The Official August 2015 MCAT Thread

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princessbooty said:
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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They have said over and over again that the MCAT is NOT based on scores with whom you test. Read AAMC's website. They say it multiple times. The scores are determined going in. The only time this wasn't the case was April (and maybe May's). The score scale for the entire 2015 MCAT testing year is the same for all the tests. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be a standardized test. Read up on AAMC's website, and you'll find this to be accurate.

I would recommend not stating things as fact, and only then saying "well this is what makes sense to me..." AAMC recognizes this and says, "despite popular belief, ..." (paraphrasing) MCAT scores are not impacted by those whom you take the exam with.
 
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FOCUSandEARNit said:
Again, no.

Having taken the 2015 MCAT in August, I am VERY glad I didn't follow this advice.
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That was just my personal opinion, but others (like you) may think differently. I am a biochem major so I found the biochem stuff on there fairly easy. Given my background knowledge, what I say may not be able to be generalized. Like everything else on SDN, things said should be taken with a grain of salt.
 
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FOCUSandEARNit said:
They have said over and over again that the MCAT is NOT based on scores with whom you test. Read AAMC's website. They say it multiple times. The scores are determined going in. The only time this wasn't the case was April (and maybe May's). The score scale for the entire 2015 MCAT testing year is the same for all the tests. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be a standardized test. Read up on AAMC's website, and you'll find this to be accurate.

I would recommend not stating things as fact, and only then saying "well this is what makes sense to me..." AAMC recognizes this and says, "despite popular belief, ..." (paraphrasing) MCAT scores are not impacted by those whom you take the exam with.
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I only said these things based on my prior experiences interacting with others on SDN. I'd rather not get into stingy arguments on SDN like this. At this point, I could care less about how they score. I already took the exam, so whatever happens happens.
 
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FOCUSandEARNit said:
They have said over and over again that the MCAT is NOT based on scores with whom you test. Read AAMC's website. They say it multiple times. The scores are determined going in. The only time this wasn't the case was April (and maybe May's). The score scale for the entire 2015 MCAT testing year is the same for all the tests. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be a standardized test. Read up on AAMC's website, and you'll find this to be accurate.

I would recommend not stating things as fact, and only then saying "well this is what makes sense to me..." AAMC recognizes this and says, "despite popular belief, ..." (paraphrasing) MCAT scores are not impacted by those whom you take the exam with.
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princessbooty said:
I only said these things based on my prior experiences interacting with others on SDN. I'd rather not get into stingy arguments on SDN like this. At this point, I could care less about how they score. I already took the exam, so whatever happens happens.
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Where does it say it's the same for the entire year???
 
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sandboxplaya said:
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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The real exam had more molecular mechanisms and chemical reactions with steps to follow than the Kaplan Chem/Phys section, the bio/biochem section had more experiments, and the psych/soc was also more data table/graph interpretation-heavy. I found the AAMC practice to be the closest to the real thing. Hope that helps.
 
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Anyone who has purchased an EK exam, did it appear instantly or did you have to wait? Im trying to take one tomorrow and just purchased it, but cant seem to find it... Thanks for any help
 
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moesman777 said:
Anyone who has purchased an EK exam, did it appear instantly or did you have to wait? Im trying to take one tomorrow and just purchased it, but cant seem to find it... Thanks for any help
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it takes a bit of time. they'll send you an email with instructions on how to access it
 
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StudyLater said:
@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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I love chatting with people on here 😛 right now I'm just hanging out until I can go home for a couple weeks between semesters, so I figured I might as well catch up on SDN since I basically didn't post at all while studying for the MCAT.

Ironically enough NS is leading all specialties for my interest right now :laugh:

podiatrytime said:
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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CARS sucks because as StudyLater says, the tendency to do well on this section is often innate (more so than any other section on the MCAT I believe). It's hard to say where it comes from, those who do tons of recreational reading seem to do better on it. Hope you did well on it!

Pusheen said:
Got 84% on Chemistry question pack. Yay, I'm not an idiot, as much as some test prep companies want me to believe that:clap:
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The AAMC stuff was a breath of fresh air after my Kaplan stuff. I had been bombing the physical science sections for a while so when I got in the high 80's on the chem Qpack I was like, "what? I'm not mentally impaired at chemistry?"
 
