The Official August 2015 MCAT Thread

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itsallgood92 said:
if you don't mind me asking, how did you score on the AAMC FL before your first attempt? I took it thursday as well, but definitely just feel really iffy about the whole thing. Do you think this time went a lot smoother?
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I agree with the iffy feeling. I took it on thurs as well and feel ambivalent about the whole thing. I didn't feel like there were any questions that were particularly difficult, but still some answer choices were ambiguous enough to leave me with a feeling of post-exam anxiety 😕
 
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itsallgood92 said:
if you don't mind me asking, how did you score on the AAMC FL before your first attempt? I took it thursday as well, but definitely just feel really iffy about the whole thing. Do you think this time went a lot smoother?
Click to expand...
It definitely did. last time I didn't finish B/B or C/P but I was able to finish on thursday. I just used 15 minutes for the free standings and then 8 minutes per passage. On the full length I got C/P: 46/59, Cars: 40/53, B/B: 50/59, P/C: 44/59
 
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WaSei89 said:
Okay I did battle with the MCAT this past Thursday. This is my second time taking this thing. First time: 128-126-127-123
Second time:
CP: This has always been my strong area, went fairly well. I agree with some of the other post here. Get familiar with your amino acids. As one who has faced it twice, amino acids are a must. Most importantly the groupings and of cause the strange ones. I found this section quite a breeze on thursday, It was a bit more mathematical than usual which was to my liking. So hoping for atleast 128
Cars: Cars cars cars thou art a mean lady. First of all it started out nicely then went DARK very quickly but still managed to finish on time. Was just unsure on some of the answers. I did take a 126
B/B: This section wasn't bad. I might have eaten more than i needed to during break so started off a bit sluggish but finished in ample time to go back and check on the previous questions. But fairly manageable. There is a lot of emphasis on knowledge and facts on here but i personally believe that future test takers should be more focused on working the passages. Lets face it how often do we really get a question wrong because we didn't know the concepts???
P/S: This section was like I was in the twilight zone!!! some unfamiliar concepts. but mostly abstract experimental stuff.
Verdict: People taking it later in August. QUIT STRESSING, if you read the psych book, stressing lowers performance. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE and then learn from your mistakes. There is no substitute for PRACTICE. and if experiments are not your friend, pick up examkrackers verbal/ experimental/ mathematics book and READ. it was GREAT all that bull about control group, independent, dependent variables blah blah. Even if you think you know it, get even more comfortable because going through passages, identifying hypothesis, independent varaible, dependent variable and conclusion will serve you NICELY!!
Good luck everyone and remember, there are no easy roads to places worth going.
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What practice items did you feel helped you the best?
 
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FutureMrDr said:
I agree with the iffy feeling. I took it on thurs as well and feel ambivalent about the whole thing. I didn't feel like there were any questions that were particularly difficult, but still some answer choices were ambiguous enough to leave me with a feeling of post-exam anxiety 😕
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It's been the general feeling around these parts so hopefully that counts to our advantage,but I generally make a habit of not stressing over things I have no control over. You took it, you survived now focus on other areas of your application and soon enough you will be chilling in your WHITE COAT!
 
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Can someone confirm this score conversion for me? Thx~! ^_^

C/P 83% --> 127
CARS 75% --> 126
B/B 90% --> 128
P/S 75% --> 127

Total: 508??
 
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FutureMrDr said:
I agree with the iffy feeling. I took it on thurs as well and feel ambivalent about the whole thing. I didn't feel like there were any questions that were particularly difficult, but still some answer choices were ambiguous enough to leave me with a feeling of post-exam anxiety 😕
Click to expand...

I know man, I literally can't stop looking up answers that I remember from my exam. For me, the C/P going in was my best section, but I just got hit with calcs that I haven't done in forever, and I've never really been strong in CARS. I did alright on the AAMC FL, so I'm really hoping the trend holds up!

WaSei89 said:
It definitely did. last time I didn't finish B/B or C/P but I was able to finish on thursday. I just used 15 minutes for the free standings and then 8 minutes per passage. On the full length I got C/P: 46/59, Cars: 40/53, B/B: 50/59, P/C: 44/59
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Wow, thats awesome! I think you should take it as a good sign especially if you still got a 128 in c/p and a 127 in b/b the first time. I'm sure you crushed it this time around.
 
