The Official August 22, 2013 MCAT Thread

Started by Person0715
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Person0715

Person0715

Socially awkward
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Hey everyone! With just a little less than 2 months to go, I am wondering why this thread hasn't been made yet.

Is anyone else here signed up for the 8/22 MCAT?

I'm following the SN2ed schedule and I can't wait to be done with content review. I'm excited to finally take an AAMC to see if I've been studying correctly these last 2 months.
 
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I think I'm in a weird state of calm. We've been waiting too long for me to feel actively worried, but the scores are too far away for me to feel a panicked countdown. So I feel really mellow about it right now.
 
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sunflower18 said:
I think I'm in a weird state of calm. We've been waiting too long for me to feel actively worried, but the scores are too far away for me to feel a panicked countdown. So I feel really mellow about it right now.
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Same here. I think I will start to freak out when there are only 2 or 3 days left
 
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Got an email today entitled "MCAT Score". Immediately went into "fight or flight" mode as I opened it. Turns it out, it was just from AACOMAS, reminding me my MCAT score isn't recorded...lol.
 
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Person0715 said:
A lot of people were upset about their scores. I hope that doesn't happen to us!
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I just feel numb. Many invested their entire academic life chasing this dream let alone studied their axx off many weeks and probably the whole summer. One case of 41/42 and high 30+ and another case of 32/33 and below 30 are BOTH only a question away for each section. Luck? Fate? Smarter? I don't know........

Folks, whatever the outcome will be, all of us are winners. We are in the thick of the journey others dare not to step in. Fighting!
 
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Anyone else having a rough time "moving on" to semester classes? I feel like I can't fully function right until I get my score and can finally focus on other things ... especially with the fear of a possible retake 😕
 
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amad01 said:
Anyone else having a rough time "moving on" to semester classes? I feel like I can't fully function right until I get my score and can finally focus on other things ... especially with the fear of a possible retake 😕
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Yeah thats exactly how I feel. I'm an 8/15er so my scores come out next week, but I can't seem to focus on my school stuff (or even secondaries for that matter) cause I'm so worried about my score. For now I'm just distracting myself with friends/video games until I know lol.
 
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This is absurd, I feel like I'm almost bipolar each day I think I either did well or completely bombed it. Also agreed I haven't done any school work I've been coasting through school doing nothing and doing the bare minimum work.
 
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I agree. It's hard to focus on schoolwork with this big question mark over my head. I do NOT want to retake, but I also don't want a mediocre score, which I'm almost guaranteed to get. It's definitely a punch in the face to my confidence that some people can get high scores with relatively little effort while I worked soooo hard for a very mediocre average.

But our worth as future physicians is NOT determined by an MCAT score. Gotta keep it in perspective.
 
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sunflower18 said:
I agree. It's hard to focus on schoolwork with this big question mark over my head. I do NOT want to retake, but I also don't want a mediocre score, which I'm almost guaranteed to get. It's definitely a punch in the face to my confidence that some people can get high scores with relatively little effort while I worked soooo hard for a very mediocre average.

But our worth as future physicians is NOT determined by an MCAT score. Gotta keep it in perspective.
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That's true and all, but I would still be devastated if I found out I had to retake. As the 24th draws near, I am becoming less and less excited about finding out about my score. Sometimes, I think to myself that I would prefer to be in MCAT limbo than find out that I did awful on the test.
 
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Well I knew I shouldn't have.... but I met with my premed advisor today... I told her I already took the MCAT and I was averaging about 35-36 on practice tests... she says, "Well most people score about 6 points below their average, so you probably got a 28."

No joke word for word out of her mouth.... I just said OK and smiled 😳 this woman has never seen me in my life and just told me my mcat score :laugh: (not to mention her math is a little off)
 
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amad01 said:
Well I knew I shouldn't have.... but I met with my premed advisor today... I told her I already took the MCAT and I was averaging about 35-36 on practice tests... she says, "Well most people score about 6 points below their average, so you probably got a 28."

No joke word for word out of her mouth.... I just said OK and smiled 😳 this woman has never seen me in my life and just told me my mcat score :laugh: (not to mention her math is a little off)
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I would love to know where people pull these horsecrap numbers from.
 
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amad01 said:
Well I knew I shouldn't have.... but I met with my premed advisor today... I told her I already took the MCAT and I was averaging about 35-36 on practice tests... she says, "Well most people score about 6 points below their average, so you probably got a 28."

