The Official August 9, 2013 MCAT Thread

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Also, do they administer the same exam in the morning as they do in the afternoon? I just want to make sure we're all talking about the same exam here.

Edit: Obviously, they administer different exams or people could cheat.
 
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Well I have to say it was everything I expected, while being as far from what I expected as possible.

PS-- Started off doing okay. A few insanely easy questions, a few medium questions I felt good about using process of elimination on. THEN I got halfway through and the easy stopped and one passage just blew my mind and I never recovered. I thought to myself " this passage has about 5 different concepts in it and requires relating all of them" after burning about 5 minutes reading and trying to comprehend I decided to skip it, it would take too much time. The questions were similar to AAMC practice tests but the answer choices were wordy and confusing. Also the question stems were screwy. Definitely shoulda looked at the conversions too they were out there at times I had to just educated guess.
VR-- The reason I did not Void immediately after. The easiest set I have ever seen. They were straight foreword and nothing too crazy. Feel good about it.
BS- Exactly on par with AAMC 10 and 11. Not much prior knowledge needed and fairly simple charts and graphs with a few genetics questions which I was praying for (strongest area)

Overall feel okay the PS was crazy as most agree the scale really needs to have a 10 being at about 35-37 right if you had my test it made AAMC 11, which I thought was hardest, look like basic algebra. The topics were just presented in obscure ways. I averaged about a 10.78 on my aamc's in ps and should have been more worried about it.

I studied all summer and honestly was just shooting for my AAMC average of a 30, no HYP for me. My estimates are:
Best 10/11/11 -32 (VR *SEEMED* super easy.
Worst 8/10/10-28 (yeah my physics was sooo bad, please be a great scale!)
 
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LXMO said:
Again, I agree with you all! Why did I reread my 450pg Kaplan Bio book to have VERY few questions that actually required bare outside knowledge. Do you all feel like some discreets were unnecessarily worded awkwardly? I mean it's hard enough; they could at least give clear answer choices! There was one in particular but I won't go into it. I feel like the current study materials available just do not how the test is now unfortunately. There is no sufficient way to prepare it seems. Frustrating! But I am happy you all agree about PS because I was really worried it was just me...Also for those who had the social science trial...how bad do you feel for 2015ers?! The passages are not hard nor interpreting but sooooo much vocab/theories to memorize.
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As in there was almost no outside info needed. Sigh. I should just take a class on test taking skills. Those discretes...were very discrete. Some of them I was like: what? What do you mean?
 
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sdz7424 said:
No Ebola passage lol. The poster was just saying that none of the passages today were as brutal as the Ebola one on AAMC 11. I concur with that. I was kinda scared when I looked at the passages and saw the figures and charts, but they were surprisingly straight forward once I began reading them. I would say BS was substantially easier than AAMC 11 but still tougher than the older practice tests. This is the only section I feel confident about as of now.
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Ah, that makes perfect sense then. Yup, that AAMC 11 passage stands out as one of the hardest I've come across. Looking back on the passages makes everything seem easy, but when you're sitting there and you know you have 2 minutes to read and completely understand the passage and about 1 minute each to answer the questions its hell.

Add in additional time pressure and its :scared:
 
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theworldatlarge said:
Well I have to say it was everything I expected, while being as far from what I expected as possible.

PS-- Started off doing okay. A few insanely easy questions, a few medium questions I felt good about using process of elimination on. THEN I got halfway through and the easy stopped and one passage just blew my mind and I never recovered. I thought to myself " this passage has about 5 different concepts in it and requires relating all of them" after burning about 5 minutes reading and trying to comprehend I decided to skip it, it would take too much time. The questions were similar to AAMC practice tests but the answer choices were wordy and confusing. Also the question stems were screwy. Definitely shoulda looked at the conversions too they were out there at times I had to just educated guess.
VR-- The reason I did not Void immediately after. The easiest set I have ever seen. They were straight foreword and nothing too crazy. Feel good about it.
BS- Exactly on par with AAMC 10 and 11. Not much prior knowledge needed and fairly simple charts and graphs with a few genetics questions which I was praying for (strongest area)

Overall feel okay the PS was crazy as most agree the scale really needs to have a 10 being at about 35-37 right if you had my test it made AAMC 11, which I thought was hardest, look like basic algebra. The topics were just presented in obscure ways. I averaged about a 10.78 on my aamc's in ps and should have been more worried about it.