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itsallgood92 said:
I know man, I literally can't stop looking up answers that I remember from my exam. For me, the C/P going in was my best section, but I just got hit with calcs that I haven't done in forever, and I've never really been strong in CARS. I did alright on the AAMC FL, so I'm really hoping the trend holds up!



Wow, thats awesome! I think you should take it as a good sign especially if you still got a 128 in c/p and a 127 in b/b the first time. I'm sure you crushed it this time around.
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Thanks!! Hopefully we're chilling in white coats at the end of all these struggles
 
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centillion said:
So I studied all last summer for the old MCAT, which I did fine on but wasn't confident would get me into the schools I wanted to go to. And for that I basically did the SN2ed method with lots of passage prep and I think close to twenty FLs.
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This is the secret. There are so many people making flashcards nowadays, which can be a little helpful but not as useful as actually doing passages and working through those flashcard topics in context. And passage prep is key, not just question prep. The people who have stuck by the time-tested SN2ed method seem to be nailing some very good scores, so best of luck!!!
 
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This thread is crazy to me haha. Mainly because I got an 83% on C/P on the FL, and 83% on Chem Q Pack and a 90% on Physics Q pack and I thought C/P was hard. After the Kaplan score update my scores were around 509 or 510. If I got that on this exam I'll be happy. Agree with above posters that I seem to just be more nervous than most people on this thread.
 
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Hey guys... just curious, has anyone gotten to Kaplan FL 10&11 yet? I just took 10 today... Chem seemed a little tougher.. thoughts anyone else?
Thoughts on TPR4? Thats the next test on the to-do list... TPR 3 Chem also seemed a little tough (Uh oh, i see a trend here on my part lol :whistle:)
 
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Hey guys, Is 504 on Kaplan FL1 (126/125/127/126) on their updated score terrible if I'm aiming for 510+? I still have a month left but this is my lowest score yet. My confidence is blown since I'm a retaker and I need to score higher than my previous score (a composite score of 32).

Would appreciate any thoughts.
 
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Just took the MCAT two days ago and here's my 2 cents on it.

Chem/Phys: I felt the section was alright....didn't feel bad about it but didn't feel like I nailed it either. I marked around 12 and then checked up on the answers to the ones I was unsure about when I got home and predicted that missed 2. Lots of calculations, but all of them were easy. Definitely know the structures of all your amino acids and understand pI and net charge. Guessing a score of 131-132

CARS: I've always been weak on verbal and it was a nightmare come true. I'm just hoping my performance on the other 3 sections will make up for it. The passages were ridiculously long and the questions were wordier and more nuanced. I can't believe I had 3 minutes to spare afterwards to check my answers. Still I think I did horrible. I marked around 15 and eliminated everything down to two choices. Assuming random guessing, you can get around 50% right or miss 7 or 8 questions, but I give myself a margin and say I miss 10 for a score around 127ish.

Bio: This section was pretty easy. Felt like I nailed it. Even though it was heavy on experiments, I feel my extensive background in basic science research really helped. All the experiments were ones that I've performed myself and knew how to interpret. I marked only a handful and got all of them right after checking. Expecting a perfect score here.

Psych: I walked out feeling meh on it. The section only had 2 or 3 questions with unfamiliar terms....the rest was heavy on graph and data table interpretation. Marked around 15, checked all the answers I was unsure about when I got home and expecting to miss 2-5 on this section for a score of around 129-130.

Overall predicting a score of 515-520 ish. Compared to AAMC practice, the experiments presented were easier, but the exam is still very heavy on critical thinking, nuanced knowledge, and research interpretation overall. For my prep, I used all of the material from a Kaplan online course I took and EK. I would have to say neither resource by itself would have been sufficient on its own. There was some knowledge-based questions that only the Kaplan prep books had, but the EK practice tests were the most similar to the test. For prep, I would recommend reading all the Kaplan and EK books, but only doing the EK practice tests. I averaged 75-86% on EK chem/phys, below 75% on CARS, and 80-86 on bio and psych. If I score well on this exam, I will make a document sheet on exactly how I prepped. In the meantime, I'd love to answer any questions anyone may have.
 
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FauxBlue said:
Can someone confirm this score conversion for me? Thx~! ^_^

C/P 83% --> 127
CARS 75% --> 126
B/B 90% --> 128
P/S 75% --> 127

Total: 508??
Click to expand...

