The Official 8/15/13 MCAT Thread

[Roxas]

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Welcome August 15ers! Thought I'd get this started since anyone doing a 3 month study schedule is going to be starting up soon. Good luck to everyone, and hopefully we can help each other out through this beast!

I just sat for the 4/26 exam which was pretty rough, and I know given the summer to study I can do much better. Let's do this!

 

[BreakingBadly]

Another eternal lurker here.

Took the August 15th mcat and wanted to just generally respond to and perhaps reinforce everyone else's thoughts.

To give everyone a perspective on where I'm coming from, my AAMC average (~3-11,) is (was?) a 29. Only started hitting 30+ on my last few AAMCs (8, 9, and 11).

I wanted to first congratulate everyone for having gotten through yesterday, I can't believe almost all of you and myself are done with this beast (or so we think). It's been a long summer to say the least.

Yesterday was an intense day for many of us who woke up mad early, and I wanted to especially congratulate those who got through it with problems at their testing center. I was lucky not to have any issues getting through the test, excluding not being able to prevent my right hand from shaking on the mouse during the first 10 minutes.

Here are some of my comments, even though many of them have already been stated. I'm glad most of us felt the same in many respects as to what went down in each section.

PS- wow, was all I could think when I finished. PS was my highest score on just about every single AAMC practice test. Usually scored between 10 and 12, but thought I got a 6 by day's end. But if everyone thinks like me, then maybe we got 10s or 11s, who knows. I guessed on the last passage entirely because I ran out of time. Math killed me. I couldn't do a few of them and moved on cause of nerves. Glad I moved on though, but upset I couldn't do them. Convinced I could've done the problems in the good ole' comfort of the AAMC practice tests, but this was the real deal. Overall, I thought PS was ridiculously difficult (just my personal opinion), and wouldn't be surprised if I got a straight 5 if this was an AAMC practice test. Once again, it wasn't. So maybe we all did better than we thought. Just maybe.

Verbal- Like everyone else said, verbal is verbal. Did not at all feel that there was any one passage that I could have gotten 4+ wrong on, which is sometimes the case on the practice tests (damn you picasso). Although it didn't seem too bad, there were at least a dozen questions i felt could go either way (narrowed down to two), but maybe luck was on our side

BS- strange. Felt like the orgo was incredibly difficult. many bio questions seemed like they could also go either way. Seemed that perhaps there were also many questions that were geared towards general biology or genetics researchers, in other words those who have more experience in the field. That's not to say that the average kid studying couldn't do the problems, but that it may have been insanely helpful had we been one. That's as specific as I'll get.

Overall, I really don't know what to think, and I'm sure many of us are in the same boat, just hoping that we score around or averages. Good luck everyone

Well said! 👍

 

[onedirection]

Also wanted to say that the passages were shorter

You think they are longer but the font is bigger and they space it up into more paragraphs

 

[member1717]

🙁 i agree... took it last yr in august and my PS was herendous. Didnt get to finish bubbling in and what a kick in the face it was for the rest of the test. Needless to say i failed cause i suck at reading like everyonelse and take it again and this time the calcs were just too much lol...

Lets just say that the PS sections on aamc practice exams aren't a realistic indicator of what they put on the real thing. I had 2 minutes to guess on 5 questions whereas on the practice tests I usually finish with 10 - 15 left (more than enough time to check for mistakes). My only hope is that today's PS raping has a forgiving scale. Speaking of scales, does anyone know why a pre-determined scale of exam difficulty takes 30 days to "grade"?

 

[member1717]

To give my little insight of the beating we took two days ago...

I am a retaker from last year and it was definitely way easier this time around because I actually got to study this summer.

PS: had too many calcs and weird worded questions... I started to think half way through another calc or time consuming problems lol. Overall def difficult and had to guess on two passages cause i fixate on questions to get them but idk hopefully generous curve cause last yr we had a very generous curve 🙂

VR: I don't know. I could never inc my score and I'm a slow reader... so who knows how that went. Oh well.

