The Official June 2015 MCAT Thread

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I had to pee really badly during the psych/socio section. They really need to do something about the breaks....like allow 1 emergency break. I bet a plenty of others had the same problem you did and are too embarrassed to put it here.
Yh me tooo, during the biology section, i feel like i just kinda breezed through it.
 
Congratulations on finishing the mcat guys! I was wondering for those of you who took the TPR class and FL's, how did they compare to the actual mcat?
 
^^ hey! There's lot of opinions on here dealing with comparisons of full lengths and the real thing; a simple search will definitely get you the answer you are looking for! @mcatjelly has the best links in her signature which take you directly to them!

My opinion, third party fls should only be used for endurance. If you want to use them Id get some from different companies to get a broad range of them. Happy studying and hope this helps.
 
Last years school specific threads. Commonly the first post, or usually within a page or two if not there.

(Or possibly in THIS years threads as well... haven't looked yet.)
 
Reading through this thread has been such a strange experience. I swear people took a different test than the one I took Friday. For me:
CP- The worst way to start off this **** test! Extremely convoluted and confusing, with very few of the physics topics that I studied hard for actually covered. Chemistry section felt like it was on steroids, despite the easy physics that appeared. And I'm a chemistry-oriented person.
CARS- Wait.....what??? People actually thought this was hard? Imo it was very easy, and though the passages were fairly long I finished with seven minutes left. Comfortable with my answers, and the choices seemed very black and white. Good section, much easier than the EK practice verbals.
BIO- Another doozie. Again, could not believe that some people (most, it seems) thought this was easy! My most salient thought as I took this section is that they need to drop the name and rename it Convoluted Biochemistry in its Most Confusing form. Some experiments presented made so little sense that I had to read the passage three or four times. Praying for mercy on this section, and not confident at all on how I did here.
P/S- This section was far and away the.........easiest! What are people talking about when they accuse this section of being difficult? It was super easy on the practice test (AAMC) and, likewise, was similarly easy here. Did people just not take Soc or Psych in school? After that horrible bio section, P/S was a great way to ease out of the test. Would be surprised if I missed more than three in this section, so it should help salvage my BIO score.
Overall, in terms of hard to easy: BIO>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>CP>>>>>>>>>>>CARS>P/S
Can anyone vouch for me here? Or either I took a way different test, studied very strangely, or was slipped a drug of some sort moments before taking the test. I'd like to find out which.
 
Reading through this thread has been such a strange experience. I swear people took a different test than the one I took Friday. For me:
CP- The worst way to start off this **** test! Extremely convoluted and confusing, with very few of the physics topics that I studied hard for actually covered. Chemistry section felt like it was on steroids, despite the easy physics that appeared. And I'm a chemistry-oriented person.
CARS- Wait.....what??? People actually thought this was hard? Imo it was very easy, and though the passages were fairly long I finished with seven minutes left. Comfortable with my answers, and the choices seemed very black and white. Good section, much easier than the EK practice verbals.
BIO- Another doozie. Again, could not believe that some people (most, it seems) thought this was easy! My most salient thought as I took this section is that they need to drop the name and rename it Convoluted Biochemistry in its Most Confusing form. Some experiments presented made so little sense that I had to read the passage three or four times. Praying for mercy on this section, and not confident at all on how I did here.
P/S- This section was far and away the.........easiest! What are people talking about when they accuse this section of being difficult? It was super easy on the practice test (AAMC) and, likewise, was similarly easy here. Did people just not take Soc or Psych in school? After that horrible bio section, P/S was a great way to ease out of the test. Would be surprised if I missed more than three in this section, so it should help salvage my BIO score.
Overall, in terms of hard to easy: BIO>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>CP>>>>>>>>>>>CARS>P/S
Can anyone vouch for me here? Or either I took a way different test, studied very strangely, or was slipped a drug of some sort moments before taking the test. I'd like to find out which.

I'll vouch for that..... My experience was very similar to yours, but I took my test on Saturday. Praying for a good score!
 
