The Official August 16, 2013 MCAT Thread

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gettheleadout

gettheleadout

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Welcome everyone! For those following the SN2ed or a similar 3-month study schedule, prep should begin in the next few weeks.

Hope to see some ambitious and optimistic people here with me, and shout out to the 3/23'ers from before I bailed on that test date.

Let's go!
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A 3/23'er just dropping in to say good luck everybody!! :luck:

Try not to stress out too much :banana:
 
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Can someone explain what kind of structural informations can be obtained from mass spect data? like

what the base peak, parent peak represents? and also the 3:1 ratio for Cl and 1:1 ratio for Br. i dont quite

understand.
 
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gettheleadout said:
I may be remembering incorrectly, but isn't 24 around what you got previously? I don't mean to be foreboding, but I agree that fluctuation over a 7 point range from twenties to thirties is concerning. Are you confident sticking to August for your retake?
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Yes I got a 24 (10/8/6), and despite this last one I'm still trying to stay confident. Reason being my Bio has gone up 4 points since my real MCAT, and my PS has typically been right around 10 except for this last one. There are a couple of weaknesses I have with PS so I'm glad I can identify those now. The real worry I have is VR, which is why I need to try something new. If I totally tank the next couple FLs I'll consider delaying, but for now I'm applying DO as well so I'll just see what happens. Based solely on the fact alone that I've studied my balls off since my last MCAT and taken as many FLs as I have, I feel very confident I can do better on 8/16
 
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jjunior said:
Can someone explain what kind of structural informations can be obtained from mass spect data? like

what the base peak, parent peak represents? and also the 3:1 ratio for Cl and 1:1 ratio for Br. i dont quite

understand.
Click to expand...

The parent peak is the "mass" of the compound because it is just the ionic form of it. The base peak is the highest peak usually and is the peak that corresponds to the most abundant pieces of the compound.

The ratios of for Br are 1:1 because the two isotopes of bromine are 50-50 occurring and the ratios for Cl are because te isotopes are 75-25 occurring.
 
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Hit 13/11/12 on AAMC 3. Happens to be my goal score but I've heard AAMC 3 is the easiest so hopefully review over the next 1.5 weeks can keep it up at that level. Finished PS with 25 minutes and BS with 35 minutes so need to work on using some extra time to avoid the careless mistakes I was making.
 
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99dmg said:
Anyone find that AAMC's passages are way harder to read than EK or TPR's passages?
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Definitely harder to read than EK. EK passages are a joke compared to AAMC, in terms of length and difficulty. I feel that TPR passages are much more reflective of AAMC, however I do find them slightly more difficult to understand because they are SO BORING.
 
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SynapticDoctah said:
The parent peak is the "mass" of the compound because it is just the ionic form of it. The base peak is the highest peak usually and is the peak that corresponds to the most abundant pieces of the compound.

The ratios of for Br are 1:1 because the two isotopes of bromine are 50-50 occurring and the ratios for Cl are because te isotopes are 75-25 occurring.
Click to expand...

thnx!, but can you give an example? such as " if i see this peak at this spot, it indicates this functional group etc? " im still trying to figure out how to analyze it for the MCAT. :scared:

edit: i watched a few videos about mass spect analysis from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBymrFzcaPM , it helped alot. :)
 
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Sarvish said:
Hit 13/11/12 on AAMC 3. Happens to be my goal score but I've heard AAMC 3 is the easiest so hopefully review over the next 1.5 weeks can keep it up at that level. Finished PS with 25 minutes and BS with 35 minutes so need to work on using some extra time to avoid the careless mistakes I was making.
Click to expand...

What the what
 
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Sarvish said:
Hit 13/11/12 on AAMC 3. Happens to be my goal score but I've heard AAMC 3 is the easiest so hopefully review over the next 1.5 weeks can keep it up at that level. Finished PS with 25 minutes and BS with 35 minutes so need to work on using some extra time to avoid the careless mistakes I was making.
Click to expand...

gettheleadout said:
What the what
Click to expand...