BS: I thought sooo many questions were weird or I was like I have no clue but I think this... so unreassuring 😕 lol... and I got held up on one passage I should have passed but of course I was lilike what the heck is going on... ughh so had to guess on a bunch. And the orgo was a little insane and I'm good at orgo and worked in the orgo lab for two yrs sooo... yah brutal day for us.

And now this month will be long and you will go through denial stages so get readyyy 🙂

And every exam is different... my friends that took it yesterday said it was fair but bio was kind of hard... just be happy for now! You will be doctors... especially if you averaged in the 35+'s I'm sure you got what you wanted... and I'm def not one of thos ppl. I'm more in the 25 range this year studying lol

 

[inycepoo]

🙁 i agree... took it last yr in august and my PS was herendous. Didnt get to finish bubbling in and what a kick in the face it was for the rest of the test. Needless to say i failed cause i suck at reading like everyonelse and take it again and this time the calcs were just too much lol...

"herendous"

 

[jjtheairplane]

"herendous"

Please Don't waste posts like that^. He, as well as us - Normal kids, don't really care about spelling. Is the MCAT a spelling test, NO?

I once asked for advice about my AAMC scores and how I was scoring mid 20's. You responded with an annoying yet truthful "get over it and work harder", I have nothing against that because I improved and realized I did work harder.

But, don't be annoying if you have nothing to offer.

 

[BreakingBadly]

"herendous"

Troll no likey bad 'spilling', troll is sad, troll know normal people don't give two sh#ts, troll must therefore troll

 

[inycepoo]

Please Don't waste posts like that^. He, as well as us - Normal kids, don't really care about spelling. Is the MCAT a spelling test, NO?

I once asked for advice about my AAMC scores and how I was scoring mid 20's. You responded with an annoying yet truthful "get over it and work harder", I have nothing against that because I improved and realized I did work harder.

But, don't be annoying if you have nothing to offer.

Calm down, yo. It was just ironic to me that misspelled word was made in a fashion that could be described by the word itself. Don't worry, I don't crawl around SDN picking out typos.

As for the other thing, I'm glad my being an annoyance turned into something fruitful! 😍

 

[gettheleadout]

Troll no likey bad 'spilling', troll is sad, troll know normal people don't give two sh#ts, troll must therefore troll

lol what is wrong with you

 

[inycepoo]

Troll no likey bad 'spilling', troll is sad, troll know normal people don't give two sh#ts, troll must therefore troll

Troll knows pathetic attempts at emulation when troll sees.

 

[jjtheairplane]

Troll no likey bad 'spilling', troll is sad, troll know normal people don't give two sh#ts, troll must therefore troll

HAHAHAAHHAHA I think your're pretty funny 🙂

 

[QuiteAConundrum]

Please Don't waste posts like that^. He, as well as us - Normal kids, don't really care about spelling. Is the MCAT a spelling test, NO?

I once asked for advice about my AAMC scores and how I was scoring mid 20's. You responded with an annoying yet truthful "get over it and work harder", I have nothing against that because I improved and realized I did work harder.

But, don't be annoying if you have nothing to offer.

Exactly. There's constructive, and then there's making a dick move.

Calm down, yo. It was just ironic to me that misspelled word was made in a fashion that could be described by the word itself. Don't worry, I don't crawl around SDN picking out typos.

Hey, I'm sure many more people than you realized it and had a silent (or not so silent) chuckle. But most people can keep that to themselves and have that be enough, especially since you aren't/can't possibly be aware of the background (e.g. maybe they're ESL) I get that it's an anonymous forum, but you accomplished nothing with that post. Stick to the "you suck, work harder" varieties you're prone to in the future.

HAHAHAAHHAHA I think your're pretty funny 🙂

+1

 

[Roxas]

After the exam I felt very good about VR and BS, but does anyone else feel like that's a bad sign? The most common thing is people feel like they totally bombed it, and most end up doing ok (some of the highest scorers say they almost voided). However I don't know what to make of my post test feelings after I've had a couple days to let it soak in.