Overall, in terms of hard to easy: BIO>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>CP>>>>>>>>>>>CARS>P/S
Can anyone vouch for me here? Or either I took a way different test, studied very strangely, or was slipped a drug of some sort moments before taking the test. I'd like to find out which.

I think you'll find out how accurate your self evaluation is when scores come out.

There were different tests, but people also have different strengths. The amount of content tested was a tiny sliver of what we could have been tested on, so it can be a bit of luck sometimes if you get a topic strength or weakness. I think most people here are basing their opinions of the test relative to the AAMC practice test. For example: I consistently had 30+ minutes remaining when doing psych, and on the AAMC practice did well enough (for my goal) well within my usual time. On test day, even after feeling very strong for the first three sections, I felt 10 times less confident after the section and had to scramble to finish. So was your Psych section easier than mine? Or did it play to your strengths, and mine my weaknesses? Or...?

Honestly, I don't think we can be sure anyone has the same test as anyone else, or even a similar test. The theory I've seen floated about was "two versions," but there's no reason I can see to suggest that the passage order would be the same, or even the questions are the same between any test on a given day. If they have 1000 Bio questions in a bank, why give June 20th examinees questions 1-60 if you can give 'Examinee 185' a random assortment from 1-200? (which overlaps but isn't identical to Examinee 186.) As long as they have enough test takers, they can still gauge difficulty of question/passage 35, etc on performance by everyone who took that question relative to how everyone performed otherwise.

I think it would be very interesting to see what they do behind the scenes...
 
Your perception of each section's difficulty is subjective to your relative strengths. As someone who is very strong in the natural sciences and weaker in verbal/social topics – I feel like each section was equal in difficulty. I had to make educated guesses on about 3 questions in each section, but overall the test seemed very fair.
 
Im convinced that they had 2 versions of each section and they mixed it up for each test taker on the day you took it.

Its possible you could have gotten all 4 tough sections or all 4 easy. But it doesnt matter, youre going to be evaluated relative to the people who took your version.
 
I think you'll find out how accurate your self evaluation is when scores come out.

There were different tests, but people also have different strengths. The amount of content tested was a tiny sliver of what we could have been tested on, so it can be a bit of luck sometimes if you get a topic strength or weakness. I think most people here are basing their opinions of the test relative to the AAMC practice test. For example: I consistently had 30+ minutes remaining when doing psych, and on the AAMC practice did well enough (for my goal) well within my usual time. On test day, even after feeling very strong for the first three sections, I felt 10 times less confident after the section and had to scramble to finish. So was your Psych section easier than mine? Or did it play to your strengths, and mine my weaknesses? Or...?

Honestly, I don't think we can be sure anyone has the same test as anyone else, or even a similar test. The theory I've seen floated about was "two versions," but there's no reason I can see to suggest that the passage order would be the same, or even the questions are the same between any test on a given day. If they have 1000 Bio questions in a bank, why give June 20th examinees questions 1-60 if you can give 'Examinee 185' a random assortment from 1-200? (which overlaps but isn't identical to Examinee 186.) As long as they have enough test takers, they can still gauge difficulty of question/passage 35, etc on performance by everyone who took that question relative to how everyone performed otherwise.

I think it would be very interesting to see what they do behind the scenes...

I'm pretty sure they do that. No two test takers will have the same exam; they have a certain number of chosen passages and FSQs for each section, and randomly assign them to everyone on test day. I doubt even two people in the same room will bave the same test. Similar maybe, with passages in common, but not identical.
 
This is how bored/neurotic I am... I just spent like 15 minutes making this haha. I really should be doing my secondaries
Screen Shot 2015-06-25 at 12.34.25 PM.png
 
I'm pretty sure they do that. No two test takers will have the same exam; they have a certain number of chosen passages and FSQs for each section, and randomly assign them to everyone on test day. I doubt even two people in the same room will bave the same test. Similar maybe, with passages in common, but not identical.

My girlfriend and I tested together, sat next to each other, and had every single passage and question the same, but presented in a different order.
 
Please help- July taker: So it says that each Question Pack is 120 questions-so should I give my self 3hrs to do it (since a section (except CARS) is 59 questions and we are given 1.5 hr).
And should I give myself 3.5 hr for one CARS pack (120 Questions)?
 