Anyone? This is my OG score, but most people mention that the OG is not representative of our score for the actual MCAT since this is only a half length...how am I doing? I want to get 509+
 
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princessbooty said:
Just took the MCAT two days ago and here's my 2 cents on it.

Chem/Phys: I felt the section was alright....didn't feel bad about it but didn't feel like I nailed it either. I marked around 12 and then checked up on the answers to the ones I was unsure about when I got home and predicted that missed 2-7. Lots of calculations, but all of them were easy. Definitely know the structures of all your amino acids and understand pI and net charge. Guessing a score of 129-131

CARS: I've always been weak on verbal and it was a nightmare come true. I'm just hoping my performance on the other 3 sections will make up for it. The passages were ridiculously long and the questions were wordier and more nuanced. I can't believe I had 3 minutes to spare afterwards to check my answers. Still I think I did horrible. I marked around 15 and eliminated everything down to two choices. Assuming random guessing, you can get around 50% right or miss 7 or 8 questions, but I give myself a margin and say I miss 10 for a score around 127ish.

Bio: This section was pretty easy. Felt like I nailed it. Even though it was heavy on experiments, I feel my extensive background in basic science research really helped. All the experiments were ones that I've performed myself and knew how to interpret. I marked only a handful and got all of them right after checking. Expecting a perfect score here.

Psych: I walked out feeling meh on it. The section only had 2 or 3 questions with unfamiliar terms....the rest was heavy on graph and data table interpretation. Marked around 15, checked all the answers I was unsure about when I got home and expecting to miss 3-7 on this section for a score of around 129-131.

Overall predicting a score of 515-520 ish. Compared to AAMC practice, the experiments presented were easier, but the exam is still very heavy on critical thinking, nuanced knowledge, and research interpretation overall. For my prep, I used all of the material from a Kaplan online course I took and EK. I would have to say neither resource by itself would have been sufficient on its own. There was some knowledge-based questions that only the Kaplan prep books had, but the EK practice tests were the most similar to the test. For prep, I would recommend reading all the Kaplan and EK books, but only doing the EK practice tests. I averaged 75-86% on EK chem/phys, below 75% on CARS, and 80-86 on bio and psych. If I score well on this exam, I will make a document sheet on exactly how I prepped. In the meantime, I'd love to answer any questions anyone may have.
Click to expand...


what did you do in the last 2 weeks before your exam??? just rotating between FL and review day/content review for weaknesses?? or did you do some passages from khan academy and maybe 2 FLs per week???
 
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Guys thoughts on rescheduling? I just took 3/4 of the TPR demo yesterday and got destroyed. 122 on C/P, 125 B/S, 123 on CARS (I'm saving P/S for later). I've been taking the old AAMC FLs and have been averaging 70-80% on each section so I thought I was okay but wow major wake up call here. I was going to take the official AAMC this weekend but I'm hesitating and debating on rescheduling. Thoughts?

Add: The C/P passages seemed extremely long.. For those that have taken the official AAMC and the new MCAT, are the AAMC passages as long/dense?
 
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princessbooty said:
Just took the MCAT two days ago and here's my 2 cents on it.

Chem/Phys: I felt the section was alright....didn't feel bad about it but didn't feel like I nailed it either. I marked around 12 and then checked up on the answers to the ones I was unsure about when I got home and predicted that missed 2-7. Lots of calculations, but all of them were easy. Definitely know the structures of all your amino acids and understand pI and net charge. Guessing a score of 129-131

CARS: I've always been weak on verbal and it was a nightmare come true. I'm just hoping my performance on the other 3 sections will make up for it. The passages were ridiculously long and the questions were wordier and more nuanced. I can't believe I had 3 minutes to spare afterwards to check my answers. Still I think I did horrible. I marked around 15 and eliminated everything down to two choices. Assuming random guessing, you can get around 50% right or miss 7 or 8 questions, but I give myself a margin and say I miss 10 for a score around 127ish.

Bio: This section was pretty easy. Felt like I nailed it. Even though it was heavy on experiments, I feel my extensive background in basic science research really helped. All the experiments were ones that I've performed myself and knew how to interpret. I marked only a handful and got all of them right after checking. Expecting a perfect score here.

Psych: I walked out feeling meh on it. The section only had 2 or 3 questions with unfamiliar terms....the rest was heavy on graph and data table interpretation. Marked around 15, checked all the answers I was unsure about when I got home and expecting to miss 3-7 on this section for a score of around 129-131.