 

[member1717]

Thanks. I clearly don't care very much about if I misspelled a word. I got my degree in college so making a comment is immature but I think some people on this site like to complain about there amazing scores or try to waste time saying stupid stuff. Let's be classy people.

Please Don't waste posts like that^. He, as well as us - Normal kids, don't really care about spelling. Is the MCAT a spelling test, NO?

I once asked for advice about my AAMC scores and how I was scoring mid 20's. You responded with an annoying yet truthful "get over it and work harder", I have nothing against that because I improved and realized I did work harder.

But, don't be annoying if you have nothing to offer.

 

[member1717]

My friends took the June 20th exam and thought the PS was really bad, VR was somewhat easy surprisingly, and BS was easier than the AAMC exams. They ended up with high PS, somewhat low VR and high BS so it really can go either way. (And they had to guess on alot of PS because he said they had alot of calculations too) Since some of the bio questions on the exam were weird or confusing and you are making educated guesses there's no way of knowing until your score comes out 🙁 we have a long month ahead of us... lol

After the exam I felt very good about VR and BS, but does anyone else feel like that's a bad sign? The most common thing is people feel like they totally bombed it, and most end up doing ok (some of the highest scorers say they almost voided). However I don't know what to make of my post test feelings after I've had a couple days to let it soak in.

 

[deleted393595]

Please Don't waste posts like that^. He, as well as us - Normal kids, don't really care about spelling. Is the MCAT a spelling test, NO?

I once asked for advice about my AAMC scores and how I was scoring mid 20's. You responded with an annoying yet truthful "get over it and work harder", I have nothing against that because I improved and realized I did work harder.

But, don't be annoying if you have nothing to offer.

 

[BreakingBadly]

Lol

 

[velociraptorMD]

How many pages of calculations did you guys use for PS?

I think I used 2 full pages. It didn't even occur to me that PS was calculation heavy, I just remember it feeling like none of the practice exams I took. But I think I was either in the zone or just too dazed to think about how many calculations I was doing.

AAMC can't post the scores soon enough, I'm going crazy waiting to find out how I did.

 

[QuiteAConundrum]

How many pages of calculations did you guys use for PS?

I think I used 2 full pages. It didn't even occur to me that PS was calculation heavy, I just remember it feeling like none of the practice exams I took. But I think I was either in the zone or just too dazed to think about how many calculations I was doing.

AAMC can't post the scores soon enough, I'm going crazy waiting to find out how I did.

I used two, but I also wrote really big and only did about 4-5 calculations per page.

And yeah I didn't notice, but maybe it's because the equations (for the most part) were the easier, quicker ones. Although a few questions, the calcs took forever (but I suck so that could easily be the reason haha)

 

[member1717]

I used two pages.

How many pages of calculations did you guys use for PS?

I think I used 2 full pages. It didn't even occur to me that PS was calculation heavy, I just remember it feeling like none of the practice exams I took. But I think I was either in the zone or just too dazed to think about how many calculations I was doing.

AAMC can't post the scores soon enough, I'm going crazy waiting to find out how I did.

 

[QuiteAConundrum]

After the exam I felt very good about VR and BS, but does anyone else feel like that's a bad sign? The most common thing is people feel like they totally bombed it, and most end up doing ok (some of the highest scorers say they almost voided). However I don't know what to make of my post test feelings after I've had a couple days to let it soak in.

I'm with you. I feel good about those sections, but that scares me. Most people feel like they totally bombed it and did well. I wonder if the opposite is true too? I guess we'll find out on the 17th but still...it makes me feel uneasy.

Is this how you felt after the last time too? I went through my posts in the last MCAT thread and accurately predicted my score ranges haha, but I felt it wasn't that bad then either =/

 

[member1717]

If we are all saying the samething about the sections then the curve will probably be generous. My PS last year was really difficult and our curve was definitely generous. Let's just hope for the best 🙂

PS- Math Math Math. Oh, and Math. 1 confusing/ time consuming passage, guessed on it
V: Passages easier to read, questions about the same difficulty.
BR: More orgo than expected ( Im orgo strong so I guess it helped) . Bio had a lot of weird vagueness.