I studied all summer and honestly was just shooting for my AAMC average of a 30, no HYP for me. My estimates are:
Best 10/11/11 -32 (VR *SEEMED* super easy.
Worst 8/10/10-28 (yeah my physics was sooo bad, please be a great scale!)
Click to expand...
I think you an me had the same test. I'm starting to think the AM and PM tests are different. I can only imagine it so because it would allow people from the east coast to cheat with their buddies in the west coast so easily.

Anyway, I agree entirely about PS. I was also rocking it at first thinking "okay, I got this. I don't know what these folks are thinking about aamc 3 to 9 being nothing... omfg sweet jesus what is this?!?!" VR was very straight forward except for the last passage for me. Maybe the wind had been taken from me. I felt about half the questions in that last passage were reasonable and half very hard. BR did have some prior knowledge embedded on it. I felt it was 1/4 of the test, and I kept hitting myself because I forgot one thing that I know I should know really well for one of the discreet.
 
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TriagePreMed said:
I think you an me had the same test. I'm starting to think the AM and PM tests are different. I can only imagine it so because it would allow people from the east coast to cheat with their buddies in the west coast so easily.

Anyway, I agree entirely about PS. I was also rocking it at first thinking "okay, I got this. I don't know what these folks are thinking about aamc 3 to 9 being nothing... omfg sweet jesus what is this?!?!" VR was very straight forward except for the last passage for me. Maybe the wind had been taken from me. I felt about half the questions in that last passage were reasonable and half very hard. BR did have some prior knowledge embedded on it. I felt it was 1/4 of the test, and I kept hitting myself because I forgot one thing that I know I should know really well for one of the discreet.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had a morning east coast test and all I can say is I pray part of that crazy PS section was experimental...our luck it was a super easy discrete. If it was the same then yeah that last VR passage burned a lot of my time.
 
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do people find there is a strong correlation between post test prediction and actual score.

took the evening test today:

PS: cruised through the first 30ish questions and then a couple tough passages slowed me down, but felt like i got reasonable answers. definitely the hardest section on the test.

VR: seemed like the easiest verbal i have taken so far. maybe i was just way off. did others think it was easy?

BS: pretty straight forward. i know i missed two easy discretes but other than that, i think i did very well.

**please post which time you took the test so we know. thanks
 
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I'm not exactly sure. I thought they were? But I haven't read too too much about it. From what my advisors have told me, they are because they're having a hard time integrating all of the psych/soc/etc classes in for science majors who have a limited amount of electives.
 
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MTme said:
do people find there is a strong correlation between post test prediction and actual score.
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This topic is addressed on almost every test day thread and the consensus seems to be a no. Almost everyone feels horrible post-test, but most score around their AAMC avg.
 
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I have a 38 average on my AAMC practices and I still struggled with that PS. The chem was fine but there were some tricky physics problems. VR felt fine (passages were certainly longer than any practice material) and BS was similar to AAMC 10/11. I'd honestly be happy if I manage 35...
 
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Synapsis said:
Guess I'll write something.

Best Case: 15/12/14
What I expect: 14/11/14
Worst Case: 13/10/13

I'm generally hesitant about predicting a high score, but I really felt that even though PS was something else, I could ground myself in what was going on. I felt like I was careful and could confidently answer all but one question, which I rushed on. And I think it goes without saying that this PS section was harder than the usual, so I wouldn't be too too surprised to see a 14.

I was much more focused in verbal than any other time and didn't have to guess on anything. I'd say that alone would put me at about a 10, and I think I caught some nuances in the writing that pushed me up to an 11, hopefully a 12. And BS I thought was pretty straightforward. I was praying to God for an orgo heavy BS section but this was fine anyway. I had heard that taking upper level bio classes helps people become at least a little more familiar with some of the things that might appear in the BS section. This was the case for me.

Overall, I think I had a good test. Tough, but I felt like I was able to really step it up today. I dunno. Guess I'll see in a month.
Click to expand...

Wow it sounds like you really came out guns blazing. I wish I could have stayed grounded in PS like you did. I think that will be the thing holding me back from a great score.

I think with your preparation and the way you feel now that you might have hit 40! September 10th can't come soon enough...
 
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I never see people saying that the test wasn't as bad as they thought or that it was easier than anticipated . They always imagine the worse but then on score day they find out (the majority of the time) that they didn't do that bad after all so keep the faith leave the worrying.
 
