The Official August 2015 MCAT Thread

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blahblahpremeds said:
@StudyLater -I would recommend TPR3 over Kaplan 528 exam. The psych section in that particular Kaplan test is brutal and the sciences are a lot more recall questions that you'd like to practice at this point. What do you think about doing Khan Academy Bio passages? They're heavily research based.
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Did you mean me?
 
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DanniD said:
yup, here it is according to Kaplan "Please Can I Keep Selling **** For Money Officer"
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blahblahpremeds said:
Yes, i would know the ones associated with the big NADH, FADH2 making enzymes and the irreversible steps. Here's a memory aid: "Oh, Can I keep some succinate for myself?"
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itsallgood92 said:
or better yet...

Can I Keep Selling Sex For Money Officer?

That's How I learned it lol
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Did you guys memorize the structures though?
 
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fleur64 said:
Did you guys memorize the structures though?
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not really, but when you know in which steps NAD is reduced to NADH, then you should know that the subsequent structure must be the oxidized form of the preceding structure
 
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StudyLater said:
Shhhh don't think too much.

Where'd you get the bolded? I thought a decrease in radius corresponds with a decrease in flow rate because of the greater surface-liquid interaction causing additional drag.
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Careful with conflating flow and linear speed. Flow decreases as radius decreases for any given pressure, which means pressure required increases as radius decreases for any given flow. Since blood flow determines the amount of nutrients that reaches tissues in a given period of time, one could figure the flow rate should be regulated by the body to be rather constant. During vasoconstriction, flow is kept constant, but the total cross-sectional area of the capillaries has decreased, so linear speed and pressure generated by the heart must both increase.
 
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I am planning on taking a FL every day until the 21st. My exam is on the 22nd. As of now I have done TPR1-3, EK 3,4, and Official FL.
BUT i just realized I havent done the official guide lol Should I take the OG tomorrow, and the following three days take the other two EK exams and one NS?
 
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fleur64 said:
I am planning on taking a FL every day until the 21st. My exam is on the 22nd. As of now I have done TPR1-3, EK 3,4, and Official FL.
BUT i just realized I havent done the official guide lol Should I take the OG tomorrow, and the following three days take the other two EK exams and one NS?
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That sounds horrible...I can barely do one every other day. How many did you take?
 
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EverStriving said:
Careful with conflating flow and linear speed. Flow decreases as radius decreases for any given pressure, which means pressure required increases as radius decreases for any given flow. Since blood flow determines the amount of nutrients that reaches tissues in a given period of time, one could figure the flow rate should be regulated by the body to be rather constant. During vasoconstriction, flow is kept constant, but the total cross-sectional area of the capillaries has decreased, so linear speed and pressure generated by the heart must both increase.
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How do you explain the concept of Bernoulli's principle into this? Won't an increase in linear speed result in a decrease in pressure??
 
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Just took the first CARS AAMC practice packet, it is much longer than the TPR and a lot harder. Does anyone know if this is how the real test will be? The questions need much more thinking than the TPR practice problems.
 
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fleur64 said:
I am planning on taking a FL every day until the 21st. My exam is on the 22nd. As of now I have done TPR1-3, EK 3,4, and Official FL.
BUT i just realized I havent done the official guide lol Should I take the OG tomorrow, and the following three days take the other two EK exams and one NS?
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I strongly advise you not to take an FL the day before your exam. You might be able to pull off doing one or two more FLs, but I'd be wary of burning out...
 
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FauxBlue said:
I strongly advise you not to take an FL the day before your exam. You might be able to pull off doing one or two more FLs, but I'd be wary of burning out...
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Hey, Im not planning on taking one. im keeping the 21st to just relax. My exam is on the 22nd. Do you think taking a FL on the 20th is okay?
 
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blahblahpremeds said:
@StudyLater -I would recommend TPR3 over Kaplan 528 exam. The psych section in that particular Kaplan test is brutal and the sciences are a lot more recall questions that you'd like to practice at this point. What do you think about doing Khan Academy Bio passages? They're heavily research based.
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Wrong person? Never taken a Kaplan FL and don't plan to.

I haven't done any of Khan's passages, but if they're research-based, then that's pretty spot on. Though you have differing degrees of minutiae therein to distract you from the simple **** they want you to know.
 
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FauxBlue said:
How do you explain the concept of Bernoulli's principle into this? Won't an increase in linear speed result in a decrease in pressure??
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Firstly, I need to correct myself about my previous post. I should have said that the total cross-sectional area of the arterioles decreases, not the capillary bed. Capillaries can't constrict :/.

That being said, pressure generated by the heart must increase. It's true that increased linear speed through the arterioles will decrease static pressure by converting it to dynamic pressure, but it's tricky to apply Bernoulli's principle outside of a simple bottleneck situation. In a bottleneck, one can make the assumption that the total pressure (static + dynamic) is constant everywhere along the pipe. But you can't make that assumption in comparing a dilated system to a constricted system.

