review, I used TBR for gen chem + physics and TPR for o-chem and bio. For practice passages, I did all TBR passages and nearly all passages for all sections in TPR-H SW.

I did six full-length AAMC practice tests with an average of 31 (12 PS/9 VR/10 BS.) My last full length, AAMC #10, was a 33 (12 PS/11 VR/10 BS.)

I went into this fairly confident and I'm telling you, the test I took was nothing like the practice material. Verbal was longer and more dense.

Physical sciences was weird. The questions were largely conceptual but they were applied to unfamiliar topics in strange, compounded experiments.

The biological sciences section was composed of 1 orgo passage and the rest bio passages. The bio passages were not like what you would see in AAMC or TPR-H materials, where the majority of them are dense descriptive passages with questions based on the passage -- I think there were one or two passages like this. The majority of the BS bio passages were heavily experimental, with tabulated and graphical data, and they were all based on general experiments that have never showed up in AAMC or TPR-H SW materials.

The organic chemistry passage -- just one, if I remember correctly -- wasn't that bad. Of course I could be wrong about that, because I've never been strong at orgo, but it didn't seem bad.

While I do hate the MCAT and the AAMC, this isn't a case of me being all butthurt over potentially bombing the MCAT. This test was much different than anything I've seen in the past 4 months of content review, practice passages, and full lengths.
 
I'm not saying that you are misjudging your individual experience, CV, but the fact that milski has totally opposite feelings about his test's comparison to the AAMC FL's shows that it's not fair to say that the current test is unequivocally different from the FL's. I'm sure to some test takers it feels that way, but it doesn't to everyone, and it makes sense (and appears to be the case) that people who found it the hardest felt it was the most different.
 
I'm not saying that you are misjudging your individual experience, CV, but the fact that milski has totally opposite feelings about his test's comparison to the AAMC FL's shows that it's not fair to say that the current test is unequivocally different from the FL's. I'm sure to some test takers it feels that way, but it doesn't to everyone, and it makes sense (and appears to be the case) that people who found it the hardest felt it was the most different.

I like CV's assessment and I will echo what was said in that it takes some guts to make judgement on others who have taken the MCAT this year by someone who I have gathered has not. Are you absolutely certain that everyone who found it different thought so because they thought it was harder? I don't necessarily think that is the case. I think in all fairness most of us going into the MCAT are not going in thinking it will be easy by any means. Most of us are expecting to get b***h slapped at least a little. Just finding a test different than what is currently out there does not necessarily mean one naturally found it harder. Don't pass off those who find that current prep materials and FL's are not indicative of the current test as whiners who just think they did bad. It's is equally unfair of you to judge the opinions and experiences of others. I took CV's description not entirely as someone who found the test more difficult than anything else he/she has seen, but that the test to him/her felt different. That is an honest judgment. Let's face it, also, that when it comes to the MCAT individual experience is highly varied even when taking the (assumed) exact same test, so for any one of us to pass off the experience of another is wrong and short sighted and does not take into consideration the many nuances of the MCAT and of each individual. Let's all please be more respectful of each other and not make snap judgments about each others' experiences. We are not (thankfully) all cut from the same cloth. We can agree to disagree, but to devalue the opinion of another is not an upstanding "doctor-ly" thing to do. None of us are behind the curtain at the AAMC so in the end none of has any true authority on the test so it will always only boil down to individual experience and opinion.
 
I like CV's assessment and I will echo what was said in that it takes some guts to make judgement on others who have taken the MCAT this year by someone who I have gathered has not. Are you absolutely certain that everyone who found it different thought so because they thought it was harder? I don't necessarily think that is the case. I think in all fairness most of us going into the MCAT are not going in thinking it will be easy by any means. Most of us are expecting to get b***h slapped at least a little. Just finding a test different than what is currently out there does not necessarily mean one naturally found it harder. Don't pass off those who find that current prep materials and FL's are not indicative of the current test as whiners who just think they did bad. It's is equally unfair of you to judge the opinions and experiences of others. I took CV's description not entirely as someone who found the test more difficult than anything else he/she has seen, but that the test to him/her felt different. That is an honest judgment. Let's face it, also, that when it comes to the MCAT individual experience is highly varied even when taking the (assumed) exact same test, so for any one of us to pass off the experience of another is wrong and short sighted and does not take into consideration the many nuances of the MCAT and of each individual. Let's all please be more respectful of each other and not make snap judgments about each others' experiences. We are not (thankfully) all cut from the same cloth. We can agree to disagree, but to devalue the opinion of another is not an upstanding "doctor-ly" thing to do. None of us are behind the curtain at the AAMC so in the end none of has any true authority on the test so it will always only boil down to individual experience and opinion.