You'll be fine man it's only June! I'm applying md/phd so I had to do a lot of extra writing :dead: so I started early out of fear
I don't envy you. I am NOT good at writing. I am halfway done and already running out of steam. I feel like what I have written is good, but struggle writing on. I was that guy that struggled getting the required number of pages for a report out.
 
Guys don't worry about failing that psych/soc. From what I gathered with all these posts, if we fail we are all gonna fail together. Fingers crossed the average is like 20's to low 30's/59 right.
 
i just saw how their twitter feed again said that the score will be released by the 6th. I'm hoping that actually means there is the possibility of receiving preliminaries early and not just a lazy use of the word. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it takes 2 weeks to tell me the percent of other test takers that my raw score is above. Don't they know our raw scores the moment we press submit??
 
i just saw how their twitter feed again said that the score will be released by the 6th. I'm hoping that actually means there is the possibility of receiving preliminaries early and not just a lazy use of the word. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it takes 2 weeks to tell me the percent of other test takers that my raw score is above. Don't they know our raw scores the moment we press submit??
it might get more complicated with experimental passages, even still crunching the numbers wouldn't take that long. I bet they have some bureaucratic overhead with specific policies and procedures. 10000 people probably take the test each month X219 questions. Thats a lot of data points they would have to keep straight especially if the experimental questions are mixed in with actual passages. That paired with the fact that they are probably still adjusting scales for the different tests they have, I can see it taking 2 weeks to get it right.
 
Experimental passages? Like ones that don't actually count, or..? Not sure i was aware that those might be present. Since each section only had 59 questions, doesn't that mean that all of the questions have to be scored?

And perhaps i'm missing something...But each question has one right answer. The moment i finish a section, the computer knows how many questions i got right and can therefore calculate my raw score, instantaneously. Assuming that premise is right, then they should automatically know how many people got a total of 85%, how many people got a total of 92% etc and thus be able to know, right away, our standings. That's the benefit of having it computerized!

All in all, it doesn't really matter...it's just a new thing for me to obsess over and help pass the time. I'm sure they have a very valid reason that we are just not privy to.
 
Getting extremely anxious...I feel like I'm the only one that thinks I completely bombed the psyc section..like not 125 bombed but like 122 bombed :/

I felt like I marked 80% of the questions...
did you not read my post? i woke up 5:30 am on sunday with a panic attack after having a beautiful post-mcat sleep ... damn vygotsky and piaget and every other fkin psychology theorists too...
 
Experimental passages? Like ones that don't actually count, or..? Not sure i was aware that those might be present. Since each section only had 59 questions, doesn't that mean that all of the questions have to be scored?

And perhaps i'm missing something...But each question has one right answer. The moment i finish a section, the computer knows how many questions i got right and can therefore calculate my raw score, instantaneously. Assuming that premise is right, then they should automatically know how many people got a total of 85%, how many people got a total of 92% etc and thus be able to know, right away, our standings. That's the benefit of having it computerized!

All in all, it doesn't really matter...it's just a new thing for me to obsess over and help pass the time. I'm sure they have a very valid reason that we are just not privy to.

Experimental passages do exist. They do not contribute to your score. They may be easier than the other material or harder. so automatically those who had said experimental passages must be assessed differently compared to everyone else. Since there is more than one version of the test, they must be compiled as well and assessed for any irregularities. Did the mcat takers score higher than expected, compress the scales to normalize. Did they score lower than expected as a whole? widen the scales to normalize. Make sure you normalize according to what you have done historically. I am sure it is simple in theory but gets complex as crap, as every other thing in life.
 
For those of you who used Khan passages, how close were they to the actual mcat passages? Also, I know we need to know the 3 and 1 letter codes for the amino acids, but do we need to know their structures as well?
 
For those of you who used Khan passages, how close were they to the actual mcat passages? Also, I know we need to know the 3 and 1 letter codes for the amino acids, but do we need to know their structures as well?
mate i took 1 day after pushing it for a long time to memorize 3 and 1 letter codes as well as draw those structures till i was blue in the face (and im black so its literally impossible for that to happen 😛 ).. my advice is know the structures. infact know it and the grouping.