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moesman777 said:
Anyone who has purchased an EK exam, did it appear instantly or did you have to wait? Im trying to take one tomorrow and just purchased it, but cant seem to find it... Thanks for any help
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They don't process orders over the weekend. They need to manually process them during their working hours (Mon-Fri)
 
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princessbooty said:
I only said these things based on my prior experiences interacting with others on SDN. I'd rather not get into stingy arguments on SDN like this. At this point, I could care less about how they score. I already took the exam, so whatever happens happens.
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Just to clarify, what they do with the MCAT is called Equating or Adjusting. They don't curve it based on how others do, but they do take into account the proportion of difficult questions as compared to other MCAT exams which have been administered previously, and they tweak the score based on how difficult on aggregate the test was. So, one person who took the MCAT in June may have missed 7 questions on a section and gotten a 128, but another may have taken it another time, missed 7 questions and gotten a 130 or 129 (assuming this one was slightly more difficult).
 
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UNMedGa said:
CARS sucks because as StudyLater says, the tendency to do well on this section is often innate (more so than any other section on the MCAT I believe). It's hard to say where it comes from, those who do tons of recreational reading seem to do better on it.
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Definitely agree with this. I think like having a CARS sense, it tingles when you see the right answer.
I read an embarrassing amount as a kid, and I think that definitely helps. I also read a ton of dense philosophy and literature texts in college, and that helps a lot with the analysis. Sadly it's not a quick fix, and I wish I could get better at it..
 
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"To educate patients on the health risks associated with harmful behaviors, such as the use of carcinogenic substances, thus helping to define normal and deviant behaviors." Is this considered functionalism? I thought that defining "patients" or peoples behavior was more microtheory?
 
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does anyone else feel like some of the psych and sociology questions in the EK exams are vague? For a couple of them, I was stuck between two and if seemed like it could be either or
 
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I know this doesn't matter and I should just wait but.....

assuming one got about ~8 wrong in a science section...what score could that come out to? Above 126?
 
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scaredadvocate said:
I know this doesn't matter and I should just wait but.....

assuming one got about ~8 wrong in a science section...what score could that come out to? Above 126?
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That would probably be a 129 or 130.

8 wrong on C/P should correspond to an old 12 (51/59 = 86.4%) ()

Which is the new 130 ish.
 
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Pusheen said:
Definitely agree with this. I think like having a CARS sense, it tingles when you see the right answer.
I read an embarrassing amount as a kid, and I think that definitely helps. I also read a ton of dense philosophy and literature texts in college, and that helps a lot with the analysis. Sadly it's not a quick fix, and I wish I could get better at it..
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Don't be embarrassed about reading a lot. Our society undervalues academics and intelligence, so being proud of our academic pursuits is the best way to buck the trend!

Dobechance said:
"To educate patients on the health risks associated with harmful behaviors, such as the use of carcinogenic substances, thus helping to define normal and deviant behaviors." Is this considered functionalism? I thought that defining "patients" or peoples behavior was more microtheory?
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I think this sounds more like socialization - defining certain norms and laying them before people. Also might fall under symbolic interactionism, focusing on interactions between patients and healthcare providers. Doesn't sound like functionalism unless it's stating one of the broad functions of healthcare as a societal unit
 
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UNMedGa said:
Don't be embarrassed about reading a lot. Our society undervalues academics and intelligence, so being proud of our academic pursuits is the best way to buck the trend!
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Haha yeah, I'm not embarrassed now, I've just embraced my inner nerd 😛
All my reading makes me more of a smartass when I need to be😉
 
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@UNMedGa thats exactly what i thought but TPR said it was functionalism. But after looking up the definition of functionalism, it does include education as a means of facilitating social cohesion. So I guess I can see how it can fit in haha
 
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Dobechance said:
"To educate patients on the health risks associated with harmful behaviors, such as the use of carcinogenic substances, thus helping to define normal and deviant behaviors." Is this considered functionalism? I thought that defining "patients" or peoples behavior was more microtheory?
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Is that the whole question, or a snippet? It seems like you're leaving a part out.

From the functionalist perspective, you could look at it like a healthy lifestyle is a function and the use of carcinogenic substances is a dysfunction. I probably would have thrown microtheory out. The action is giving someone advice on what is acceptable or unacceptable. This isn't really the application of microtheory, since microtheory acts as more of a framework for the description of an individual. The person here is giving advice, not describing the patient.

You could also look at it like the (let's assume) doc here giving advice is carrying out his/her function in society by providing medical advice?

It's way more helpful to get the whole question. There might have been another answer that could have made it tricky.
 
