The Official 8/14/2009 MCAT Thread

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Sort by date Sort by votes
I got sick for nearly a week and am only getting better now. I just learned about electrochemistry a few hours ago, didn't even get a chance to do any practice passages on it. I did the PS and VR section of AAMC 7, did pretty good, so hopefully this won't be as big of a gong show as I suspect it will be. I still have to learn about electric circuits (SAVE ME NOVA PHYSICS!!) and for that I will definitely do all the practice questions in the book. THEN I was going to hopefully do AAMC 8-10 .. lol ..

This is going to get so silly .. why did my immune system fail me!!?!?!?

ALSO I barely know any orgo. I took TPR, went to class, but I don't particularly recall much of it. Don't know if I'll have time to review it. Barely have time to review my bio notes, I did the majority of my bio studying much earlier in the summer. So yeah .. I am an idiot for counting on my last 2 weeks for so much, and getting sick screwed me over!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
So I am also taking it August 14th. I have been going through a cyclical chain of emotions. I get extremely nervous and then it subsides to the other extreme of the spectrum. I have taken all the practice AAMC tests and my scores have varied from 28-33. I'm worried about the VR, it's always my lowest score.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
DP89 said:
So I am also taking it August 14th. I have been going through a cyclical chain of emotions. I get extremely nervous and then it subsides to the other extreme of the spectrum. I have taken all the practice AAMC tests and my scores have varied from 28-33. I'm worried about the VR, it's always my lowest score.
Click to expand...

I feel ashamed of myself as a poli sci major...
i get averages between 10-11 on EK and TPR verbal full lengths...yet i take aamc9 today and get an 8 on verbal. WTF

so discouraging a day before.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
don't worry, i'm sure everyone will end up doing great! and even if you don't do "great" you can always take it again, or will end up getting in somewhere..your mcat score doesn't measure how good of a doctor you'll be..

so good luck everyone, have confidence!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
This isn't really all that bad. It's kind of exciting if anything. You gotta play the game in order to win.

Let's do this
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Spent most of the afternoon and evening reviewing science stuff. Hope all the equations are there in my brain when I need them tomorrow. Praying the PS section won't be too hellish like it was on 3/28 and hoping for minimal organic chem questions. :xf:

Best of luck to all! :luck:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
FuturePittMed said:
Spent most of the afternoon and evening reviewing science stuff. Hope all the equations are there in my brain when I need them tomorrow. Praying the PS section won't be too hellish like it was on 3/28 and hoping for minimal organic chem questions. :xf:

Best of luck to all! :luck:
Click to expand...


I second that....oh man oh man I'm hoping for minimal o-chem

Either way, I couldnt study most of the day. I got a haircut...and finally shaved.

Hopefully it'll help me on the MCAT.

I think I need to read some practice WS's cause I havent practiced for that section.




😍
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hey all,

Good luck to everyone! We can do this. I am sure all the work we have put in will produce results! Let's put on our A game!

Once again g/l
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, today is the day! I'm in Germany so I'm a bit ahead of everyone else right now so my test is in about 6 1/2 hrs. Slept GREAT last night... going to have an AWESOME German breakfast and then last minute cram for a bit... honestly, I feel great and not a bit of pressure. Don't know how that's going to translate but I know I'm not going to have a dirty little present in my underwear when I get there! Good luck all.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
sbreland said:
Well, today is the day! I'm in Germany so I'm a bit ahead of everyone else right now so my test is in about 6 1/2 hrs. Slept GREAT last night... going to have an AWESOME German breakfast and then last minute cram for a bit... honestly, I feel great and not a bit of pressure. Don't know how that's going to translate but I know I'm not going to have a dirty little present in my underwear when I get there! Good luck all.
Click to expand...

hmm, i didn't know u can take mcat overseas, anyways good luck and Good LUck to everyone who is taking tomorrow.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hey

I am taking the 2pm test. I got up this morning at 7ish, slept moderately well. I don't want to cram last minute, as I feel like we either know it by now or we don't.

Relax, don't stress because that will only make you screw up. Breathe and enjoy it. This is just another hurdle in our long lives. Good luck and see you all at the other end!

All the best.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Just wanted to stop by and say good luck everyone :luck::luck::luck:

Take a deep breath and stay confident even when you get a "what the?!?!" question/passage.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P.S.... Piece of cake. I was confident of every question. Verbal.. what I expected. Then the B.S. came... started off easy, and turned into HOLY FREAKING CRAP RIDICULOUS, like hasselhoff eating a cheeseburger drunk ridiculous.

Usually finish with 20 minutes of extra time on B.S., took me the whole time to do and the last three passages were TOUGH! Oh man, gonna be a long month.

My last AAMC practice test I got a 35, and after all practice tests, I felt pretty confident. This one, on B.S., I made mistake of breaking rule #1, getting nervous. Oh well, At least it's over. Who knows, maybe I did well and am overanalyzing it by focusing on the hard questions I might have missed.