I've finished PS with 20-25 minutes left, so I'll buy it. You need to be careful with that BS, though lol
 
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same here I was pretty depressed when I scored a 7 on verbal for AAMC 7. But i told myself i will not let this stop me I have to keep working hard.

Im also taking your approach at reading slower to get the main idea.
 
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O Grady said:
Yes I got a 24 (10/8/6), and despite this last one I'm still trying to stay confident. Reason being my Bio has gone up 4 points since my real MCAT, and my PS has typically been right around 10 except for this last one. There are a couple of weaknesses I have with PS so I'm glad I can identify those now. The real worry I have is VR, which is why I need to try something new. If I totally tank the next couple FLs I'll consider delaying, but for now I'm applying DO as well so I'll just see what happens. Based solely on the fact alone that I've studied my balls off since my last MCAT and taken as many FLs as I have, I feel very confident I can do better on 8/16
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sorry forget to quote which message i was replying too
 
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O Grady said:
I agree that AAMC VR is easier, but I still have a hard time focusing through the entire VR section.

Incidentally, AAMC #7 bent me over today. I was feeling pretty good about stuff until this morning, but I'm trying to not let it get me too down.

Scored a 24 (8PS, 6VR, 10BS) I'm very surprised at my PS since I've been consistently hitting 10's, and idk about VR.... it didn't seem that bad while I was taking it, but while reviewing it I realized I tend to lose focus about halfway through the passage, and end up making a lot of wrong assumptions about the main point and author's view on certain things.

I realize that fluctuations in scores mean serious content weaknesses (so far scored 26, 31, 28, 24), but when my VR is all over the place idk what to do. I'm considering experimenting with drinking a lot of caffeine before my next test to see what happens, as well as taking the reading of VR passages VERY slowly to help me get the main idea.
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darnit quote wrong message...
 
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gettheleadout said:
I'm usually done with PS with 15-20 minutes, but with more than that left and with substantially more than that left over in BS, and without getting 14-15's, that's a problem.
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Yeah BS was a bit dumb of me, it was super late at night (5 am) and I kind of wanted to be done with. PS has just never taken me much time, 2nd year E&M has trained my intuition well. My math is usually very quick and my mistakes are rarely calculation-based.

Going to tackle AAMC 4 tomorrow, I'll force myself to use up the whole time and see how much of a difference it makes.
 
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Sarvish said:
Going to tackle AAMC 4 tomorrow, I'll force myself to use up the whole time and see how much of a difference it makes.
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Don't force yourself to do that. If its natural to you to finish a little bit early, that's fine. Just don't be sloppy and finish quickly at the expense of efficiency.
 
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I'm an aug15er. Good luck to everyone.

I just did aamc 5 (first FL since diagnostic) and got rocked on PS and ran out of time.

8 11 10

Looks like I have some more reviewing to do!
 
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Freakin verbal... I just scored a 31 an AAMC 8 (12PS, 8VR, 11BS). I'm super happy with my sciences but I don't know what the deal is with VR. I've been talking to my brother who is a lawyer about any tips or something to improve my comprehension/reasoning ability. He took the VR section of AAMC 5 and 7 and scored an 11 and 12, and tried to talk me through his reasoning. I know one of my biggest weaknesses is not catching all of the subtleties of the author which keeps me from getting the main idea completely.
 
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Finally broke into the 30s then get a 27 on my most recent FL. Hopefully it was just a bad day. Can't get down in the dumps this close!
 
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O Grady said:
Freakin verbal... I just scored a 31 an AAMC 8 (12PS, 8VR, 11BS). I'm super happy with my sciences but I don't know what the deal is with VR. I've been talking to my brother who is a lawyer about any tips or something to improve my comprehension/reasoning ability. He took the VR section of AAMC 5 and 7 and scored an 11 and 12, and tried to talk me through his reasoning. I know one of my biggest weaknesses is not catching all of the subtleties of the author which keeps me from getting the main idea completely.
Click to expand...

i feel your pain pal, i've been stuck with an 8 for like forever, on all the AAMC practices, and even on the EK101 before... :( everytime i do a verbal section its like im scratching a lottery ticket... :scared:
 
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jjunior said:
i feel your pain pal, i've been stuck with an 8 for like forever, on all the AAMC practices, and even on the EK101 before... :( everytime i do a verbal section its like im scratching a lottery ticket... :scared:
Click to expand...