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ar00n said:
I have a 38 average on my AAMC practices and I still struggled with that PS. The chem was fine but there were some tricky physics problems. VR felt fine (passages were certainly longer than any practice material) and BS was similar to AAMC 10/11. I'd honestly be happy if I manage 35...
Click to expand...

No offense but this doesn't tell us anything. Your AAMC average split could have been 10/14/14 or something.
 
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DocMC said:
I'm assuming if that was the case he/she wouldn't of made such a statement.
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So? What assumption are you making? His/her split was 12/13/13 or what? It makes a big difference. Without a PS average we can't infer anything without speculating, and speculation is useless.

My PS average is 14, would I have had trouble with it? Without more information I have no way to relate to his/her experience at all.
 
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gettheleadout said:
So? What assumption are you making? His/her split was 12/13/13 or what? It makes a big difference. Without a PS average we can't infer anything without speculating, and speculation is useless.

My PS average is 14, would I have had trouble with it? Without more information I have no way to relate to his/her experience at all.
Click to expand...

Am I correct in saying that you got all the questions related to Pb right? 😉
 
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gettheleadout said:
So? What assumption are you making? His/her split was 12/13/13 or what? It makes a big difference. Without a PS average we can't infer anything without speculating, and speculation is useless.

My PS average is 14, would I have had trouble with it? Without more information I have no way to relate to his/her experience at all.
Click to expand...

I'm making the assumption that an educated university student with an AAMC MCAT average of 38 would not make such a post if they did not score high on PS. I think that is a reasonable assumption.
 
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DocMC said:
I'm making the assumption that an educated university student with an AAMC MCAT average of 38 would not make such a post if they did not score high on PS. I think that is a reasonable assumption.
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You have more faith in people than I. But regardless you still haven't answered the question; what is "high" to you? We can all make whatever assumption we want based on what we guess (totally speculative) his/her average was, but its all meaningless.
 
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gettheleadout said:
You have more faith in people than I. But regardless you still haven't answered the question; what is "high" to you? We can all make whatever assumption we want based on what we guess (totally speculative) his/her average was, but its all meaningless.
Click to expand...

Get over it. This is the internet
 
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gettheleadout said:
Haha well of course I've memorized the oxidation states, standard potentials, and most important of all, extraction and precipitation methods!
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I see what you did there 😉

gettheleadout said:
You have more faith in people than I. But regardless you still haven't answered the question; what is "high" to you? We can all make whatever assumption we want based on what we guess (totally speculative) his/her average was, but its all meaningless.
Click to expand...

I agree. It's impossible to gauge just how "hard" the PS section was him without knowing his practice test average and spread for PS. For example, someone scoring 9-10 on PS is going to feel that PS was much harder than someone who's been scoring 14-15.

And this is the perfect example of using your VR skills!:

The assertion that one with a score of 38 would find the PS very difficult is

A) Suppoted; A 38 is a good score
B) Supported; The guy who wrote that clearly implied that his PS score was high
C) Unsupported; There is no evidence that the poster had been doing well on PS on his practice tests
D) Unsupported; Narfgargle
 
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ElCapone said:
I see what you did there 😉



I agree. It's impossible to gauge just how "hard" the PS section was him without knowing his practice test average and spread for PS. For example, someone scoring 9-10 on PS is going to feel that PS was much harder than someone who's been scoring 14-15.

And this is the perfect example of using your VR skills!:

The assertion that one with a score of 38 would find the PS very difficult is

A) Suppoted; A 38 is a good score
B) Supported; The guy who wrote that clearly implied that his PS score was high
C) Unsupported; There is no evidence that the poster had been doing well on PS on his practice tests
D) Unsupported; Narfgargle
Click to expand...

D is an enticing choice... But I'm afraid that I'm inclined to choose it based upon outside knowledge and not contextual evidence.
 
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ElCapone said:
I see what you did there 😉



I agree. It's impossible to gauge just how "hard" the PS section was him without knowing his practice test average and spread for PS. For example, someone scoring 9-10 on PS is going to feel that PS was much harder than someone who's been scoring 14-15.