*** EDIT ***
Ok, the B.S. section wasn't THAT bad. I just was unsure about a few questions because I had to rush at the end. Hate the fact we can't see our scores for a month, leaves a lot of room for your mind to wander.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Congrats 8/14 testers!!! You're done! :soexcited:

Just a friendly reminder about SDN's policy on posting MCAT specifics... don't do it. Please read over this thread before you post. If you do post something that the moderation staff deems too specific, your account will be placed on a post hold for a week. And we don't want to do that. 🙁

You're finally free from the MCAT, now get off SDN and enjoy the rest of your summer!!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
nyorkplayer said:
what was hard in bio? o-chem or like the concepts? any outside information needed?
Click to expand...


There was an 8:00 session this morning.

Can't say specifics, but genetics had a few more difficult questions than any of the practice AAMC tests. Just make sure you stay confident, mark the questions you are unsure about and MOVE ON!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I usually own bio 12-14 I felt like it started off really easy and then got hard fast. Finished with 2minutes left. Usually finish bio with like 25 minutes.

Physical Sciences there were 1-2 that I know I messed up the calculations.

Verbal, seemed easier then the AAMC's 7-10. Although I am just hoping for an 8.

Should we try to predict our scores lol?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
O yeah btw, I had a crazy dream last night that I woke up at like 2:00pm and that I forgot about the MCAT. Some huge house that I was sleeping in caught on fire and all my MCAT study materials got burned.

I was watching the fire burn and I was like WTF the fire fighters could put it out but they didn't... They just watched it all burn down then started rebuilding the building.

I woke up at 5:30am. with a giant sigh of relief.

Who has a dream book lol...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I was a 2nd time taker. I am tired, and my brain fried.
First of all it was sooooooooooooo cold in the room, so I had to wear a stranger's sweater (which was warm and fluffy)🙂 then during the test I had to tell the lady to change the tempreture, because I could have make confetti with my teeth.
So, I think PS was ok, bio also was ok, but compare to the May1st exam where only 1 passage was difficult (written in another language) today's was 2-3, so I spend lot of time with translation. Overall I think it was ok with the science sections. Verbal was another case.

I think verbal was the most difficult FOR ME. I don't think verbal going to be highest score this time around. From the 7 passages 2 of them were good, enjoyable. They were freaking long, and worst than any of the Kaplan or Aamc practice tests.

I screw up WR last time, so I know we can't post questions, but could you post what examples did you put for WR 1 and 2 ??!! Anybody?

I was the last in and out, so I think there are 2 pm takers, because when I was coming out people were going in. Good luck to them.:luck:

Thanks


Keep in mind, every test is different to different people.
my brain is fried 😴
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Are the different sessions usually the same? I mean, should I except an easy PS, normal verbal, and hard BS at my 2 o'clock test?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
vandyam said:
Are the different sessions usually the same? I mean, should I except an easy PS, normal verbal, and hard BS at my 2 o'clock test?
Click to expand...

I'm not reallly sure. Regardless of the test material, make sure you don't let yourself get nervous or freak out! I wish I would have kept my cool a little better, but it was hard not to because I invested over 300 hours preparing for this test, and being uncertain about an answer in B.S. where I was usually confident made me take too long on questions. So, my two cents is if you don't know an answer, MOVE ON AND MARK IT!!!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Alright, i just got back.

Overall, i think I did pretty good. I am a retaker from June 18 MCAT. I was a lot more relaxed this time than the first time and I knew what to expect.

PS: challenging, but doable. Finished with 8 mins left and I think I marked about 11 questions, but I am pretty comfortable with the rest of them. I am surprised that there were some random questions that you never thought MCAT would test you on. For future test takers, know EVERYTHING!

VR: I was a little nervous. Comparing to June 18 MCAT, this VR isn't really entertaining. a lot of boring stuff. questions weren't that bad.

WS: one prompt was kinda hard to come up examples, because I am not a

BS: one challenging orgo passage with a stupid configuration side view question. That one took me forever to figure out which side view it was. For Bio, I thought the knock-out mice passage had two confusing questions. I finished with 3 mins left. wasn't too bad overall, comparable with June 18 BS.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
jryckman3 said:
I'm not reallly sure. Regardless of the test material, make sure you don't let yourself get nervous or freak out! I wish I would have kept my cool a little better, but it was hard not to because I invested over 300 hours preparing for this test, and being uncertain about an answer in B.S. where I was usually confident made me take too long on questions. So, my two cents is if you don't know an answer, MOVE ON AND MARK IT!!!
Click to expand...


I did this. Don't do this.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
premedgurl said:
BS: one challenging orgo passage with a stupid configuration side view question. That one took me forever to figure out which side view it was. For Bio, I thought the knock-out mice passage had two confusing questions. I finished with 3 mins left. wasn't too bad overall, comparable with June 18 BS.
Click to expand...

Great summary, couldn't agree more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpZHFNGo5cQ
Stupid mutant rats....
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Just got back!