No joke word for word out of her mouth.... I just said OK and smiled 😳 this woman has never seen me in my life and just told me my mcat score :laugh: (not to mention her math is a little off)
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You handled the situation well lol. I wonder what qualifies one to become a premed advisor....
 
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Person0715 said:
You handled the situation well lol. I wonder what qualifies one to become a premed advisor....
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Nothing. Hardly anyone ever wants the job because seriously, it doesn't sound like a very intellectually stimulating or even borderline exciting job at all. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the smaller/poorer college literally just find whoever they can who can breathe and has "advised" students before in any capacity to take the job.
 
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Person0715 said:
You handled the situation well lol. I wonder what qualifies one to become a premed advisor....
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haha literally I just smiled and looked down ... funny cuz it's not like me to just accept and let it go like that... cuz it was kinda a hard thing to hear... I had 100 things running in my mind like what is your source, where do you get this, why would you say that to someone in your office looking for advice, why would anyone take practice tests when they sure to score 6 points lower... she also told me any experiences I had before 2011 won't count on my application because it was too long ago... F pre-med advisors


now lets just hope I don't really end up with a 28 🙄
 
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amad01 said:
haha literally I just smiled and looked down ... funny cuz it's not like me to just accept and let it go like that... cuz it was kinda a hard thing to hear... I had 100 things running in my mind like what is your source, where do you get this, why would you say that to someone in your office looking for advice, why would anyone take practice tests when they sure to score 6 points lower... she also told me any experiences I had before 2011 won't count on my application because it was too long ago... F pre-med advisors


now lets just hope I don't really end up with a 28 🙄
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I'd kill for a 28! 😎
 
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amad01 said:
Well I knew I shouldn't have.... but I met with my premed advisor today... I told her I already took the MCAT and I was averaging about 35-36 on practice tests... she says, "Well most people score about 6 points below their average, so you probably got a 28."

No joke word for word out of her mouth.... I just said OK and smiled 😳 this woman has never seen me in my life and just told me my mcat score :laugh: (not to mention her math is a little off)
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lmfao what a joke
 
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amad01 said:
is there any chance we wouldn't get a gift card? I did the trial section but once I saw how long those passages were I just started clicking answers...... 😳 $30 from amazon was the last thing on my mind.
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Yes. You won't get the gift card if they think you didn't try.
 
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amad01 said:
well I tried on about 4 questions.... :laugh:

"if they think you didn't try" what does that even mean....
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They have their ways of deciding this. We don't know how exactly they do it, but if you spent a short amount of time and guessed everything, you may not qualify.
 
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inycepoo said:
They have their ways of deciding this. We don't know how exactly they do it, but if you spent a short amount of time and guessed everything, you may not qualify.
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Speculation: If I were in the AAMC's place, I would put a relatively low minimum cutoff time; no one can give a "good-faith effort" on 30 questions or however many it was in 10 minutes (especially with passages to read). I would then set a score cutoff at some value substantially below or near chance (25% correct), reasoning that it is unlikely that a test taker acting in "good faith" would score under that cutoff.
 
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gettheleadout said:
Speculation: If I were in the AAMC's place, I would put a relatively low minimum cutoff time; no one can give a "good-faith effort" on 30 questions or however many it was in 10 minutes (especially with passages to read). I would then set a score cutoff at some value substantially below or near chance (25% correct), reasoning that it is unlikely that a test taker acting in "good faith" would score under that cutoff.
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Kinda worried about this now. IIRC, I had 20 minutes left on the clock when I finally threw in the towel :laugh:
 
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I think I'm past the point of even wanting my score. It is scary that there are only 8 days left, because that means that I have to give up hope in 8 days. At least now I can fantasise about logging in and getting a super great score.... In 8 days, all we will be left with is the truth. And we will have to scrape together plans without that giant question mark, which before left room for possibility.

I wish I could turn my brain off. This is terrible. GAH!
 
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sunflower18 said:
I think I'm past the point of even wanting my score. It is scary that there are only 8 days left, because that means that I have to give up hope in 8 days. At least now I can fantasise about logging in and getting a super great score.... In 8 days, all we will be left with is the truth. And we will have to scrape together plans without that giant question mark, which before left room for possibility.

I wish I could turn my brain off. This is terrible. GAH!
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:scared: sitting in class today I remembered another question that I can't remember if I got right or wrong, but now know the answer.... I don't even remember what I put :laugh: which reminds me that I need to send a big **** YOU to examkrackers for specifically telling me not to worry about things that wouldn't be on the mcat but most definitely were...

