THE OFFICIAL APRIL 2002 MCAT THREAD!

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Tell us of your hellish experience! I shared mine in a previous thread!
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I already did in one of the other post, but I just wanna to say that at least we all won't taking next year's mcat where PS is first and verbal is 2nd. That can really fry your brains out. You'll be going from a science mentality to a verbal mentality then back to science mentality. I rather take the verbal beast right away and deal with the sciences. BTW, I thought some of the test takers were passing out because people were going crazy about not finishing.
:cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:
 
You guys a going to be like amoeba's this week..just sitting around and not feeling like doing any form of studying for finals,etc. Just take your pseudopod extensions and smoke a nice cigar and tip back the bottle...

I salute all that have taken the dreaded MCAT.
 
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it's over. For now
 
No horror stories here. It was really unorganized though. Like the proctors got there an hour early but only realized at 8:15 that they overbooked the room, so they split us up but made us wait another 45 minutes to get set up. The other section had to wait even longer because one girl forgot her ID card and had to run back to her dorm to get it, then when she came back she forgot her photo ID. But they were really lenient in waiting for her and letting her get off without the photo ID. But everyone else was so pissed at her.
 
.
 
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is it normal to feel like i didnt do as well as my last diag.'s. i feel like it was really hard! :confused:
 
Well, I had form AT and I thought it was friggin hard. Verbal was awful. I guessed on the last 2 passages w/ like 8 minutes to go, so i split it up like 4 min each passage. should have just focused on one and guessed the other. instead, i skimmed both and probably ended up missing a lot on the last two.

PS and BS were plainly hard! I usually have free time both both but had to guessed on last couple of questions today. Bio had no physiology questions...arggh.. and to think i took a physiology class to help w/ mcats...argghhh..... :mad:
 
I had form EK. I thought the verbal reasoning was easier than AAMC V and VI. The PS section sucked. The BS section was normal...just okay. So i dunno! It was definitely challenging. And people with the form AK i heard didn't have to do any calculations whatsoever on their PS section. Weird!
 
OH yeah, and on all the practice tests, i'd finish with a lot of time left...10-20 minutes. For this real one, omg, i was like down to the last 10 seconds, it felt really rushed. Especially my PS section. The BS section was okay, i finished like 5 min. early. That was not expected.
 
Whatever form you had and if the majority of the people shared the same view of the level of difficult then there's not much to worry about, the exam is gonna be normalized. So if you felt you did bad on verbal and everybody else feels the same, then you should receive a reasonable score on that section.
 
Woohoo!!!! We're done!!! Time to burn the MCAT prep books!,... well, I guess I'll wait a bit longer and see my scores before I actually do that. Anyhow, This isn't a major horror story, but the Proctor's timer went off 3 times in the middle of the physical science portion. And they couldn't stop its beeping, so they zipped it up in some bag! And you could still hear the dulled beeping for a while until it finally stopped. What's up with that? Isn't that a bit hypocritical that we'd get kicked out if our timers went off,.. but the proctor has one going off and they don't even bother taking it outside of the room? oh well. i'm still happy that it's finally over!
 
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yes, some duffle bag! how dumb is that?
 
Hey,

Did anyone else take version BM? Seriously, not to bad of a version. Unfortunatly most of the people who took my section probably really well too.

Not to mention, what's up with my version's name. I mean, i study for how long and my test says BM on it. :wink:

Just a short 60 day wait while they grade the damn thing.

Now to tip a bottle, and just try to forget the whole ordeal.

Joe
 
I had form EH.

Suffered a lot as I didn't study at all.

VR was frigging hard....
Man, that passage about being a writer.

PS was ridiculously hard as well...

BS was a medium, but I couldn't answer many questions due to lack of studying... :mad:

I just hope I get in this year.
 
Hey, forgot to mention this.

A girl i go to school with and went to kaplan with forgot her license, ran home to get it, and then when she got back she was too late to take the test!!! A buddy of mine saw her crying in the hall. Now that sucks!!

I felt sick when everyone was telling me about her at lunch. Poor Mary. Anyways, i heard they might let her take it tommorrow.

Joe
 
MuaHAhahahahaHA!!

My I'm in a dark mood now. . .