Honestly, I thought the ps and bs were very easy. there were some questions that threw me for a loop, but overall i cant say they were hard. verbal, on the other hand, dominated me. there wasnt anything hard in particular, i just didnt focus like i needed to. i was sseriously thinking about other stuff while doing verbal, like wtf is wrong with me?

one thing that was hard in ps...STUPID ELEVATOR PASSAGE. the first question was especially tough on that passage
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Wowwwwwwwwwww my brain hurts!

PS - kinda bad, i thought. i've gotten 12's in this section on the last 5 aamc tests, but this one i thought was kind of challenging. There was a lot of random info, and i can't believe they didn't test some of the most obvious concepts...whatever..feels like a 10

VR - wtf? the passages were SO long! usually get 12's in this section, but it feels like a 10 today

BS - not bad at all...wanted to die on that orgo passage though, i'd say i'll go with an 11

Retaking!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
thebillsfan said:
Just got back!

verbal, on the other hand, dominated me. there wasnt anything hard in particular, i just didnt focus like i needed to. i was sseriously thinking about other stuff while doing verbal, like wtf is wrong with me?

one thing that was hard in ps...STUPID ELEVATOR PASSAGE. the first question was especially tough on that passage
Click to expand...

I couldn't focused well on verbal either, because they were boring.

For the elevator passage, the twice radius threw me off, too!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
OK, after reading the last few remarks I can confidently say that my test (being as I was in Germany) was COMPLETELY different! I thought PS was rather straight forward and honestly it is one of the worst things for me. It was almost ALL Chemistry... seriously. There were several very basic physics questions in the discreets and I think one (maybe 2) passages... the rest was Chem and honesltly pretty basic Chem stuff... I was REALLY surprised.
Verbal... well... yeah. I usually do pretty decent in VR but this one was just challenging to me because the passages were so thoroughly uninteresting (except one which kept me interested) that it made the questions hard. I honestly remember one passage where I go to the end of it and was like "umm... what did I just read" because I was having such a hard time focusing. Fortunately that passage most of the questions were directly from the passage so it didn't bother me too much.
BS... well, let's just say this... my morning cram session paid off. I decided this AM that a last look over enzymes, ALL the stuff in EK lecture 2 (chromosomes, genetics, mitosis/meiosis, transcription/translation, etc), and some stuff from the Krebs/glycolysis/respiration sections were important and i am glad i did... that stuff was heavy. Another things was it was VERY light on Orgo. I remember hitting next and expecting an orgo passage to come up and it just didn't. I think I went through 5 straight bio passages before I hit any orgo and then got 2 short passages with about 4 questions each and they were manageable. One thing that did catch me off guard was my time on the BS. I usually finish with about 15 minutes or so but this time I finished with about 4 or 5. I attribute that to really sitting and looking at a few questions, but i think it was worth it because in doing so I caught the trick they were trying to pull on me on most of them.
WS... aLL I can say is LOL... so easy.
I can honestly say for the whole test there were only like 3 or 4 questions that I looked at and was like "WTF" and had no idea what it was talking about. I remember getting through and still being ready for one more section... my stamina for this thing was definitely up to snuff. I think the single greatest thing I did was walk the mile and a half to the testing center and just jacked up the Ipod with my best music and strolled... it was SOOOOOOOO refreshing and being outdoors in Germany made it all the better. By the time I arrived I was wide awake, pumped, and in a GREAT mood! That and I spent last night doing only positive things that wouldn't make me think i wasn't ready... no practicing EK1001 or VR 101 and seeing how well I did... just content review. This morning as i flipped through note cards I heard in my head sooooo many times "yeah, I know that" and it stuck... my attitude was that I knew what was going on and that i knew I was ready. Never once did i have the slightest bit of fear or nervousness... i didn't do anything in the waning hours to detract from my confidence. One thing that I can say is the strongest but of advice I can give to anyone... spend your last few hours (maybe even the day before) getting yourself in the right frame of mind and making yourself confident. Seriously, attitude and confidence just simply take your brain to a higher level when you are taking the test. Instead of thinking "oh ****" when it get's tough your mentality will be "Eh, let's look at this from a different angle... it's no problem". Mental attitude (along with preparation of course) is one of the key to a test like this i think. Congrats to all the other takers!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
did anyone not see like 5 questions in the walking passage with the angle between the legs in ps...like right after the graph question ...i seriously did not see them and missed 5 because of that, my scroll bar was stuck
i want to retake it asap...bc im pretty sure that screws me over
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
Should I retake the MCAT?
Replies
5
Views
1K
Dral
Dral
S
Should I retake the MCAT?
Replies
4
Views
3K
babySimba
B
Mr.Smile12
Free SFSU Post-Bac Program MCAT Prep Workshop on Jan 8, 2025
Replies
1
Views
1K
BerkReviewTeach
B
L
Do NOT take the Blueprint MCAT course
Replies
1
Views
5K
ClashRoyaleKing
ClashRoyaleKing
russeast9374
Taking the MCAT before finishing all prereqs?
Replies
2
Views
2K
russeast9374
russeast9374
Top