Haha I'm glad we aren't the only ones, a lot of people struggle with verbal. Its infuriating talking to my brother, because he can't see how I do so poorly, and I can't see how he does so well
 
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What's the best VR material after EK and TPR. I'm going to run out of passages soon. I have Kaplan or TBR.

Also, does anyone know where I can find articles similar to humanities passages that will help me with comprehension on the dense passages?
 
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Did anyone do passages from the Official MCAT Guide Book? I'm scoring 13+ on the AAMC FL's and these passages make me feel like stupid. :(
 
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Gooood luck next week guys! Especially for the first time takers, Remember the MCAT isn't everything and that no matter how well/poorly you do, life goes on. Back when I started studying for the mcat the beginning of last summer, I treated it as if it were my life's fate and ended up isolating a lot of friends and family and feeling depressed/stressed all the time because I wasn't scoring as high as other SDNers. It took me 2 attempts and an entire year for me to finally be done with this test. Looking back, I can't believe how silly I was sacrificing a lot of family/friends time for studying for this test.

Remember to keep a positive attitude and don't let this test emotionally drain you. There are much more important things in life than the mcat.
 
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Has anyone done AAMC 10? I have a question below about one of the PS passages (in white)

Why does oleic acid lie down in HCl?
 
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99dmg said:
Has anyone done AAMC 10? I have a question below about one of the PS passages (in white)

Why does oleic acid lie down in HCl?
Click to expand...

My response in white:

The passage states that the oleic acid stands straight up in water, which is due to the long carbon chain not being soluble in water, or hydrophobic, similar to the phospholipid bilayer of a cell. The polar head of oleic acid stays in the water because it is hydrophilic, while the carbon chain tries to get as far away from the water as possible. Speculating why it lies down in HCl is a little more tricky. I think that it lies down in HCl because HCl acidifies the solution allowing for the carbon chain to be more comfortable in the solution. Also, the electronegativity difference for HCl is about .9 while water is 1.4, so HCl is less polar than water which may also lead to the carbon chain coming down. I'm just speculating, I researched a little because I was wondering the same thing and I couldn't really find anything besides what I just said!

99dmg, nothing wrong with asking a question for learning's sake though!
 
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ElectricSlide19 said:
My response in white:
*snip*
Click to expand...

Rebuttal in white:

This doesn't make any sense though. Acid solution would actually be more dipolar than neutral solution, since the total osmolarity of ions vs neutral water molecules is greater. Further, the electronegativity difference is irrelevant because the H-Cl bond is virtually nonexistent in solution; all of the HCl ionizes to H+ and Cl-, and ion-dipole interactions stronger than dipole-dipole interactions would make the solution more resistant to interaction with a non-polar substance, not less.
 
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Also, I have a question for everyone about the AAMC FLs, as far as the scaled score, is it based off of people who took this test in the past when it was an actual MCAT (Were the AAMC FLs actual MCATs??) or is it based off of how easy the test makers thought the passages were? For example GTLO brought up the scaled score for VR in AAMC 10, which is much higher than other FLs, does this mean that the test makers thought this section was easy and people are scoring higher on it?
 
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ElectricSlide19 said:
Also, I have a question for everyone about the AAMC FLs, as far as the scaled score, is it based off of people who took this test in the past when it was an actual MCAT (Were the AAMC FLs actual MCATs??) or is it based off of how easy the test makers thought the passages were? For example GTLO brought up the scaled score for VR in AAMC 10, which is much higher than other FLs, does this mean that the test makers thought this section was easy and people are scoring higher on it?
Click to expand...