Grizzlies (in) Alaska Viciously Looted Isolated People (doing) Meth

Glycine, Alanine, Valine, Leucine, IsoLeucine, Proline, Methionine (non polar, non aromatic).


Basic HAL : histidine, Alanine, Lysine

Alcohol is a SERious THReat (polar alcohols: serine, threonine)

anyways you get the idea. easier to picture when during the test you realize they substituted a polar (threonine) for a nonpolar (valine ) aminoacid... you know the protein is f'd.


so yes draw the structure, know everything you can about them. the test is literally BIO-CHEMISTRY. thats the beauty of it for aamc, adding biochem allows them to test everything under the moon now.


as for khan academy, i think they did amazing preparing me for test taking strategies. the sheer volume of passages they have is amazing and i dont know if i even did well but certainly would not be because of khan. i used kaplan ( i sped through everything even psych) and khan ( i did multiple passages the last week or two of my study.

i really only studied 4 weeks before the test. who knows if im lucky i did good
 
For those of you who used Khan passages, how close were they to the actual mcat passages? Also, I know we need to know the 3 and 1 letter codes for the amino acids, but do we need to know their structures as well?
mate i took 1 day after pushing it for a long time to memorize 3 and 1 letter codes as well as draw those structures till i was blue in the face (and im black so its literally impossible for that to happen 😛 ).. my advice is know the structures. infact know it and the grouping.

Grizzlies (in) Alaska Viciously Looted Isolated People (doing) Meth

Glycine, Alanine, Valine, Leucine, IsoLeucine, Proline, Methionine (non polar, non aromatic).


Basic HAL : histidine, Alanine, Lysine

Alcohol is a SERious THReat (polar alcohols: serine, threonine)

anyways you get the idea. easier to picture when during the test you realize they substituted a polar (threonine) for a nonpolar (valine ) aminoacid... you know the protein is f'd.


so yes draw the structure, know everything you can about them. the test is literally BIO-CHEMISTRY. thats the beauty of it for aamc, adding biochem allows them to test everything under the moon now.


as for khan academy, i think they did amazing preparing me for test taking strategies. the sheer volume of passages they have is amazing and i dont know if i even did well but certainly would not be because of khan. i used kaplan ( i sped through everything even psych) and khan ( i did multiple passages the last week or two of my study.

i really only studied 4 weeks before the test. who knows if im lucky i did good
Amino_acids.png

Memorize it. It will take a few hours. It will pay dividends.

Also understand how different amino acids affect protein structure.
 
mate i took 1 day after pushing it for a long time to memorize 3 and 1 letter codes as well as draw those structures till i was blue in the face (and im black so its literally impossible for that to happen 😛 ).. my advice is know the structures. infact know it and the grouping.

Grizzlies (in) Alaska Viciously Looted Isolated People (doing) Meth

Glycine, Alanine, Valine, Leucine, IsoLeucine, Proline, Methionine (non polar, non aromatic).


Basic HAL : histidine, Alanine, Lysine

Alcohol is a SERious THReat (polar alcohols: serine, threonine)

anyways you get the idea. easier to picture when during the test you realize they substituted a polar (threonine) for a nonpolar (valine ) aminoacid... you know the protein is f'd.


so yes draw the structure, know everything you can about them. the test is literally BIO-CHEMISTRY. thats the beauty of it for aamc, adding biochem allows them to test everything under the moon now.


as for khan academy, i think they did amazing preparing me for test taking strategies. the sheer volume of passages they have is amazing and i dont know if i even did well but certainly would not be because of khan. i used kaplan ( i sped through everything even psych) and khan ( i did multiple passages the last week or two of my study.

i really only studied 4 weeks before the test. who knows if im lucky i did good
Thanks. Really like the acronyms btw 🙂 What did you think of kaplan's practice tests?
 
Guys don't worry about failing that psych/soc. From what I gathered with all these posts, if we fail we are all gonna fail together. Fingers crossed the average is like 20's to low 30's/59 right.