Overall predicting a score of 515-520 ish. Compared to AAMC practice, the experiments presented were easier, but the exam is still very heavy on critical thinking, nuanced knowledge, and research interpretation overall. For my prep, I used all of the material from a Kaplan online course I took and EK. I would have to say neither resource by itself would have been sufficient on its own. There was some knowledge-based questions that only the Kaplan prep books had, but the EK practice tests were the most similar to the test. For prep, I would recommend reading all the Kaplan and EK books, but only doing the EK practice tests. I averaged 75-86% on EK chem/phys, below 75% on CARS, and 80-86 on bio and psych. If I score well on this exam, I will make a document sheet on exactly how I prepped. In the meantime, I'd love to answer any questions anyone may have.
Click to expand...

Congrats on being done!!
Did you take all 11 Kaplan tests? Which EK test (if you had to choose) was the most representative/best in your opinion?
 
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lostnconfused said:
Guys thoughts on rescheduling? I just took 3/4 of the TPR demo yesterday and got destroyed. 122 on C/P, 125 B/S, 123 on CARS (I'm saving P/S for later). I've been taking the old AAMC FLs and have been averaging 70-80% on each section so I thought I was okay but wow major wake up call here. I was going to take the official AAMC this weekend but I'm hesitating and debating on rescheduling. Thoughts?

Add: The C/P passages seemed extremely long.. For those that have taken the official AAMC and the new MCAT, are the AAMC passages as long/dense?
Click to expand...

1. TPR is hard and borderline completely unrepresentative. Check the link I posted a few posts above.
2. No idea why you're using the old practice tests for anything outside of the CARS equivalent. It won't be representative either.
3. Take the AAMC official because your practices thus far have been unhelpful in determining where you really are. If you don't want to take the AAMC FL yet (idk if you feel like you'd be wasting it), take an EK ($50 per).
 
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StudyLater said:
1. TPR is hard and borderline completely unrepresentative. Check the link I posted a few posts above.
2. No idea why you're using the old practice tests for anything outside of the CARS equivalent. It won't be representative either.
3. Take the AAMC official because your practices thus far have been unhelpful in determining where you really are. If you don't want to take the AAMC FL yet (idk if you feel like you'd be wasting it), take an EK ($50 per).
Click to expand...
That's what I had planned on doing - taking an EK tomorrow instead of the official AAMC. (Also, I thought they were $35 holy hell. Did it go up?? O.O)
 
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FutureMrDr said:
I agree with the iffy feeling. I took it on thurs as well and feel ambivalent about the whole thing. I didn't feel like there were any questions that were particularly difficult, but still some answer choices were ambiguous enough to leave me with a feeling of post-exam anxiety 😕
Click to expand...

Yeah I think we're all feeling that way. Not terrible but not great, thinking our score could end up anywhere from 510-520.

FauxBlue said:
Can someone confirm this score conversion for me? Thx~! ^_^

C/P 83% --> 127
CARS 75% --> 126
B/B 90% --> 128
P/S 75% --> 127

Total: 508??
Click to expand...

B/B should be 130-131 with 90% right.
 
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princessbooty said:
Just took the MCAT two days ago and here's my 2 cents on it.

Chem/Phys: I felt the section was alright....didn't feel bad about it but didn't feel like I nailed it either. I marked around 12 and then checked up on the answers to the ones I was unsure about when I got home and predicted that missed 2-7. Lots of calculations, but all of them were easy. Definitely know the structures of all your amino acids and understand pI and net charge. Guessing a score of 129-131

CARS: I've always been weak on verbal and it was a nightmare come true. I'm just hoping my performance on the other 3 sections will make up for it. The passages were ridiculously long and the questions were wordier and more nuanced. I can't believe I had 3 minutes to spare afterwards to check my answers. Still I think I did horrible. I marked around 15 and eliminated everything down to two choices. Assuming random guessing, you can get around 50% right or miss 7 or 8 questions, but I give myself a margin and say I miss 10 for a score around 127ish.

Bio: This section was pretty easy. Felt like I nailed it. Even though it was heavy on experiments, I feel my extensive background in basic science research really helped. All the experiments were ones that I've performed myself and knew how to interpret. I marked only a handful and got all of them right after checking. Expecting a perfect score here.

Psych: I walked out feeling meh on it. The section only had 2 or 3 questions with unfamiliar terms....the rest was heavy on graph and data table interpretation. Marked around 15, checked all the answers I was unsure about when I got home and expecting to miss 3-7 on this section for a score of around 129-131.