Congratulations on finishing the MCAT enjoy a brief break because- HEY! It's really not over! =^)

You now get to: finish those personal statements up! Fill out the AMCAS Primary! Sit and feel nervous and agonize until you get your first Secondary App! WooWhooo! HOoray! ;-)
Then you get the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th! And they only give you two weeks to do them!
MuahAhHAHAHAHAHahahHAHAha
=^0
But now, you're getting good at secondaries, you can even cut and paste your 'What was your greatest ethical dilemna and how did you resolve it-essay' from the skeletons of essays past. (BTW They don't wanna know about cheating in class or anything trite)

Okay, a few months has passed, NOW YOU GET AN INTERVIEW! HOooRay! But its on the other side of the continent in city X. :( Who cares! You charge the cost to your credit card You're going to be a Doctor!! Then another school in city X offers you an interview. . . BUT NO MATTER WHAT You can only have that interview 2 WEEKS AFTER your first interview in city X! Oh well. . . Guess you'll have to charge another ticket! What, Can't stay for 5 days or over a Saturday?? Miss too much work/school ?? Guess you'll just have to pay an extra several hundred dollars! And hope someone takes good notes for you!

:cool:

But that's okay, because now you're beginning to see the writing on the wall. :)

It says "Get More Credit Cards"

:^!

So you do.

:^/

OH! Do you own a suit? Tie? Shoes, Belt, Shirt, (spare shirt), and a Buckle? (Remember can't be too conservative ;-) (Ladies, business suit is still the way to go IMHO)
mUAHAHAHAHAHhahahahaHA!
cha-ching! $$$ =^)
And then YOU WAIT :) :) :)
AND WONDER!

What will I be for the rest of my life?

(Sure, you've thought of your answers to the 'what if you don't get in' question, but have you REALLY REALLY thought of it?? It hurts a little doesn't it ;-)

You begin to have some serious suspicions that the mailman harbors a personal vendetta against you for some wrong you've inflicted him in a past life. . .
'Maybe, Just Maybe, he's going through my mail. . . Just throwing out all the thick envelopes and laughing about it'

You start to consider asking your mom/neighbor/girlfriend/roomate what they think of the mail man. But you keep putting it off because it sounds crazy.

Instead you post on SDN asking for support from your fellow inmates, and together you hatch a plan to catch the conspiracy.

And then, one day.

Quite Jadedly.

You open the mailbox.
You wonder why someone sent you a thick envelope. Maybe its junkmail, you've been let down before. . .

But then you recognize the name, the seal, of one of the schools you've interviewed at.

'Calmly' ripping through the envelope. . .You can feel the adrenline now. . .

-And you read the words 'congratulations', or 'welcome to the class of'

-AND IT WAS ALL WORTH IT.

Me; it took me several hours before I read the rest of the words that followed, and not before I'd called and emailed two dozen people.

Best wishes for those of you who just took the MCAT. Now enjoy your time and finish your personal statement. TURN APPS IN EARLY!

Hehe, my wicked little mood has dissipated now. Best luck all. Remember, when it comes down to it, they put your names in a hat, then all the AD COMS pull one out 'till they fill a class.
j/k
;-)
-Oneiro
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Legi:
•I had form EH.

Suffered a lot as I didn't study at all.

VR was frigging hard....
Man, that passage about being a writer.

PS was ridiculously hard as well...

BS was a medium, but I couldn't answer many questions due to lack of studying... :mad:

I just hope I get in this year.•••••I had EH as well. It was DAMNN HARD!! PS was blowing me away... :( I hope I did good enough to get in as well.

Good luck to everyone on thier scores... Now how long do we have to wait??
 
OK. I just got back from Southern NJ to take the MCAT, for what I hope will be the last time. I had form "A", and it was not easy. I took Kaplan, so here it goes:
Verbal: Harder than Kaplan
PS: Conceptual stuff, just like Kaplan
WS: Where IN THE HELL DID THEY GET THOSE PROMPTS? Did they pull some weedhead off the streets, give him a doobie, let him talk, and wrote down the first two incomplete sentences he made? WHEW.
BS: Lot of patient complaint/patient issue passages. Not a lot of orgo. Think it out kinda stuff. No evolution.

I was relaxed all through the test, and I still am. It's not in my hands, and it wasn't the moment I opened the VS test booklet.

FIRST HOOP JUMPED TRHOUGH.
:D
 
The fire alarm went off in the middle of the verbal section!! The proctor told us that it happens all of the time and we should just wait until it stops unless we hear something on the loud speaker. It went about 5 minutes. I did not answer any questions for 5 minutes.
 