I donno if I can handle another week guys... I really feel like I bombed PS. I never felt like I was guessing that much on any of the practice tests... i would be thrilled even if I scored 2 points below my average
 
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I can only vaguely remember the test anymore. I will just be glad to get my score at this point. I'm sick of waiting. At least, we should hear back about our trial sections this week.
 
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This is my first post on SDN, but I've been browsing for MCAT info and opinions all summer. I agree with amad01 that EK should not have italicized some of its "don't memorize this" information. But I only used EK for Bio, and I still think it was the best option there.

I recently filled out the PMQ, and it got me thinking about the amount of time and effort I put into studying for the MCAT. I summarized my efforts as 15 weeks, 50 hours/week - althought I'm not sure how accurate that is.

I took the Princeton Review prep course, and although I learned a LOT (I mean seriously, so much useful info), I don't know that my score raised as much as it should have throughout the whole process. My impression of our day's MCAT was that it was about as easy as any AAMC, but that I screwed up on a lot more problems (a la test-day nerves, random bio discretes and what I thought was a hard verbal section). The last two AAMCs I took were AAMC 5 and AAMC 11, where I got a 38 and 35 respectively. However, I feel like I got about a 30 on the real deal :\

My question to all of you is this: If you had to redo all of your preparation for the MCAT, what would you do differently?

I've been contemplating what my study strat would be like if I retook the exam - what was I deficient in the first (long) time around? If I were to do it all over again, I'd definitely focus less on content and more on practice questions, passages and tests. I feel like I could go into more detail about what I did vs. what I should have done, but I'll spare you that long-winded description for now. Let me know what you would have done differently?
 
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Yeah it's hard to focus on school until I get my scores. I think I've been slacking on my schoolwork... I just wanna see my score and get it over with. If I did well, I'll be very happy. If I did poorly, I'll work very hard for the next few months to make sure I do well on my retake...

I've been trying to keep anything MCAT related off my mind even though a lot of ppl are talking about it in my school lol. Oh well, I've just tried to keep myself busy with ECs.
 
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PurkinjeFibers said:
This is my first post on SDN, but I've been browsing for MCAT info and opinions all summer. I agree with amad01 that EK should not have italicized some of its "don't memorize this" information. But I only used EK for Bio, and I still think it was the best option there.

I recently filled out the PMQ, and it got me thinking about the amount of time and effort I put into studying for the MCAT. I summarized my efforts as 15 weeks, 50 hours/week - althought I'm not sure how accurate that is.

I took the Princeton Review prep course, and although I learned a LOT (I mean seriously, so much useful info), I don't know that my score raised as much as it should have throughout the whole process. My impression of our day's MCAT was that it was about as easy as any AAMC, but that I screwed up on a lot more problems (a la test-day nerves, random bio discretes and what I thought was a hard verbal section). The last two AAMCs I took were AAMC 5 and AAMC 11, where I got a 38 and 35 respectively. However, I feel like I got about a 30 on the real deal :\

My question to all of you is this: If you had to redo all of your preparation for the MCAT, what would you do differently?

I've been contemplating what my study strat would be like if I retook the exam - what was I deficient in the first (long) time around? If I were to do it all over again, I'd definitely focus less on content and more on practice questions, passages and tests. I feel like I could go into more detail about what I did vs. what I should have done, but I'll spare you that long-winded description for now. Let me know what you would have done differently?
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honestly after the test I felt like I had just wasted the past 3-4 months of studying and that I could've taken the test completely cold and achieved the same result...
 
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Those are some very high AAMC practice test scores. I'm sure you'll end up scoring a great score on the real deal. If not, you are already capable of doing so, and there is nothing to really worry about.

This is my second time waiting for scores :/ I'm sure all will be fine...only time (1 week) can tell!
 
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Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'd like to think that even if I bombed this one, my AAMC scores means that I can succeed with a bit more effort and a second try. Sadly enough I already have a vague notion (actually not even that vague) of how I'd go about studying a second time around.

Ugh, I managed to stop thinking about the MCAT nearly as much these past few weeks, but now that we're in the home stretch, I keep having flashbacks! PTSD, I tell you. We don't deserve this kind of hazing.
 
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Pretty much!!!

So this kid comes up to me yesterday and was like, "did you get your mcat score yet?" And I said, "no, not yet." He was like, "oh okay. I got mine last week and I got a 35." It was just like uhhhh coooool thanks for sharing bro. It just sort of upped my anxiety haha. Maybe I'm overreacting.
 
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