And this is the perfect example of using your VR skills!:

The assertion that one with a score of 38 would find the PS very difficult is

A) Suppoted; A 38 is a good score
B) Supported; The guy who wrote that clearly implied that his PS score was high
C) Unsupported; There is no evidence that the poster had been doing well on PS on his practice tests
D) Unsupported; Narfgargle
Click to expand...

It is! Excellent characterization here by the way.
 
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DocMC said:
Are you guys dumb? Why would he make such a claim unless he had a high PS score?
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I mean, its clear that he meant he had a high PS score, but this is the internet... People make big deals out of essentially nothing. Easier (and more fun) to steer into the skid.
 
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ElCapone said:
Basically, my argument was that the guy might have done well on his PS practice. Or he might not have. We just don't know because he never provided us with that information explicitly.
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Exactly.
sakabato93 said:
I understand, but personal attacks aren't necessary. He was wrong for calling you dumb, but its better to just ignore it than keep exchanging insults.
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I didn't make a personal attack? I quoted his VR average in reference to the nature of this dispute (a critical reading issue), and my response is meant to suggest that, instead of asserting that the rest of us are dumb, he might rethink his own thought process. I'm not calling him dumb for having a low VR average, I'm citing that as evidence that he might be failing to understand the issue at hand (because it's the sort of evidence-evaluation you have to do in VR).
 
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gettheleadout said:
Exactly.


I didn't make a personal attack? I quoted his VR average in reference to the nature of this dispute (a critical reading issue), and my response is meant to suggest that, instead of asserting that the rest of us are dumb, he might rethink his own thought process. I'm not calling him dumb for having a low VR average, I'm citing that as evidence that he might be failing to understand the issue at hand (because it's the sort of evidence-evaluation you have to do in VR).
Click to expand...

You were being condescending.
 
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gettheleadout said:
I admit I came off condescending there. I do not intend to imply that he is dumb, but this issue does appear to be representative of critical thinking skills reflected in VR performance.
Click to expand...


I understand, but I doubt most people would appreciate it. Generally, people would be annoyed by it, thinking that you are being obnoxious.
 
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ElCapone said:
I see what you did there 😉



I agree. It's impossible to gauge just how "hard" the PS section was him without knowing his practice test average and spread for PS. For example, someone scoring 9-10 on PS is going to feel that PS was much harder than someone who's been scoring 14-15.

And this is the perfect example of using your VR skills!:

The assertion that one with a score of 38 would find the PS very difficult is

A) Suppoted; A 38 is a good score
B) Supported; The guy who wrote that clearly implied that his PS score was high
C) Unsupported; There is no evidence that the poster had been doing well on PS on his practice tests
D) Unsupported; Narfgargle
Click to expand...
... i'm going to have to mark this one and come back if I have time
 
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Ok, I'll say a few things. This was a re-write I decided to do about three weeks before (I found out my score july 23rd and was a bit shocked, decided to re-write RIGHT then and there). Put in a solid amount of work every day. Talking 10-12 hours a day. Like I hadn't left my house in three weeks. My main problem area was physics. So I spent two weeks going over every concept, loads of questions, memorized stuff. The way I prepared for my june 20th mcat was to read all the TBRs and do the practice tests and my friend taught me physics. It wasn't enough. This time I knew I needed to go through and teach myself the physics, and princeton was great for that.

I think physics went decently, I never feel confident about that section. I managed to swing an 11 on AAMC 7 for physics and I was exceedingly proud of myself (physics is REALLY a problem area for me.. never took it in high school, had to teach it to myself for the mcat so a lot of the physics stuff that y'all intuitively know from years of studying it? I don't have that). I'm expecting an 8-9. I know that's not good but I'd be happy with that at this point.

I will say that I wrote june 20th and felt like it went fine, looking back on it I feel like I guessed more times then than I did now. Hopefully that improvement will be noticeable.

Verbal went well for me. I don't remember struggling on anything. I didn't practice verbal for this mcat, as my goal was to improve my physics score. And I had always done well on verbal. As simple as this sounds, highlighting as I read things actually helped me to remember and not have to check the passage. I didn't find any of the passages impenetrable (maybe the colonial one was a bit verbose for my taste)

As for bio: So glad I went over AAMC's list of mcat topics. Esp redox titr. For those reading this- definitely go over their topic list and ask yourself if you know everything on the list.

There was one thing on bio that I had forgotten yesterday but I was so glad I didn't get tripped out on an entire passage like I did on the 20th (there was a passage in particular that I spent way too long on when i wrote in june and it knocked me down by 2 points probably)...