Overall: AAMC's 3-11 + Weird stuff

Did anyone find themselves using ALOT of formulas for PS? & How helpful is the curve? If it's the AAMC curve I am effed

 

[jjtheairplane]

Does anyone remember the very last question of PS.
It made me really uncomfortable to choose the answer that seemed like common sense but, unlike the other choices, had no scientific basis lol.., anyone else choose it too?

 

[Copernicium]

Does anyone remember the very last question of PS.
It made me really uncomfortable to choose the answer that seemed like common sense but, unlike the other choices, had no scientific basis lol.., anyone else choose it too?

The whole exam is slowly fading from my memory (thank god 😛) so I don't remember what it was

 

[Roxas]

The whole exam is slowly fading from my memory (thank god 😛) so I don't remember what it was

Me neither. In fact there is only 1 passage from PS that I remember.... *shudders in horror*

 

[member1717]

same here I vaguely remember the exam as a whole just specific questions and maybe 2 passages from physical science lol... and the trial section made me forget which questions were from my exam or from the trial section.

Me neither. In fact there is only 1 passage from PS that I remember.... *shudders in horror*

 

[Roxas]

same here I vaguely remember the exam as a whole just specific questions and maybe 2 passages from physical science lol... and the trial section made me forget which questions were from my exam or from the trial section.

Did you have biochem or something? I definitely remember my trial section because I had mostly psychology stuff, which was super easy. I wished that stuff had been on my real mcat.

 

[QuiteAConundrum]

So just made a cake for my little bro's bday (he's 12) and he said that if medicine doesn't work out, I have a future in baking.

Hooray for option B!

 

[t5Nitro]

I made toast today. Win

 

[member1717]

Yes I took the biochem section and it was actually pretty difficult. The passages were super long and most of them were hard biochem questions. But some of the questions I wished were on my exam as well 😡 When I got home i tried remembering some of my questions from the exam to look them up in my books but then I was mixing up the trial section with my bio test sooo then I gave up and closed all my stuff lol. Was psych easier?

Did you have biochem or something? I definitely remember my trial section because I had mostly psychology stuff, which was super easy. I wished that stuff had been on my real mcat.

 

[QuiteAConundrum]

I'm getting kind of frustrated by my sub-par scores on the practice passages

I think you won't find much sympathy on this thread. People here are getting frustrated by the 32 day wait.

 

[Gauss44]

Yes I took the biochem section and it was actually pretty difficult.

Yeah, I did so poorly that I'm wondering if I'll even get a gift certificate.

 

[member1717]

haha yah no sympathy from this girl over here... considering the fact that we all already went through the torture of the exam lol.

I think you won't find much sympathy on this thread. People here are getting frustrated by the 32 day wait.

 

[member1717]

My friend said that he still got the 30 dollar gift card for amazon and only got a 40%. You just have to spend the time to go through the questions. If you didnt just bubble in answers in 10 min. then you will probably get the gift card.

Yeah, I did so poorly that I'm wondering if I'll even get a gift certificate.

 

[Roxas]

I'll throw you some sympathy 🙂

Try not to get too down, and try and figure out why you aren't doing well. Is it a lack of understanding of content? Not understanding the passages? Dumb mistakes? Because you can't really improve unless you realize what is going wrong. For me personally anytime I got rocked by a set of passages it was usually a lack of content understanding, followed closely by a lack of ability to extract info from the passage (this is particularly important in bio and g-chem in my opinion).

 

[jjtheairplane]

I'm getting kind of frustrated by my sub-par scores on the practice passages

Take this with a grain of salt, because I don't know my score yet.