Plot Twist: There is another MCAT June thread on another premed forum where everybody did well.
 
Thanks. Really like the acronyms btw 🙂 What did you think of kaplan's practice tests?
Took the half length one a week into content studying got a 492 missing a huge amount, week 3 took tpr free full length 499, and week 4: next step 501.

I think anyone of them could have sufficed provided you have decent content review. I'm not an expert since I don't know how bad I did 😛 but khan imo was great for science POST-CONTENT review. The downside is no timing. Once you get bored of content review like I did, just turn to khan. It can easily expose you for the phony mcat taker that you are. Lots of prep companies go overboard and sometimes crucial information is lost there... khan tells you what you are weak at.

For example in biochem, I ignored amino acid but in the khan biological passages, I was getting 2/5 and 3/5 if I was lucky due to guessing, and if it was amino acid related I sometimes even got them all wrong so obviously I knew I had to face my weakness. I didn't take biochem at all but imo the new test I didn't see biochem that required some genius A student from biochem.

Sorry for long rant : short answer : Kaplan , good, don't rely on them only. Khan's huge passage list is a blessing in disguise. It's basically full lengths broken down to absorbable 5 questions passages
 
Reading through this thread has been such a strange experience. I swear people took a different test than the one I took Friday. For me:
CP- The worst way to start off this **** test! Extremely convoluted and confusing, with very few of the physics topics that I studied hard for actually covered. Chemistry section felt like it was on steroids, despite the easy physics that appeared. And I'm a chemistry-oriented person.
CARS- Wait.....what??? People actually thought this was hard? Imo it was very easy, and though the passages were fairly long I finished with seven minutes left. Comfortable with my answers, and the choices seemed very black and white. Good section, much easier than the EK practice verbals.
BIO- Another doozie. Again, could not believe that some people (most, it seems) thought this was easy! My most salient thought as I took this section is that they need to drop the name and rename it Convoluted Biochemistry in its Most Confusing form. Some experiments presented made so little sense that I had to read the passage three or four times. Praying for mercy on this section, and not confident at all on how I did here.
P/S- This section was far and away the.........easiest! What are people talking about when they accuse this section of being difficult? It was super easy on the practice test (AAMC) and, likewise, was similarly easy here. Did people just not take Soc or Psych in school? After that horrible bio section, P/S was a great way to ease out of the test. Would be surprised if I missed more than three in this section, so it should help salvage my BIO score.
Overall, in terms of hard to easy: BIO>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>CP>>>>>>>>>>>CARS>P/S
Can anyone vouch for me here? Or either I took a way different test, studied very strangely, or was slipped a drug of some sort moments before taking the test. I'd like to find out which.

Exact same boat, my friend. I had to read the bio paragraphs several times just to get a grasp. They'd give some info and then put some more info as a side note in parenthesis that threw everything for a loop. Convoluted is the absolute perfect word for what they did on that bio section.

Like you, my CARS and P/S sections weren't bad. I don't know if I did as well as you think you did on P/S, but I'm fairly confident that I could have pulled the equivalent of an 11 or 12.
 
did you not read my post? i woke up 5:30 am on sunday with a panic attack after having a beautiful post-mcat sleep ... damn vygotsky and piaget and every other fkin psychology theorists too...

Yes I saw that! I think people have diff definitions of bombing it though so that's what I was saying. Hopefully we both do better than expected!
 
Is the consensus to submit to one school for verification ASAP? I'm thinking about waiting until July 6th to get my percentile range back. Will this extra week delay verification by too much?
 
Is the consensus to submit to one school for verification ASAP? I'm thinking about waiting until July 6th to get my percentile range back. Will this extra week delay verification by too much?

Yeah I would go ahead and pick a throwaway school and get verified now. Then when you add schools, the app/Mcat score will go straight to those new schools without having to wait for AMCAS to approve your stuff.
 