I had a non-functioning mouse and I had to keep banging it against the table... I had someone from the test centre come up to me and tell me to pause the exam when I said the mouse wasn't working. I gave her one of these 😱😕😡:scared: faces and said there's no pause button and I'd just deal with it.

I don't need to re-write because I'm applying to med schools mainly in ireland, and most of the schools that do report mcat scores say their "averages are as high as 28 or 29" so I'm really not threatened considering they seem to emphasis ECs and LORs.

I swung a 31 on AAMC 10. And a 30 on AAMC 7.
hopeful prediction: PS: 8 VR: 10-11 BS: 10-11
I tend to be really hard on myself so maybe I did better. Or maybe I did worse. No way of knowing until a few weeks from now. I think I did better than last time. When people ask me about it my heart starts racing.


I noticed people were saying this thread was dead so I thought I'd spice it up with my gratuitous recount of what yesterday was like.
 
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sdz7424 said:
^^^ I read about your situation a few days ago when I was checking the Aug 3rd and 4th threads to see what everyone thought about their test. I feel so sorry for what happened to you at your testing center, so I will try to offer as much insight to you as I can without violating any policies.

I always do the discretes first on the science sections, so as I clicked through each page to get to the stand alones in PS, I felt like the passages looked straightforward at first glance. First half of the passages were chem; last few were physics. Roughly a 50-50 split. I felt like the gen chem passages were very similar to practice tests and especially those in the Self Assessment; however, many of the accompanying questions themselves were worded differently and the answer options were just odd. I'm sure some of this could have been due to nerves, and there definitely were a couple easy questions on each passage.

The physics passages were a mix of calculations and inference questions. Some were tough though, and I wish I would have looked at factor conversions before my test because I had to do conversions I wasn't used to doing and my nerves just wouldn't let me think clearly. Basically, I felt like I could have studied half as much as I did and wouldn't have felt any worse about it. I used maybe 10% of my total knowledge from content review.

The questions were just odd. Some of the questions reminded my of EK Physics 1001; they asked things in a way you could've never anticipated. The physics passages also reminded me of Kaplan section tests, on which you had to rely on a gut feeling rather than a guaranteed right answer. It just wasn't a 'feel good' section by any means and I felt unsure on a LOT of answers. Every test is different though. Mine in particular required more analysis and passage inference than what I was used to or had seen on AAMC tests, and those are the questions on which you can never really feel 100% confident about. If I was to go back and do things over, I think I would've prepared differently. I expected it to be similar to the test I took last year, yet, it was very different (PS last year was JUST like AAMCs, if not easier). I probably would have done more Kaplan section tests and would have assessed my performance on those more heavily because this section seemed more in line with a mix of EK 1001 style questions + Kaplan section tests.

I hope that helps. Sorry for being somewhat vague. I just don't want to get in trouble for being too specific. 🙁
Click to expand...

when you say factor conversions are you referring to factor conversions within the metric system or should we be studying factor conversions from like the U.S. customary units to the metric system? For example, 1 inch = 2.5 cm.

Thanks!
 
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Well for people trying to get a sense of what the PS was like, I can say it was a much heavier time pressure, first off. On my last half AAMCs, I was scoring 14s and 15s (a couple 13s) on PS with ~15 minutes to spare but on test day I had 2 minutes I believe. No doubt some of the loss in time was stress, but if you're trying to gauge if you're ready for PS, the most important thing is that you should have a gut reaction to the vast majority of the questions. By that I mean, if a questions asks you to calculate some value, equations should be coming to your mind like clockwork, and you should very quickly be formulating a way to arrive at the question while at the same time remaining aware of units. You simply don't have time to sit and think about how you're going to solve every problem - at least, not on this PS section.
 
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gettheleadout said:
So? What assumption are you making? His/her split was 12/13/13 or what? It makes a big difference. Without a PS average we can't infer anything without speculating, and speculation is useless.

My PS average is 14, would I have had trouble with it? Without more information I have no way to relate to his/her experience at all.
Click to expand...

You caught me bro, my average is 8/15/15 - no wonder I found PS so hard 😉
 
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Why do we have to wait this long?! I can't take it! I am contemplating signing up for the September 15. But everyone keeps telling me to just chill out. Anyone else considering or already signed up?
 
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