Overall predicting a score of 515-520 ish. Compared to AAMC practice, the experiments presented were easier, but the exam is still very heavy on critical thinking, nuanced knowledge, and research interpretation overall. For my prep, I used all of the material from a Kaplan online course I took and EK. I would have to say neither resource by itself would have been sufficient on its own. There was some knowledge-based questions that only the Kaplan prep books had, but the EK practice tests were the most similar to the test. For prep, I would recommend reading all the Kaplan and EK books, but only doing the EK practice tests. I averaged 75-86% on EK chem/phys, below 75% on CARS, and 80-86 on bio and psych. If I score well on this exam, I will make a document sheet on exactly how I prepped. In the meantime, I'd love to answer any questions anyone may have.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the in-depth review!

I'll second the EK FL question: Which one/ones did you think were most true to the style of the MCAT? I'll only have time to squeeze in 1-2 before test day.
Also, what about the EK 30-minute exams? Are those representative of the style of questions found on the MCAT?
 
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yungspleen said:
How much did taking the aamc practice test actually help? I have 14 days left and feel like my time could be better spent actually reviewing. I've taken a a tpr practice test and got a 508 on it which seems pretty good for tpr and i think my time for the next 12 days of studying (taking off the day before the test) would be better spent doing tougher passages from the berkeley review and studying psych/soc than taking another full length (i also took some aamc full lengths for the old mcat already). Thoughts?
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Absolutely worth your time to take the AAMC FL. No other tests like it. Helps test day not seem like a surprise, which is big for your psychological well-being while you're taking the test.
 
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Scored a 493 on Kaplan FL6 today. No way am I going to score close to 500 on the actual test. UGH! I get more and more disappointed after each test (especially since these are the scores from Kaplan's updated scale).
 
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lostnconfused said:
That's what I had planned on doing - taking an EK tomorrow instead of the official AAMC. (Also, I thought they were $35 holy hell. Did it go up?? O.O)
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$50 each when I got them. Whaddya gonna do?

yungspleen said:
How much did taking the aamc practice test actually help? I have 14 days left and feel like my time could be better spent actually reviewing. I've taken a a tpr practice test and got a 508 on it which seems pretty good for tpr and i think my time for the next 12 days of studying (taking off the day before the test) would be better spent doing tougher passages from the berkeley review and studying psych/soc than taking another full length (i also took some aamc full lengths for the old mcat already). Thoughts?
Click to expand...

You did so damn well you should be telling us what to do.

But yeah, one FL, and one as useful as the AAMC FL, shouldn't hurt, right?
 
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podiatrytime said:
Scored a 493 on Kaplan FL6 today. No way am I going to score close to 500 on the actual test. UGH! I get more and more disappointed after each test (especially since these are the scores from Kaplan's updated scale).
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Kaplan sucks, except for content review, in which they are excessively thorough (except for psych/soc where they just blatantly left some things out). Check the practice comparison thread. I believe it's like TPR where you add 10 to get a rough estimate.
 
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yungspleen said:
How much did taking the aamc practice test actually help? I have 14 days left and feel like my time could be better spent actually reviewing. I've taken a a tpr practice test and got a 508 on it which seems pretty good for tpr and i think my time for the next 12 days of studying (taking off the day before the test) would be better spent doing tougher passages from the berkeley review and studying psych/soc than taking another full length (i also took some aamc full lengths for the old mcat already). Thoughts?
Click to expand...

not to scare you man, but I was hitting 508's to 511's on TPR FL's and I went in to the AAMC FL thinking I was gonna blow it out of the water, but didn't. Granted I still got a decent score on it, the style of the passages and questions are just completely different. Anyways my advice, is to not get complacent over company scores and make sure you do ALL the AAMC stuff and stick as much as you can to the AAMC outline.
 
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itsallgood92 said:
not to scare you man, but I was hitting 508's to 511's on TPR FL's and I went in to the AAMC FL thinking I was gonna blow it out of the water, but didn't. Granted I still got a decent score on it, the style of the passages and questions are just completely different. Anyways my advice, is to not get complacent over company scores and make sure you do ALL the AAMC stuff and stick as much as you can to the AAMC outline.
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Numbers on the AAMC FL?
 