I scored a 19 on my kaplan diagnostic
scored 24 on aamc 3
scored 27 on 4
scored 28 on 5
scored 29 on 6,7,9
scored 30 on 8
scored 33 on 10
scored 29 on 11

every break down was about (11/8/10). Except 10 (14/6/13)

I did poorly on 11 again becuase of the math in PS and Ebola in Bio.
I knew that I couldn't put the math off, so I tried my best to get comfortable with it. And It turned out our PS was math heavy. Bio didn't have an Ebola but did have hard discretes so not sure how it'll play out.

You can improve, just keep at it.

 

[member1717]

Agreed. You have to figure out where you are messing up on and once you improve those mistakes and get them correct your confidence will improve. My problem was extracting info from the passages and thinking i had to know it all and kind of freaking out once i saw something i didnt know. Once i started to get comfortable with using the passages more i saw that the info was there and i only needed some basic concepts i knew. Its tough but practice and hard work will pay off even if its with a mediocre grade. Have confidence and dont let yourself get down cause giving up mentally will crush you. Keep working 🙂))QUOTE=O Grady;14371518]I'll throw you some sympathy 🙂

Try not to get too down, and try and figure out why you aren't doing well. Is it a lack of understanding of content? Not understanding the passages? Dumb mistakes? Because you can't really improve unless you realize what is going wrong. For me personally anytime I got rocked by a set of passages it was usually a lack of content understanding, followed closely by a lack of ability to extract info from the passage (this is particularly important in bio and g-chem in my opinion).[/QUOTE]

 

[gettheleadout]

I think you won't find much sympathy on this thread. People here are getting frustrated by the 32 day wait.

I'll throw you some sympathy 🙂

Try not to get too down, and try and figure out why you aren't doing well. Is it a lack of understanding of content? Not understanding the passages? Dumb mistakes? Because you can't really improve unless you realize what is going wrong. For me personally anytime I got rocked by a set of passages it was usually a lack of content understanding, followed closely by a lack of ability to extract info from the passage (this is particularly important in bio and g-chem in my opinion).

Take this with a grain of salt, because I don't know my score yet.

I scored a 19 on my kaplan diagnostic
scored 24 on aamc 3
scored 27 on 4
scored 28 on 5
scored 29 on 6,7,9
scored 30 on 8
scored 33 on 10
scored 29 on 11

every break down was about (11/8/10). Except 10 (14/6/13)

I did poorly on 11 again becuase of the math in PS and Ebola in Bio.
I knew that I couldn't put the math off, so I tried my best to get comfortable with it. And It turned out our PS was math heavy. Bio didn't have an Ebola but did have hard discretes so not sure how it'll play out.

You can improve, just keep at it.

Hey guys, since you all were responding to spam post, instead of me deleting your posts to remove the spam, could you all edit the images out of the quotes? Just trying to preserve what you guys wrote back.

 

[Ansar]

So we should hear back between Sept. 15 and 20th?

 

[Roxas]

So we should hear back between Sept. 15 and 20th?

Sept. 17th. I had a horrifying moment today when I realized that I have a class that starts right before the scores should be released, goes for an hour and a half, and I'm one of the last people on this earth without a smartphone 🙁

 

[inycepoo]

Sept. 17th. I had a horrifying moment today when I realized that I have a class that starts right before the scores should be released, goes for an hour and a half, and I'm one of the last people on this earth without a smartphone 🙁

Laptop bro

 

[BreakingBadly]

Laptop bro

the troll strikes again

 

[QuiteAConundrum]

Sept. 17th. I had a horrifying moment today when I realized that I have a class that starts right before the scores should be released, goes for an hour and a half, and I'm one of the last people on this earth without a smartphone 🙁

Go to "the bathroom" aka the computer lab and check. Or have someone else check & text you. Or just wait it out lol.

 

[luisdejesus]

How is everyone holding up? These secondaries are killing me. A new level of burn out.

 

[inycepoo]

View attachment 24852 the troll strikes again

Um...no? Don't most college students have their laptops with them in class most if the time anyway?