I had form DM. I didn't think it was bad at all. No surprises. Time to get a drink..
 
I had form BS and I thought it was pretty OK.

VS: Passages were easy, questions were hard

PS: Touchy, feely physics, but a lot of math! In one problem you had to find the number of ions of Na, and they didn't give Avagadro's number, the bastards.

WS: Typical MCAT bull****. "Progress is complicated and not simple" or something and then "laws cannot change social values"...

BS: One really friggin' hard passage about some damn lambs that had their pituitary glands cut out. Odd. SOme really easy charts. Then Orgo II stuff that I just had a test over on Thursday (alcohols, ethers, carboxlyic acids, aldehydes, ketones, esters)

Did anyone see any biochem or genetics?

Not a lot of physiology.
 
Don't know it this is a double post...sorry..

I had DG

VERBAL was terrible! Everyone at the testing center said it was really hard...

PS was quite easy...Much easier than Kaplan

Writing...I had the progress and social values passage...

Bio was hard, but odd...I had at least 1 genetics passage with a few other genetics questions thrown in...Nothing that Kaplan focused was on the test...I only a 1 or 2 questions about the kidney
 
I had AP and we had that K+ - avogadro problem. Good that I remebered the number though.
 
I think i also had the one about being a writer...was it the one about "gifted young writers?" That was a little tricky. And also the one on concept prototypes whatever the f that was. Yeah, there was quite a bit on there that I didn't actually study but glanced over. My PS section had something on ionization using some simple tube and multiplex plate something or other. Whatever. A lot of "logical" guesswork.
 
I had AP.
VR: we had passages about Plato, language learning. 2/3 we ok and 1/3 was hard. The questions were hard

PS: It was ok. we had that avogadro problem, 2 dopler affect problems

BS: Bio was alright but Orgo was hard

Writting sample: Progress and social values

We started at 9 and left at 6
 
I also had progress and social values. Progress I talked about some dumb **** like how the publication process evolved and made life simpler than before. The other I talked about ancient Roman laws and how they changed societal thinking into becoming more accepting of plebians. Both BS, i just tried to use good vocabulary :) .
 
I created a separate thread for this, but SDN isn't showing it so I thought I'd just post it in here.

Aight, who had form BG? This is what I thought:

Verbal: Eh, it's verbal, can you really ever tell how you did? A couple of the passages were pretty easy, like the one about learning Spanish and another one about violence in the media. I hated the passage on the potato famine of whatever the hell it was. It was such an easy topic, but some of the questions were just %^$&*#^# up. Also, that whole transcendentalism passage can bite me!

Physical Sciences: Really straightforward. Finished with about 15 minutes left, so I got to go back and check all my answers, and work on a few that I wasn't sure about. Only a couple of tricky things on there that you could mess up if u weren't careful, one of em was with the relationship between D(distance), v(velocity) & t(time) in the passage about the ultrasonic waves. The question specified t as the time for the wave to travel to a depth D and back, so u had to use 2D (instead in the equation d=v*t) when solving for the relationship, I think! Overall, very conceptual as always.

Writing Sample: Haha, I don't give a ^*&@! And neither should u!

BIO: Where the hell do they come up with some of these questions? I thought this was the least straightforward of the 3 sections. Something about goats and their pituitary glands how that relates to why like to give birth in the daytime or something? WTF!?!?! Oh yeah, and one of those organic passages was just screwed up. I think they had a typo or two in there. Haha. I don't care no more!

Anyone wanna guess their score? :wink:
 
I wound up with a "CT" form.

Verbal didn't seem too bad, a few passages that they pulled from somewhere (?).

BS wasn't too bad - a few ochem questions amidst some physiology. No lambs! (at least none that I remember...at that point in the day I was feeling the beginning of exhaustion...)

PS? I finished in time, and was really glad we went over quantum in pchem last week. A few "vector" problems. There weren't as many gen chem questions as I had figured there would be.

The writing section...wasn't that fun? Progress and Laws here too.

My day started with an earthquake! I'm in the capital region of NY, and I didn't have a clue what was going on until I got to the mcat check in (it was a great way to break the ice with other people). The proctors were good, but one of them fell asleep and started snoring (no joke, the other proctors had to wake him up). Later he appologized for disrupting us...They did everything as fast as they could, and we were done by 4:30!
 