Let's consider that there is systemic vasoconstriction only in the arterioles, and the radius of the arteries remains the same. There is greater resistance to flow in the arterioles, and therefore a greater pressure drop across the arterioles to generate the same flow rate. This pressure drop has to be made up by increased pressure generated by the heart. Since there is now greater pressure being generated by the heart, the static pressure in the arteries increases (dynamic pressure in the arteries remains the same). BP is usually measured at the brachial artery, so this results in increased measured BP. The mean linear speed through the arterioles must be greater in the constricted vs dilated state, or else the definition of flow would be violated. Therefore there will be greater arteriole dynamic pressure in the constricted vs dilated state, but the greater dynamic pressure is being subtracted from an even greater total pressure generated by the heart. So both components of pressure, static and dynamic, should be increased in the vasoconstricted state assuming the same flow rate.
 
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podiatrytime said:
I took the AAMC OG exam today and scored 20/30 on every section. I personally thought the B/BC and C/P sections were difficult. For most of the questions, I ended up guessing between two answer choices.
How'd you guys feel about it?
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I just took it. A lot of the C/P questions were ehh,i feel like they were a bit more difficult.
 
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I'm telling you, you guys, practicing the AAMC CARS Packs & taking the full length with an increased font size greatly helped me on test day. Train your brain to read bigger text faster. My timing was on point because of this, and I've heard many people get side tracked on the actual day because things appeared so much longer with the bigger font size. They didn't appear longer to me.
 
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FOCUSandEARNit said:
I'm telling you, you guys, practicing the AAMC CARS Packs & taking the full length with an increased font size greatly helped me on test day. Train your brain to read bigger text faster. My timing was on point because of this, and I've heard many people get side tracked on the actual day because things appeared so much longer with the bigger font size. They didn't appear longer to me.
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How do you change font size in those programs?
 
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Pusheen said:
I have time for one more practice test before the real thing, and I have two more full tests in my possession.

Kaplan (the one with the 528 book) or TPR 3?
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Don't do any more exams. You'll psych yourself out. The best thing you can do instead is study the AAMC FL itself for 6 hours.
 
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TexasSurgeon said:
Don't do any more exams. You'll psych yourself out. The best thing you can do instead is study the AAMC FL itself for 6 hours.
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I studied the AAMC Fl yesterday for ~6-7 hours and I understand my weaknesses but for a fair amount of questions I felt they didn't explain why the answer was right or the others were wrong. I spent a lot of time figuring why I got one wrong but I fear on exam day I will be hit with all my weaknesses. Any tips on how to best learn from their FL?
 
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LakridsA said:
EK 4 CARS.....LOL what in the heck was that??
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Man that section by itself completely destroyed any confidence I had for this last week haha. I feel like there were so many ambiguous answer choices... Gonna have to agree with @TexasSurgeon, at this point I feel like doing anything other than the AAMC FL has more negatives than positives!
 
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Wa1337 said:
I studied the AAMC Fl yesterday for ~6-7 hours and I understand my weaknesses but for a fair amount of questions I felt they didn't explain why the answer was right or the others were wrong. I spent a lot of time figuring why I got one wrong but I fear on exam day I will be hit with all my weaknesses. Any tips on how to best learn from their FL?
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I'm going through the FL and analyzing the questions I got wrong into two types: 1) Passage based/Data Based 2) Content Based. For Content Based, I will review the appropriate concepts, for Passage Based/Data Based, all I can do is analyze where in the passage/data the answer lies. Essentially at this point, you should be comfortable with 70-90% of the content, and more errors should be based on data IMO, since getting a question wrong due to misinterpretation of a table, chart, or graph is easier to fix in less than a week than cramming tons of concepts you aren't sure about.
 
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fleur64 said:
Ive taken 6 exams so far but they were spread out. This was going to be the week i do one every day until the 21st.
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Ok, I suppose that is one way to do it. It depends on your endurance I guess. I have taken 12 already and planned to go light the last weak. I guess I am week haha. We all got do it our own way! Good luck!!! You got this!!!
 
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Wa1337 said:
I studied the AAMC Fl yesterday for ~6-7 hours and I understand my weaknesses but for a fair amount of questions I felt they didn't explain why the answer was right or the others were wrong. I spent a lot of time figuring why I got one wrong but I fear on exam day I will be hit with all my weaknesses. Any tips on how to best learn from their FL?
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I'd just try and find the main ideas of every paragraph if I were you. Speaking from my issues, I know that my mistakes are largely due to comprehension issues and lack of understanding the ideas (even in science sections). These get classified as "careless" errors but they're careless because I didn't have th email idea right. So just try and look for the main idea imo.

ausernamegoeshere said:
Man that section by itself completely destroyed any confidence I had for this last week haha. I feel like there were so many ambiguous answer choices... Gonna have to agree with @TexasSurgeon, at this point I feel like doing anything other than the AAMC FL has more negatives than positives!
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Yeah...maybe some content review at the most.
 
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TheAnonymous said:
Am I the only one who found CARS on TPR Course Test 2 section very difficult? CARS is killing any hope I have 🙁
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DUDE/ETTE! It effing destroyed me! It was tremendously harder than TPR 1. I got a 122 (47%). So I flipped TPR the bird and started the 2nd Q-pack and got 88 % yesterday. Seriously, f*ck all the prep. companies for making terrible verbal. Don't feel badly.
 