A few questions about the work/activities for people that have already submitted the AMCAS. For total hours, do you write the hours you have done and are expecting to complete? For example, I just started working at my school hospital in February and only a couple hours done. However, I am continuing to work there for the next school year and should earn about 100 more hours. So should I write a total of 130 hours? Not really sure about that. Second, I worked at a hospital for about 40 hours over the summer after my freshman year. However, I worked at this same hospital previously in high school from sophomore to senior year for around 200ish hours. Since we can add up to 3 time ranges, should I add those hours as well? Finally, for non-clinical volunteering, I've done about 100 hours volunteering at multiple different areas and events. For people that did something similar, what did you write for experience name and what did you put for the contact information. I'm not sure how to go about doing this. Any help would be appreciated
 
A few questions about the work/activities for people that have already submitted the AMCAS. For total hours, do you write the hours you have done and are expecting to complete? For example, I just started working at my school hospital in February and only a couple hours done. However, I am continuing to work there for the next school year and should earn about 100 more hours. So should I write a total of 130 hours? Not really sure about that. Second, I worked at a hospital for about 40 hours over the summer after my freshman year. However, I worked at this same hospital previously in high school from sophomore to senior year for around 200ish hours. Since we can add up to 3 time ranges, should I add those hours as well? Finally, for non-clinical volunteering, I've done about 100 hours volunteering at multiple different areas and events. For people that did something similar, what did you write for experience name and what did you put for the contact information. I'm not sure how to go about doing this. Any help would be appreciated

1. You can only enter the amount of hours that you have completed. You can enter in the course description though: "I have been chosen to continue volunteering and expect to accrue 100 hours by fall 2015" or something like that.

2. Yes, it would be appropriate to add up the three different ranges. BUT since you volunteered in high school, the general consensus is that it would be wise to not include it on your application.

3. I had a "grab bag" or random activities. I just put the contact of the first person I volunteered with who knew me and could verify my hours with them. I titled it "various short term community volunteering" i believe.
 
Do we actually need to know pKas for amino acids?

Technically? No. Should you? Absolutely. I'm not exactly sure how you're supposed to understand zwitterionic states of amino acids, their charges at different pHs, and their properties for stabilization of charge otherwise.
 
A few questions about the work/activities for people that have already submitted the AMCAS. For total hours, do you write the hours you have done and are expecting to complete? For example, I just started working at my school hospital in February and only a couple hours done. However, I am continuing to work there for the next school year and should earn about 100 more hours. So should I write a total of 130 hours? Not really sure about that. Second, I worked at a hospital for about 40 hours over the summer after my freshman year. However, I worked at this same hospital previously in high school from sophomore to senior year for around 200ish hours. Since we can add up to 3 time ranges, should I add those hours as well? Finally, for non-clinical volunteering, I've done about 100 hours volunteering at multiple different areas and events. For people that did something similar, what did you write for experience name and what did you put for the contact information. I'm not sure how to go about doing this. Any help would be appreciated

1. You can only enter the amount of hours that you have completed. You can enter in the course description though: "I have been chosen to continue volunteering and expect to accrue 100 hours by fall 2015" or something like that.

2. Yes, it would be appropriate to add up the three different ranges. BUT since you volunteered in high school, the general consensus is that it would be wise to not include it on your application.

3. I had a "grab bag" or random activities. I just put the contact of the first person I volunteered with who knew me and could verify my hours with them. I titled it "various short term community volunteering" i believe.

You absolutely can include future hours on AMCAS! I would just make it clear in your description how many hours you have completed so far, or use the repeated button to add a future time range. You can add up to 4 time ranges. You can combine volunteering experiences if you want.
 
I have a question about the experiences section on the application and our personal statements. For the 3 most valuable experiences, do you just make sure you don't include those in your personal statement or do you repeat the info twice with a different spin?
 
I have a question about the experiences section on the application and our personal statements. For the 3 most valuable experiences, do you just make sure you don't include those in your personal statement or do you repeat the info twice with a different spin?

Try not to repeat. I put a common experience in both, but in my PS I gave one anecdote from that experience, whereas in my 'most valuable' section I put how the experience overall pushed me to want to be a doctor, and how it was meaningful to me.

If you can spin it differently, try to do that!
 
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