I had that D=vt thing, too. It should be (1/2)vt because D is a distance one way and t is time it takes for the sound to go back and forth. So you would have to divide it by two.
 
Hey all!

VR. pretty tough...harder than Kaplan
PS. I thought it was a lot easier than Kaplan
WS. Social value + progress.... :(
BS. really involved. immuno, lots of O-Chem, osmo reagulation, discretes were really easy.

Over all I think I am satisfied...except Verbal. I hope that my Kaplan scores end up being a good representation of my future scores in about 6 weeks.
 
Yeah, I had that convoluted passage on lambs with their pituitary and adrenal glands cut out,... it was messed up! I coulda sworn that some of those questions had NO correct answers. I had test form BG.
 
to people who had forms AG or BG,

did you guys think that the ps section was almost too easy? and the bio really really hard?
 
Hey guys... I had FH. It was unexciting. The verbal talked about a lot of stuff I didn't give a damn about. The chick behind me kept kicking me in the ass when she constantly crossed and uncrossed her legs. The girl next to me had webbed feet - which totally distracted me for a couple of minutes during the verbal. Dude on the other side of me had REALLY bad gas and ended up voiding his test (not soon enough for my nose). Physics and gen chem were mostly conceptual - and the essays were on really simple topics. The ochem was easier than expected, as was the biology. I'd tell you guys some of the stupid questions, but we were told not to memorize the questions (as I'm sure you were too). How in the hell do they regulate that?? :confused:
 
i had BG...

verbal wasn't too bad, none of the passages were too dense. the transcendentialism passage was a wee-bit annoying though.

physical was pretty straighforward, basic principles...etc. i ran out of time at the end though and had to bubble in C's for a few answers. doh!

bio was a bit on the hard side. same sentiments w/ everyone else on the pituitary/adrenal gland removal crap and potato famine (seemed like something straight outta verbal!)
 
i had BG and the whole freaking test was not written in English
 
Just curious -- how many people in your test voided it?? Out of 50 people, 5 voided in my test... I don't see how you can go through the stress of taking the damn test then void it. I couldn't do it...
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by LittleMD:
•to people who had forms AG or BG,

did you guys think that the ps section was almost too easy? and the bio really really hard?•••••I think the bio was tough cause of a couple of passages, particularly the one about the lambs and the pituitary glands cut out and junk. Hopefully, that was the experimental passage in that section. Yeah, PS seemed too easy. I'm starting to think that there's some stuff in there that I didn't catch, cause I went back and counted all the questions I was unsure about (narrowed down to two choices), and there were only 4! That would put me at 73/77 or around a 14 (prolly double my verbal score :wink: ), which I don't see happening. Oh well, no point stressing out now. It's over. Woo hoo!
 
I just want to congratulate all of you april MCATers for finishing the worst part of the application process. I remember how horrible I felt after taking the MCAT last April. My best advice is FORGET ABOUT THE TEST FOR NOW!!! Don't think about what you missed or could have missed. Don't think about the strange sheep/glands problems. Relax, have fun, and get a drink tonight. And don't think about it again unitl you get the scores back in June. And when you get the scores back, my advice is do not take them again unless you absoultely have to! Seriously, unless you HAVE to go to a top 5 med. school, don't take them again...not worth it! You will get into med. school with an MCAT score under 30, despite what people say. And you can get in to top 5 schools with an MCAT score under 30. So congrats again, and forget about the test. You are on your way to becoming doctors.
 
I had form CK.

VR: Where am I? What just happened? I didn't even finish. I thought about walking out right after.

PS: Things started to pick up, and I think it went well

Writing: Progress and Laws

BS: Easy stuff (I hope!)

Horror story of the day: no AC in the room. So they opened the windows. Early into the BS section there was some pep rally forming in the quad outside the window. First it started with a few people talking back and form really loud. Then it seemed to grow. One of the proctors went out to ask them to quiet down until we finished (this was right as the DJ was setting up). The DJ agreed to hold off for another 45 minutes. The organizer of the pep rally told the proctor to stick it, they were going to make as much noise as they damn well pleased. So she came back and closed the windows, and the temperature went up and up.

Lots of voiders in my group...Maybe 5 or 6 out of about 40.