I used neither of those extreme adjectives in making my statement. I'm not devaluing anyone's opinion, I'm simply contesting that this opinion, held by a number of people on SDN, is absolute truth. And to be sure, these people have presented it as incontrovertible truth.
 
Unsurprising, someone who has yet to take the MCAT thinks he knows what he's talking about.

For content review, I used TBR for gen chem + physics and TPR for o-chem and bio. For practice passages, I did all TBR passages and nearly all passages for all sections in TPR-H SW.

I did six full-length AAMC practice tests with an average of 31 (12 PS/9 VR/10 BS.) My last full length, AAMC #10, was a 33 (12 PS/11 VR/10 BS.)

I went into this fairly confident and I'm telling you, the test I took was nothing like the practice material. Verbal was longer and more dense.

Physical sciences was weird. The questions were largely conceptual but they were applied to unfamiliar topics in strange, compounded experiments.

The biological sciences section was composed of 1 orgo passage and the rest bio passages. The bio passages were not like what you would see in AAMC or TPR-H materials, where the majority of them are dense descriptive passages with questions based on the passage -- I think there were one or two passages like this. The majority of the BS bio passages were heavily experimental, with tabulated and graphical data, and they were all based on general experiments that have never showed up in AAMC or TPR-H SW materials.

The organic chemistry passage -- just one, if I remember correctly -- wasn't that bad. Of course I could be wrong about that, because I've never been strong at orgo, but it didn't seem bad.

While I do hate the MCAT and the AAMC, this isn't a case of me being all butthurt over potentially bombing the MCAT. This test was much different than anything I've seen in the past 4 months of content review, practice passages, and full lengths.

I really don't have time or desire to argue on this topic, so I'll write just a bit to make sure that both sides are represented here. I took the same test and I did not find it very different from any of the AAMCs (I have not taken or seen AAMC 9).

I still don't get what people mean by 'weird' in the context of the exam. There were situations described in the passages and you were asked questions somewhat related to these situations. I cannot think of any question which felt out of the left field - if you knew the material related to the situation, you just had to apply it. There were a few question where I did not know the answer but it was fairly clear what I was being asked. It was just a matter of me not knowing everything. In some cases, a reasonable guess could be made, in some cases... C looked like a great answer. 🙂 How well all of this worked - we'll see in a month.

What I would recommend to any future test takers is to take at least one AAMC test before starting with any content review. It may sound like heresy to a lot of people and to some extent is a loss of valuable test material but it should give you a better idea of the level of detail and the approach AAMC has towards testing. For prep, I've done passages from TBR bio and TBR ochem and EK101 and TPR for VR. I think that any of the practice AAMCs was a lot closer to the real test than any of the prep companies' material. That does not mean that you should ignore them - what they have is very, very useful, but it is helpful to be aware of differences as you go through it vs finding out about them at the end.
 
I agree with a lot of what was said above.

PS - 1st passage threw me off for some reason (even though it seemed simple when I went back to it) and while the 2nd passage was probably typical, I had trouble focusing and had a miniature panic attack and wasted ~10 minutes.

When I got my stuff together I went through the section as fast as possible and felt it was straightforward but I might have made stupid mistakes because I was stressed for time.

I think I probably got close to my average, but if I made too many mistakes it will be lower.

VR - The passages were typical in length in my opinion, but the number of questions that I felt that I was guessing after getting it down to 50/50 was higher than my practice exams.

I agree that it's a total blur...and the number of definitive answers I had was less than usual. I'm thinking I scored 2 points lower than my average.

BS - Yes, the amount of long descriptions was a bit more than usual, but I thought AAMC 11 was a very close representation of the types of passages / questions.

I felt this section was probably in line with my average, but who knows.

TL;DR - Mini panic attack during PS is probably why I'll score lower, verbal felt like more guessing than usual, BS represented by AAMC 11 well.

30-35 day waiting period? Lame. 😡
 
Gettheleadout,

I don't know if you are just really young, arrogant, or most likely both, but just in case no one has ever taught you proper etiquette, it's typically considered rude to judge experiences you have yet to experience. It just doesn't rub people the right way. It is kind of like when LeBron James used to pass judgement on Bryant and Garnet's success when he didn't even have a championship himself yet. Everyone thought he was a young, loudmouth, arrogant, prideful, brat. So, no hard feelings but until you have your day in the MCAT sun, you should just keep quiet.
 
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Gettheleadout,

I don't know if you are just really young, arrogant, or most likely both, but just in case no one has ever taught you proper etiquette, it's typically considered rude to judge experiences you have yet to experience. It just doesn't rub people the right way. It is kind of like when LeBron James used to pass judgement on Bryant and Garnet's success when he didn't even have a championship himself yet. Everyone thought he was a young, loudmouth, arrogant, prideful, brat. So, no hard feelings but until you have your day in the MCAT sun, you should just keep quiet.