The FL's aren't necessarily identical to actual exams given in the past, but the questions themselves are. So the fact that the VR scale on AAMC 10 is harsh suggests that the distribution of question difficulty in 10's VR is such that it contains more questions that previous test takers answered more correctly overall than another FL with a more lenient scale. The test makers rate each question for difficulty by presenting it during an actual MCAT as an unscored item, and looking at the percentage of examinees that got it right. The individual exam scales allow equivalent scaled scores to be reported for equal skill performance on exams of different overall difficulty.
 
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My hypothesis in white

In pure water, oleic acid stands straight up due to the water molecules having a tight lattice and thus squishes the acid part of oleic acid so it can have its vertical orientation.
When HCl is added, the ordered H-bonding of the water breaks up and there is not enough force to keep the oleic acid molecules vertical so they fall down.
 
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quick question guys,

for determining priority for chirality or E/Z alkene etc, do we look at atomic number or atomic mass?
 
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Quick question on enzymes:

Say you have Peptide A, which stimulates the production of X. If you add Peptide B (a competitive inhibitor of Peptide A, and which does NOT stimulate the production of X) in increasing concentrations, why would the concentration of X decrease instead of staying the same? I get that with less activated A you'd have less production of X, but what about the X that's already been made? Shouldn't the concentration stay the same, since Peptide B has no direct effect on it?
 
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aesculapian said:
Quick question on enzymes:

Say you have Peptide A, which stimulates the production of X. If you add Peptide B (a competitive inhibitor of Peptide A, and which does NOT stimulate the production of X) in increasing concentrations, why would the concentration of X decrease instead of staying the same? I get that with less activated A you'd have less production of X, but what about the X that's already been made? Shouldn't the concentration stay the same, since Peptide B has no direct effect on it?
Click to expand...

I know which passage you're referring to. Explanation in white:

The level of osteoblatin levels off even with increasing levels of Peptide A only, meaning there is some breakdown process catabolizing osteoblatin that exists in equilibrium with it's formation. If there weren't, then we would never see the level of osteoblatin level off. Thus, when we increase inhibition of Peptide A, we decrease the rate of osteoblatin synthesis while the breakdown rate remains constant (presumably, since none of these drugs are known to affect the breakdown enzymes and the data don't give us reason to believe they do), meaning there exists, past some point, a net breakdown of osteoblatin in culture. The concentration decreases.
 
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My verbal is getting ridiculously consistent. Out of 7 passages, I get either 2 or 3 perfect, 2 or 3 with 1 wrong, and then 1 with 3 wrong putting me at an 11 most of the time. I was hoping to pull it up 1 more point by the test but I don't know if I can see improvement in 5 days.

My mistakes are at the point where if I go back to a question that I know I got wrong, I can immediately pick out the correct answer.

The fact that the difference between an 11 and a 12 is based on 8 minutes of my life and can determine my acceptance is frightening.
 
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How do you guys keep track of names given in the passage. I just read a passage with probably around 15 different names given (first and last) and found it difficult to keep track of all the details.

On a broader note, how do you guys deal with the passages that have lots of specific details/lists in general?
 
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after studying all day, decided to take a break and sdn it--i've rescheduled the mcat sooo many times and finally have made 8/16 my day...with that being said...if you guys need quick refreshers on certain topics, I found "i-Tunes U" today...I had no idea what it was until I started exploring...apparently you can get free access to all kinds of classes and I am watching some lectures on stuff that I learned a long time ago (like embryology, for example). Anyways, hope that helps...1 week!
 
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gettheleadout said:
I know which passage you're referring to. Explanation in white:

The level of osteoblatin levels off even with increasing levels of Peptide A only, meaning there is some breakdown process catabolizing osteoblatin that exists in equilibrium with it's formation. If there weren't, then we would never see the level of osteoblatin level off. Thus, when we increase inhibition of Peptide A, we decrease the rate of osteoblatin synthesis while the breakdown rate remains constant (presumably, since none of these drugs are known to affect the breakdown enzymes and the data don't give us reason to believe they do), meaning there exists, past some point, a net breakdown of osteoblatin in culture. The concentration decreases.
Click to expand...

You are an absolute gem of a person-- this clears it up immensely. THANK YOU
 
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