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FauxBlue said:
Anyone? This is my OG score, but most people mention that the OG is not representative of our score for the actual MCAT since this is only a half length...how am I doing? I want to get 509+
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I google imaged "2015 MCAT score conversion" and they give you charts on how you would score on the old MCAT based on the number of questions you get right/wrong and other charts that correlate your old MCAT score on each section to the sections on the new exam. I used this scale to predict my score based on how many questions I missed on the new exam. It seems like if you miss 7 or fewer questions on a section (that's high 80's in terms of percentiles) you can get at least a 129 and any percentile above 90 is easily 130 or above. But then again, the scale isn't set in stone b/c AAMC ends up curving the exam based on how others score anyways.....Hope that helps.
 
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itsallgood92 said:
not to scare you man, but I was hitting 508's to 511's on TPR FL's and I went in to the AAMC FL thinking I was gonna blow it out of the water, but didn't. Granted I still got a decent score on it, the style of the passages and questions are just completely different. Anyways my advice, is to not get complacent over company scores and make sure you do ALL the AAMC stuff and stick as much as you can to the AAMC outline.
Click to expand...

You just have to be careful and realize that even if the real AAMC stuff is easier than what you've done, it's still not "easy." I had this problem when switching from Kaplan stuff to exclusively AAMC material in the weeks before the test.
 
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UNMedGa said:
You just have to be careful and realize that even if the real AAMC stuff is easier than what you've done, it's still not "easy." I had this problem when switching from Kaplan stuff to exclusively AAMC material in the weeks before the test.
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Yea I definitely agree with that. I ended up taking 15 Fl's to drive my content review, but the switch to AAMC stuff was weird for me and I underestimated it. whereas in TPR or Kaplan I could get away with not reading the passage and getting more pseudo-discretes, the AAMC stuff takes way more critical thinking and hammers you hard if you didn't get the main idea of the passage/experiment.
 
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sandboxplaya said:
Congrats on being done!!
Did you take all 11 Kaplan tests? Which EK test (if you had to choose) was the most representative/best in your opinion?
Click to expand...

Yes I did take all Kaplan tests, and quite honestly, I thought they were a waste of time. I wished I had just skipped ahead in my study schedule and just used the EK exams, which more than sufficient for practice. EK has released 4 practice tests and the newest one (the 4th one) was the most representative. The chem/phys section on the first exam was ridiculously hard and I scored only a 68%. On the fourth, I scored a 86%, which correlated the most to my AAMC practice test score for chem/phys (88%). The verbal on EK is ridiculous, but I think is good prep, given how bad verbal was on the actual exam. Kaplan verbal passages are not long enough and their questions aren't as long and wordy as on the actual exam and EK. Bio and psych were pretty comparable as well. Hope that helps.
 
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itsallgood92 said:
C/P: 86%, CARS:64%, Bio:83%, P/S:85%

Hoping that CARS was just a fluke though. I did the q-packs after switching back to the EK method and got 81% on CARS 1 and 79% on CARS 2
Click to expand...

Good job - those CARS Q-packs are a lot harder than the CARS on the real exam tends to be. One key rule of thumb when taking the CARS section on the new MCAT - just realize they're not trying to trick you - follow the text as closely as possible when answering and you should be fine.
 
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princessbooty said:
Yes I did take all Kaplan tests, and quite honestly, I thought they were a waste of time. I wished I had just skipped ahead in my study schedule and just used the EK exams, which more than sufficient for practice. EK has released 4 practice tests and the newest one (the 4th one) was the most representative. The chem/phys section on the first exam was ridiculously hard and I scored only a 68%. On the fourth, I scored a 86%, which correlated the most to my AAMC practice test score for chem/phys (88%). The verbal on EK is ridiculous, but I think is good prep, given how bad verbal was on the actual exam. Kaplan verbal passages are not long enough and their questions aren't as long and wordy as on the actual exam and EK. Bio and psych were pretty comparable as well. Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Really? Interesting, I thought the Kaplan stuff was much harder. Much more weird-abstract philosophy crap and more convoluted questions.. I felt like the AAMC stuff was more straightforward.
 
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UNMedGa said:
Good job - those CARS Q-packs are a lot harder than the CARS on the real exam tends to be. One key rule of thumb when taking the CARS section on the new MCAT - just realize they're not trying to trick you - follow the text as closely as possible when answering and you should be fine.
Click to expand...

I mean I hope so lol. I took the exam 2 days ago, so it's out of my hands now.
 