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TheaterOfTheme said:
DUDE/ETTE! It effing destroyed me! It was tremendously harder than TPR 1. I got a 122 (47%). So I flipped TPR the bird and started the 2nd Q-pack and got 88 % yesterday. Seriously, f*ck all the prep. companies for making terrible verbal. Don't feel badly.
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Honesty this has been my plight. Test companies and terrible CARS passages. Smh
 
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LakridsA said:
EK 4 CARS.....LOL what in the heck was that??
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CARS in EK4 was really messed up. It discouraged me when I took it and decided to not take any more EK tests.

Just finished AAMC FL:
Chem: 81%
Bio: 68%-->Idk what happened here. Usually one of my stronger sections.
CARS: 77%
Psych: 76%.

Here's hoping to a 510.
 
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Is anybody else finding the Qpacks particularly easy? Like unreasonably so for the actual MCAT? Especially bio and chem?

I'm not doing particularly well when I'm doing TPR so I'm really confused
 
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ohboyohboy said:
Is anybody else finding the Qpacks particularly easy? Like unreasonably so for the actual MCAT? Especially bio and chem?

I'm not doing particularly well when I'm doing TPR so I'm really confused
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Yeah I found the chemistry and physics Qpacks to be really easy. Haven't done bio yet but do you think it's worth doing?

y0y123 said:
ANYONE RETAKING THIS EXAM AND ITS THEIR FINAL ATTEPT? ANY TIPS please???
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Step back and take a deep breath. Go in with a good mindset. I personally think someone with foundational knowledge can really do well on this test if they are a good test taker. People have stated that a substantial improvement between their AAMC average and actual test was due to their mindset. This was the old test and they had a lot more resources but I still think it's valid. A difference between ~515 to ~520 isn't that many questions but it's all dependent on your mindset.
 
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I think bio was more of a waste of time than anything else....seemed entirely way too basic (I only did the 1st and don't intend on doing the second). Good if you want to solidify some concepts.
 
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Profound said:
Yeah I found the chemistry and physics Qpacks to be really easy. Haven't done bio yet but do you think it's worth doing?



Step back and take a deep breath. Go in with a good mindset. I personally think someone with foundational knowledge can really do well on this test if they are a good test taker. People have stated that a substantial improvement between their AAMC average and actual test was due to their mindset. This was the old test and they had a lot more resources but I still think it's valid. A difference between ~515 to ~520 isn't that many questions but it's all dependent on your mindset.
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You are such a sweet person!! I totally agree!!! It has helped me so much myself... which is why I have decided to take it super cool and go with a positive mindset... Thank you SO much!! 🙂 I appreciate it!! Good luck!!!!
 
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LakridsA said:
EK 4 CARS.....LOL what in the heck was that??
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blahblahpremeds said:
CARS in EK4 was really messed up. It discouraged me when I took it and decided to not take any more EK tests.

Just finished AAMC FL:
Chem: 81%
Bio: 68%-->Idk what happened here. Usually one of my stronger sections.
CARS: 77%
Psych: 76%.

Here's hoping to a 510.
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LOL! Time for a nice rant, right quick.
I feel obligated to drop in, although I'm not taking the exam until september 3rd. All I have to say is EK can go get screwed!! I am looking forward to never taking another EK exam or looking at an EK practice material for as long as I live.

I honestly shouldn't even complain looking at all my practice exam scores, but honestly even though I did well on all the EK exams just looking at all the one's I got wrong and see their ******* logic just made me want to break my computer screen every single time I saw that little red X. Just finished the last one, EK3, and am looking forward to not even reviewing it at all 🙂

The one thing I will say, after taking all 4 EK exams, 6 TPR, 4 Kaplan, and 5NS is that they make it 1000000000x easier and nicer to take the AAMC practice stuff with very, very minor flaws, nice, sound reasoning, and no ridiculously idiotic trick questions/answer choices that all sound exactly the same or with an "answer explanation" that basically says "ya we didn't know why this one is right and your better answer was wrong but screw you, screwwwwwww you".

Just took the OG as a half-length yesterday and it was such a nice relief after sifting through 20+ test-prep Full-length's/half-lengths combined with all their convoluted questions to finally take some AAMC material. My goodness the AAMC material is like 10^22 times better than any of that test prep stuff; although I think it was all a necessary evil to develop ridiculous test-taking skills for this beast. Well, at least I think all the ridiculous practice payed off.

End of rant. My goodness what 3 months of non-stop MCAT studying will do to you
 
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I apologize in advance, as this probably has been asked about a million times, but how does the AAMC full length C/P and B/BC compare to the actual exam? Harder? Easier?
 
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Took my AAMC FL today. Can someone convert my scores for me or maybe tell me how to do that?

C/P: 37/59 (63%) 🙁
CARS: 45/53 (85%)
B/B: 47/59 (80%)
P/S: 52/59 (88%)

Overall: 80%
 
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