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UNMedGa said:
CARS sucks because as StudyLater says, the tendency to do well on this section is often innate (more so than any other section on the MCAT I believe). It's hard to say where it comes from, those who do tons of recreational reading seem to do better on it. Hope you did well on it!
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Pusheen said:
Definitely agree with this. I think like having a CARS sense, it tingles when you see the right answer.
I read an embarrassing amount as a kid, and I think that definitely helps. I also read a ton of dense philosophy and literature texts in college, and that helps a lot with the analysis. Sadly it's not a quick fix, and I wish I could get better at it..
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I feel the same way, I also feel like the passage itself and what language it may use or the topic itself etc plays a role as well. Also what they don't tell you about how being a reader helps with CARS is that reading your run of the mill fantasy, contemporary or mystery probably won't make a huge impact you have to read more of the classic stuff and news and journal articles aka the 'boring' stuff 😴

I always have trouble with the inference questions, nearly all the questions I get wrong in CARS is of that nature. Any advise for those types of questions from your CARS conquerors?
 
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doctorinthehouse_ said:
Can I wear a hoodie to the test? I won't wear the hood on my head
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How do I know you won't hide a little dwarf inside the hoodie (who happens to be a PhD in every subject on the MCAT) and poke two holes in your hoodie so said dwarf can see the questions and gingerly whisper answers to you throughout the exam?

Quote from a prometric employee:

PrometricAnon said:
I'd like to touch on jackets/hoodies/sweaters for a minute. We have a pretty strict rule about not removing them in the testing center. We are told to keep the temperature in the testing rooms between 70F and 74F, so it's always a good idea to plan to bring a light sweater you can grab or remove during breaks. And again with the pockets thing, we have to check every single pocket on the coat so just keep that in mind when choosing one.
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StudyLater said:
How do I know you won't hide a little dwarf inside the hoodie (who happens to be a PhD in every subject on the MCAT) and poke two holes in your hoodie so said dwarf can see the questions and gingerly whisper answers to you throughout the exam?

Quote from a prometric employee:
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My hoodie has no pockets just a hood! Woohoo good to go!
 
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What's the general consensus on EK CARS? I'm finding it to be more difficult than NS, and TPR CARS. I scored a 60% in CARS just now and am quite concerned since EK tests are supposed to be the most similar to AAMC?
 
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Dobechance said:
@UNMedGa thats exactly what i thought but TPR said it was functionalism. But after looking up the definition of functionalism, it does include education as a means of facilitating social cohesion. So I guess I can see how it can fit in haha
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This is why the psych section bugs me - very easy to interpret an ambiguous statement like this in multiple ways. The point of functionalism is that there are different institutions in society and each has a specific set of roles or "functions" (hence the name). This statement would make sense for functionalism if they were asking whether this statement was focusing on the role of a certain social institution like healthcare
 
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geronimo11 said:
I always have trouble with the inference questions, nearly all the questions I get wrong in CARS is of that nature. Any advise for those types of questions from your CARS conquerors?
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It always helped me to think about things while I was reading it. Like any time the author makes a claim I try to analyze it, think of some assumptions they'd have to make for their argument to be valid, why it may be a weak or strong argument, what evidence is presented etc. So when you understand the author's thought process it becomes easier to infer things they might believe. Also highlight the key claims so you can refer to them quickly and then try to apply those claims to the situation in the question
 
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Unfortunately there is no quick fix to CARS performance. 2, 3 weeks, even a month might not be enough time to develop the reading comprehension skills necessary to score upper 90th percentile. Plus any confidence you build up during prep will probably be shattered during the high-stakes pressure situation of Test Day.

I realized this the hard way when I felt more confident with my CARS ability then went into panic mode on test day when i spent 12minutes on a passage instead of 9-10mins. Fortunately the passages on the actual exam were much more interesting than anything I'd seen on Kaplan so that was my only saving grace :angelic:

Tl;dr: practice under test day conditions for CARS everytime. pretend like each time you take it, is your only shot at taking the CARS portion
 
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Just finished EK4-68% overall. CARS killed me, but I did okay in the other 3 sections (~72%). I felt like this was my worst exam by far (possible burnout?) and it's truly terrifying given that I'm taking the real thing in a week and a half. Any thoughts?
 
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blahblahpremeds said:
What's the general consensus on EK CARS? I'm finding it to be more difficult than NS, and TPR CARS. I scored a 60% in CARS just now and am quite concerned since EK tests are supposed to be the most similar to AAMC?
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From what other people have said, EK CARS tends to be more difficult that other prep companies and AAMC material.
 