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itsallgood92 said:
C/P: 86%, CARS:64%, Bio:83%, P/S:85%

Hoping that CARS was just a fluke though. I did the q-packs after switching back to the EK method and got 81% on CARS 1 and 79% on CARS 2
Click to expand...

Wait....that correlates pretty darn well with your TPR scores based on the data in the practice score thread.

Point is you kicked ass on TPR, then kicked ass on the AAMC FL. Therefore you will kick ass on the exam.
 
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@UNMedGa Hey wait, aren't you supposed to be off SDN and enjoying life since you're done? Damn. Taking the Good Samaritan thing a little too serious, my friend 😉 Possibly quite literally if you are into Neuro/NS....
 
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princessbooty said:
Yes I did take all Kaplan tests, and quite honestly, I thought they were a waste of time. I wished I had just skipped ahead in my study schedule and just used the EK exams, which more than sufficient for practice. EK has released 4 practice tests and the newest one (the 4th one) was the most representative. The chem/phys section on the first exam was ridiculously hard and I scored only a 68%. On the fourth, I scored a 86%, which correlated the most to my AAMC practice test score for chem/phys (88%). The verbal on EK is ridiculous, but I think is good prep, given how bad verbal was on the actual exam. Kaplan verbal passages are not long enough and their questions aren't as long and wordy as on the actual exam and EK. Bio and psych were pretty comparable as well. Hope that helps.
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Great, Thanks!!
How did the last few Kaplan's(9-11) feel in comparison to the Chem/Phys section, Bio/Biochem, Psych/Soc? ... just trying to gauge things... I took all the AAMC practice and have a good idea from there, but would be interested in your opinion.
 
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UNMedGa said:
Really? Interesting, I thought the Kaplan stuff was much harder. Much more weird-abstract philosophy crap and more convoluted questions.. I felt like the AAMC stuff was more straightforward.
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I really do hope so! I've taken Kaplan FLs 1-6 and my lowest on each section has been CARS. I just can't seem to improve on those :/
 
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FauxBlue said:
what did you do in the last 2 weeks before your exam??? just rotating between FL and review day/content review for weaknesses?? or did you do some passages from khan academy and maybe 2 FLs per week???
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For the last two weeks, I went to the library every day and used the public computers to do practice exams. I have a miniature laptop with a screen the size of an atom, and the large-screen computers and cubicle space really helped me to semi-mimic the actual testing environment. Thus, I highly recommend going that when you take your practice exams. I did all 4 EK practice exams in the last two weeks, doing one per day. Then I did all the AAMC question packs, official guide, and practice tests as well. I studied 12 hours a day. I was planning to get all this done in the first week, and have the entire next week to flip through all my Kaplan and EK prep books again to refresh my memory on all the background knowledge again, but there wasn’t enough time. In fact, all this took me up to the night before the exam. I figured there wasn’t enough time to do a comprehensive review so I quickly flipped through the concise EK prep books and skipped out on reviewing Kaplan books. I also memorized the structures of all 20 amino acids, their special properties, and their 1 and 3 letter abbreviations. On the actual exam, I felt like my background knowledge was sufficient and there were no holes in my last-minute cramming. Kaplan definitely went way overboard with biochem. They are too detailed and nearly all the biochem questions on the actual exam just asked about amino acids and very basic metabolism stuff. Thus, don’t bother memorizing all the steps and intermediates in the various cycles. I also did not use any Khan. Kaplan psych was sufficient for the exam. The 2-3 questions with terms you've never heard of can be answered through process of elimination based on terms you already know that are part of the answer choices. Time was precious for me and I didn’t even bother to comb my hair for the last two weeks. I came to the test center looking like a bird’s nest. It took me one hour after I came back home from the exam to detangle my hair. Hope that helps.
 
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FOCUSandEARNit said:
No. They do not.
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I'm pretty sure they do. If they didn't, why would it take 1 month to get our scores back? Computerized tests can give you results very quickly. Obviously, no one really knows what goes on back there, but based on other MCAT threads I've followed in the past, there seems to be a consensus that some degree of curving is done.
 
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princessbooty said:
...They are too detailed and nearly all the biochem questions on the actual exam just asked about amino acids and very basic metabolism stuff. Thus, don’t bother memorizing all the steps and intermediates in the various cycles.
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Again, no.

Having taken the 2015 MCAT in August, I am VERY glad I didn't follow this advice.
 
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