 

[gettheleadout]

Um...no? Don't most college students have their laptops with them in class most if the time anyway?

lol seriously what's with the random meaningless troll callouts?

 

[inycepoo]

lol seriously what's with the random meaningless troll callouts?

Didn't you hear? The troll struck again.

 

[Ansar]

Sept. 17th. I had a horrifying moment today when I realized that I have a class that starts right before the scores should be released, goes for an hour and a half, and I'm one of the last people on this earth without a smartphone 🙁

Glad to know I can now mark the day of my doom :cry:

(or happiness...)

 

[member1717]

Haha yah look on a laptop or wait the hour out... it may hurt but you waited over a month so i have faith you can do it 🙂 lol... last yr i had to wait the whole day cause i was too afraid to look haha

Sept. 17th. I had a horrifying moment today when I realized that I have a class that starts right before the scores should be released, goes for an hour and a half, and I'm one of the last people on this earth without a smartphone 🙁

 

[whizplusdum]

Another eternal lurker here.

Took the August 15th mcat and wanted to just generally respond to and perhaps reinforce everyone else's thoughts.

To give everyone a perspective on where I'm coming from, my AAMC average (~3-11,) is (was?) a 29. Only started hitting 30+ on my last few AAMCs (8, 9, and 11).

I wanted to first congratulate everyone for having gotten through yesterday, I can't believe almost all of you and myself are done with this beast (or so we think). It's been a long summer to say the least.

Yesterday was an intense day for many of us who woke up mad early, and I wanted to especially congratulate those who got through it with problems at their testing center. I was lucky not to have any issues getting through the test, excluding not being able to prevent my right hand from shaking on the mouse during the first 10 minutes.

Here are some of my comments, even though many of them have already been stated. I'm glad most of us felt the same in many respects as to what went down in each section.

PS- wow, was all I could think when I finished. PS was my highest score on just about every single AAMC practice test. Usually scored between 10 and 12, but thought I got a 6 by day's end. But if everyone thinks like me, then maybe we got 10s or 11s, who knows. I guessed on the last passage entirely because I ran out of time. Math killed me. I couldn't do a few of them and moved on cause of nerves. Glad I moved on though, but upset I couldn't do them. Convinced I could've done the problems in the good ole' comfort of the AAMC practice tests, but this was the real deal. Overall, I thought PS was ridiculously difficult (just my personal opinion), and wouldn't be surprised if I got a straight 5 if this was an AAMC practice test. Once again, it wasn't. So maybe we all did better than we thought. Just maybe.

Verbal- Like everyone else said, verbal is verbal. Did not at all feel that there was any one passage that I could have gotten 4+ wrong on, which is sometimes the case on the practice tests (damn you picasso). Although it didn't seem too bad, there were at least a dozen questions i felt could go either way (narrowed down to two), but maybe luck was on our side

BS- strange. Felt like the orgo was incredibly difficult. many bio questions seemed like they could also go either way. Seemed that perhaps there were also many questions that were geared towards general biology or genetics researchers, in other words those who have more experience in the field. That's not to say that the average kid studying couldn't do the problems, but that it may have been insanely helpful had we been one. That's as specific as I'll get.

Overall, I really don't know what to think, and I'm sure many of us are in the same boat, just hoping that we score around our averages. Good luck everyone

After the test, I was so shaken, I was like WTH why would such a monster write such a demoralizing test. I ended up scoring it because I know that if I thought the test was difficult, everyone must have had the same issues. Physical was WTF, verbal was okay, but who knows I am retaking it because of verbal (so we will see when i get my score) Bio was really specific. Overall the sciences were intense, the questions were worded poorly. The passages were hard, a few did not even make any sense. I do no know what to think about this exam. I just hope the curve is very generous, seeing how I did not understand 2 passages on the physical portion of the exam and the data did not make any sense. What made it worst was that the questions were worded really tricky to, and for bio, so dam specific! Verbal I might have done okay, bad or good I just hope I did at least an okay.