I can tell he's going to be a compassionate physician one day 😛
 
I can tell he's going to be a compassionate physician one day 😛

What are you talking about? I've been a paramedic for 8 years, and worked 4 years in pre-hostpital care as a volunteer firefighter and the other 4 in an ER. I have never had a patient or a coworker accuse me of lacking compassion. I have compassion for those who are sick. Gettheleadout isn't sick, he's just rude and obviously, based on the responses before me, I'm not the only one who feels this way. There's a difference between being compassionate and blowing sunshine up someone's ass.
 
What are you talking about? I've been a paramedic for 8 years, and worked 4 years in pre-hostpital care as a volunteer firefighter and the other 4 in an ER. I have never had a patient or a coworker accuse me of lacking compassion. I have compassion for those who are sick. Gettheleadout isn't sick, he's just rude and obviously, based on the responses before me, I'm not the only one who feels this way. There's a difference between being compassionate and blowing sunshine up someone's ass.

I was talking about Gettheleadout. I wholeheartedly agree with your post. I just think he's being rude, that is all.
 
Gettheleadout,

I don't know if you are just really young, arrogant, or most likely both, but just in case no one has ever taught you proper etiquette, it's typically considered rude to judge experiences you have yet to experience. It just doesn't rub people the right way. It is kind of like when LeBron James used to pass judgement on Bryant and Garnet's success when he didn't even have a championship himself yet. Everyone thought he was a young, loudmouth, arrogant, prideful, brat. So, no hard feelings but until you have your day in the MCAT sun, you should just keep quiet.
Nice veiled insult there.

Your post might actually apply if I were passing some sort of judgment on individuals' subjective experiences with the MCAT. However, I have not, and I am not. I have said nothing along the lines of "nah bro, your MCAT wasn't different/hard/whatever." I have simply argued the validity of a point presented by some users as apparent, prima facie fact, by pointing out the disagreement presented within the group of test takers and issues with sample size in forming a consensus.

Here's how this topic has unfolded on SDN:

Assorted Users: My MCAT was totally different from the AAMC FL's, I wasn't prepared for any of these types of questions/formats/whatever, this whole thing is a scam! X number of SDN users scored way off from their AAMC FL average so the whole thing is useless!
Other Users: Our MCAT's were representative and we disagree, we feel our prep prepared us to a reasonable expectation and we expect we performed to reflect that given our perceptions of the particular test form we had. Also, either way you argue this SDN is a woefully inadequate sample size, and is unrepresentative and means nothing.
Assorted Users: No, really though, it's all useless and unpredictive and we know this because our personal experiences trump yours. Be warned young SDNer's!
Me: Clearly you guys don't have the evidence in any form to assert your position as fact.
Assorted Users: You haven't even taken the MCAT, you're an idiot so shut up and go away.

It's a joke.

I'm not sure how I can express just how contrary I feel your outlook is to the goal of open discussion and courteous consideration of peer input. I'm really glad I don't feel that way, about any topic, and would actually give someone the respect to consider the intellectual value of their input, rather than shun it with a cop-out excuse about "experience," as if subjective experience tells one anything about the actual truth of a matter.
 
I took the exam on 4/26 and voided. Being neurotic, I'm wondering whether the void went through. I was just wondering if one of you guys that completed the exam could log on to AAMC and tell me if there is anything in those boxes that indicate that you already took the exam and pending a score report? I'm trying to compare it to my interface, which says nothing.
 
I took the exam on 4/26 and voided. Being neurotic, I'm wondering whether the void went through. I was just wondering if one of you guys that completed the exam could log on to AAMC and tell me if there is anything in those boxes that indicate that you already took the exam and pending a score report? I'm trying to compare it to my interface, which says nothing.

THx shows "you have no scores yet."
The AAMC MCAT registration web site shows "You are not currently registered for the MCAT."

I don't see anywhere anything showing that I've taken the exam.

Did you get a printout of the last page, showing that you've taken the exam?
And did you take the new trial section at the end? If you void, you're supposed to skip it, so not having taken it is a good sign in your case.
 
While browsing aamc.org, I clicked on the FAQ for MCAT2015. They are going to have 4 sections, for 6 hours and 15 minutes total. 😱😱:scared:
 
THx shows "you have no scores yet."
The AAMC MCAT registration web site shows "You are not currently registered for the MCAT."

I don't see anywhere anything showing that I've taken the exam.

Did you get a printout of the last page, showing that you've taken the exam?
And did you take the new trial section at the end? If you void, you're supposed to skip it, so not having taken it is a good sign in your case.

Thanks for the speedy response. I have the same information via THx and AAMC, so I guess I should probably just call them.

I believe everyone got that printout of the last page regardless of whether you voided or completed. But yep, did not see the trial section.
 
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