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Just got a 503 on Kaplan Full Length (128/125/124/126), ugh that bio section was impossible especially trying to re-focus after lunch break
 
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For those who haven't taken Kaplan tests, did you see a significant increase from Kaplan 1 to Kaplan 3? My score jumped 6 points, but I'm not sure if that was merely due to the difficulty level of the tests or if I'm actually improving.
 
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frenchbulldog said:
anyone taken EK 3? just got ~70%, a bit lower than my EK 1 score. CARS and C/P were so much more difficult
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I just finished EK3 yesterday. Got railed in C/P(58%) and CARS(66%, usually my strongest section), but i found bio and P/S pretty easy.

I ended up with a 73%, a bit higher than i got on EK1 (~70).
 
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So today I took the AAMC FL because my MCAT is Aug 21st and these are my scores. I know they aren't the most amazing but I'm just shooting for at least a 502 should I postpone or will I be ok? I still have about 12 days left.

C/P= 64%
CARS=62%
B/B=71%
P/S=80%
 
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Did anyone use EK Verbal 101 tests to prep for CARS? I know they are only 40 questions and 60 minutes long but are they good indication of where I stand in CARS? I've done 4 tests so far and I got 8 on the first 3 and 9 on the last one (Still trying to improve timing)
 
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pre.med2016 said:
For those who haven't taken Kaplan tests, did you see a significant increase from Kaplan 1 to Kaplan 3? My score jumped 6 points, but I'm not sure if that was merely due to the difficulty level of the tests or if I'm actually improving.
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Yeah my score jumped +13 from Kaplan 1 to 3. I made a 489 on Kaplan 1 and a 502 on Kaplan 3
 
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anyone have recommendations for what passages to do these last two weeks? Khan? (Besides full length exams)
I'm finding that most of the problems I'm getting wrong are right there in the passage-_-
 
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yungspleen said:
How many days before your exam did you guys take the aamc full length practice test (or how many days before are you planning on taking it)? Whats the recommendation?
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I took mine today and I'm taking it August 21st. Probably within the next half week--week, if you're taking it the 21st or 22nd.
 
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Dreamstoo said:
Decided to void again. I'm also considering applying to entry level jobs and call it "quits" on pre med. See if I want to revisit it later.
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I'm sorry to hear this, Dream. Really.

I took at look at your scores and your comments. Let's start with B/B:

My first section test - Kaplan - was a 122. I felt like you did. Kicked in the gut, wondered where my brain was or if I had one, considered giving all of this up and then ... I thought @#$T that. I dug in, painful as it was, and went through every single question I got wrong. I put it on a list. Then I spent another 4-5-6 hours going through Khan's videos on the items. And...

I drew. Took out blank sheets of paper and drew. A lot. For me, that works better for bio than notecards in some ways. I "see" how things fit together and what happens if "X" does not occur, what is the outcome.

Then I worked some Hardy-Weinberg equations... lol. Been 4 years since I've actually done one; knew what it was but ... not enough for MCAT.

Yesterday, I took another section test (only 6 days after the 122) and my score rose to 126. Again, painful as it was, I went over every stinking question and wrote down WHY I got it wrong. This time it was not that I was clueless but that I simply selected the wrong answer choice out of the two remaining.

Why was that?!? (rhetorical question there - aimed at me)... so back to Khan, a few more drawings. Tomorrow or Tues, I will do the 3rd section test and honestly, I'm hoping that score goes up greatly.

CARS - I have been consistently sitting in the 128 range; same with Psych/Soc. Doing the same thing with those section tests as well.

Which leaves C/P.

I am using every single Kaplan online, live sessions for physics II pieces and going back through the gen chem I got wrong. Typically, it was I flipped the -delta G and decided that was exergonic or some such crap.

That's all well and good for me, right? HOW DOES THAT HELP YOU?!?!?

You're in the same place it is just that YOU took the live exam. We're in the same place really. I did not void my 8/22 exam, I moved it out. I'm not ready. In looking at your scores, it would appear you were not ready either.

So, let's go slay the beast in September together! We're at the same place testing wise, YOU have more experience than I do, we both have similar skill sets!

Dream, I am older than you. I have tried to give up on my passion, tried to find alternative ways to fend the passion into submission, tried to let the monetary gains of a career subdue my fire ... it has never worked. I highly doubt it will for you either. My suspicion is that you will want to do this again... 10 years from now and regret you did not do it now (or next year).

What say you?! 🙂
 
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