Anyone take the test at George Washington in DC? There were lots of protests scheduled downtown today. I didn't hear anything about it yet. I am glad I didn't take it there! (It was my #2 choice).
 
there were ZERO voiders at my testing sight of about 100. For those that did void at other sights, I could not imagine having to go through such a draining ordeal,... just to have it not count at all.
 
Hey, congrats to anyone who just took the mcats. Now take two ibuprofens for the neck pain and PARTY! :wink: (unless I'm the only one who couldn't turn my head after all that reading <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> )

THEN, go buy a comfy beach chair and stick it next to the mailbox so you can get a tan in June while you're camping out there. And even though it takes around 8 weeks (did for me), I bet you'll be checking like crazy starting on June 1st. Maybe get some sunscreen too! <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> I think I lost weight last summer running back and forth to the mailbox all day long!

and btw, you're funny oneiro! LOL! <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />

And I promise, it will all be worth it!!!
 
Is anyone else disturbed when they think about what they studied vs what was actually on the exam? I feel sick everytime I think of that Biological Sciences section. I had the digestive system, lymphatic system, circulatory system, all the damn hormones, all the kidney crap, Krebs cycle, meiosis, mitosis, replication, transcription, translation, all down cold, but hardly any of that stuff was on there!!! I would've done the same on that section if I took it without any studying. Oh dwell. That's life.
 
Our room was damn freezing. I thought that it is better than hot though. There have been about 100 people there. I did not have enough time to finish the hard passge about Plato so I just put all "C" there.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Papa Smurf:
•Is anyone else disturbed when they think about what they studied vs what was actually on the exam? I feel sick everytime I think of that Biological Sciences section. I had the digestive system, lymphatic system, circulatory system, all the damn hormones, all the kidney crap, Krebs cycle, meiosis, mitosis, replication, transcription, translation, all down cold, but hardly any of that stuff was on there!!! I would've done the same on that section if I took it without any studying. Oh dwell. That's life.•••••I took the MCAT cold. (literally no studying since last august).
Verbal - I think I improved at least one point. (I got '6' last time. :D )
PS - It took longer for me to finish but there were only one or two questions which required some studying. (ex. I wasted time deriving motion formula, etc.) I had a tough PS. There was a passage about weird omega sine pendulum functioin, blah blah...

BS - I think I would have gotten 5 more questions right if I had studied. (ex. I got mixed up between extraction and recrystallization, I didn't know what the f* a 'vole' was, I forgot about peaks for C13 NMR, etc....) I had a form EH, but I thought orgo was doable without any studying. About bio.... that $hit had nothing to do with studying. All weird a$$ passages...

I am now praying at least one school takes me off the waitlist.
 
Ok I took mine at St. Johns University

First the seats we sat in were horrible they were hard ass wood seats and they had a little tiny weenie desk board pop up from underneath them that was about the size of my hand. So that made things interesting. Secondly the guy couldnt open up any of the curtains in the room which was a huge auditorium. And he told us to not write to MCAT and say I couldnt see my test well enough due to the lighting situation. We had a black lady proctor who had a nasty face but was dressed to kill. Nice Mammary Glands indeed ! :)

I had test fk
I finished the verbal on time but feel better about this one then other verbals at kaplan. Its funny I cant even remember one passage from it now.

The physical sciences was nice there was very little math involved and maybe only 3 or 4 formula questions which I tried my best on and i think i got. Their was one passage on friggin Quarks that totally blew me away.

The writing sample was hard I thought I had the same as everybody , laws and progress.

The Biological was definitly hard , I had no easy questions. Even my discrete were hard.

WEll CONGRATS TO ALL. Best of LUCK
 
Hey guys,
I took form AG and thought Verbal was weird, I was nervous and couldn't concentrate so I am sure that didn't help, but I thought that some of the questions were difficult even though the passages weren't too tough to get through. That being said the proctor called 5 min when I still had the last two passages to go, so I am not very hapy with verbal.

As for PS I had time to check answers, didn't think it was difficult, but being a grad student in physics I thought some of those questions were a little misleading beacuse of passage wording (i.e. the lightning bolt was specified as a current path in the passage and a question asked what is traveling in the bolt).
BS I thought was pretty easy, but only because Ochem is my weak area and the questions were not bad at all, and the bio I didn't think was hard either, had plenty of time to heck answers.

If anyone else had a ****ty experience with verbal with this test form please share, i would feel better.
 
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