The Official June 5, 2014 MCAT Thread

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Jericho91 said:
Best MCAT investment thus far: Chad's Videos particularly for Gen Chem and Orgo, decent is Physics
-Used EK (ehhh) and TBR (too dense and addicted to minutiae) and wa sgetting 7s(3 exams-2 Kaplan, AAMC 5), watched Chad for 2 weeks now and I am at an 11 (2 AAMC)-3&4.

Maybe it's more of me doing practice and going "hard" but take it for what its worth. They have been golden in enhancing my understanding of Chemistry that I took in 2009..be good!
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Just got Chad's videos and they're awesome. Likely only gonna use them for gen chem and orgo but it was definitely worth the 50 bucks.

Just hit my first 40 on a practice test! It was AAMC 8 and I had taken it previously about 9 months ago so I'm sure it's a bit inflated though...was definitely a morale booster. Only 17 days left!
 
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Dr Turkelton said:
Just got Chad's videos and they're awesome. Likely only gonna use them for gen chem and orgo but it was definitely worth the 50 bucks.

Just hit my first 40 on a practice test! It was AAMC 8 and I had taken it previously about 9 months ago so I'm sure it's a bit inflated though...was definitely a morale booster though. Only 17 days left!
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That's awesome!

I just purchased his videos ~2 weeks ago, loving them.

👍👍 at your name btw haha
 
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Dr Turkelton said:
Just got Chad's videos and they're awesome. Likely only gonna use them for gen chem and orgo but it was definitely worth the 50 bucks.

Just hit my first 40 on a practice test! It was AAMC 8 and I had taken it previously about 9 months ago so I'm sure it's a bit inflated though...was definitely a morale booster. Only 17 days left!
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I totally agree! What have you been getting on other tests?
 
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vanillabear55 said:
That's awesome!

I just purchased his videos ~2 weeks ago, loving them.

👍👍 at your name btw haha
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Haha nice name too! Hopefully this will be us on July 8th:

tumblr_mzzpiqwtDq1sisy7qo1_250.gif





Jericho91 said:
I totally agree! What have you been getting on other tests?
Click to expand...

Chad's video's make me feel like such an idiot sometimes. Until he said it I never knew an enol was literally an alkene and alcohol on the same carbon :laugh:

These are my scores so far:

Kaplan Diagnostic: 34 (11/12/11)
AAMC 5: 35 (12/11/12)
AAMC 4 38 (11/13/14)
AAMC 9: 35 (12/11/12)
Kaplan 7: 37 (12/10/15)
AAMC 8: 40 (13/14/13)

I'm in a weird position where I need a 36+ on the real thing so I'm hoping I can keep my average up around there come exam time.
 
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Dr Turkelton said:
Haha nice name too! Hopefully this will be us on July 8th:

tumblr_mzzpiqwtDq1sisy7qo1_250.gif







Chad's video's make me feel like such an idiot sometimes. Until he said it I never knew an enol was literally an alkene and alcohol on the same carbon :laugh:

These are my scores so far:

Kaplan Diagnostic: 34 (11/12/11)
AAMC 5: 35 (12/11/12)
AAMC 4 38 (11/13/14)
AAMC 9: 35 (12/11/12)
Kaplan 7: 37 (12/10/15)
AAMC 8: 40 (13/14/13)

I'm in a weird position where I need a 36+ on the real thing so I'm hoping I can keep my average up around there come exam time.
Click to expand...

Can I borrow your brain on test day - or just a portion? Pretty please?! :nod:

No seriously dude, that is very impressive! I just took AAMC 3 yesterday and got a 21 (7/6/8). Any tips to go up a couple points in each section by June? It was the first AAMC exam - full length for that matter that I've taken since August 2013, so I don't know if it was because of "shell shock" or a combination of deficiencies.
 
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attainmydream21 said:
Can I borrow your brain on test day - or just a portion? Pretty please?! :nod:

No seriously dude, that is very impressive! I just took AAMC 3 yesterday and got a 21 (7/6/8). Any tips to go up a couple points in each section by June? It was the first AAMC exam - full length for that matter that I've taken since August 2013, so I don't know if it was because of "shell shock" or a combination of deficiencies.
Click to expand...

What books are you using? If it's TBR I would drop that and switch to EK asap. If you dont like EK that's fine but IMO TBR is the absolute worst prep book out there. I would really consider pushing your test back until July at least if you are aiming 30+.

For PS, where are you missing the majority of your points? Make sure you have every single equation memorized. Once you have them memorized you should be approaching every PS the exact same way. First as you read the passage jot down any known variable (Height, Mass, Charge, Molarity etc...) and any equation they give you. Then I jot down any equation I can think of relating to the variables. (the 3 motion equations if it was a kinematics questions, Buoyant force and Bernoulli's equation if it was a liquid passage...). Usually if you just do this you can get at least 2 or 3 questions right by quickly just plugging things in to the equations. Make sure you are comfortable manipulating equations and working in scientific notation. Also test taking strategy can help you a ton in PS, often times you can find the right answer just by deciding whether it is positive or negative and looking at what order of magnitude you should be looking for. Generally at least 2 of the answers will be blatantly wrong.

For BS it looks like you have a solid content base. I would get BRS Physiology and give that a read. It seems there are more and more physiology questions on the MCAT these days and having a solid phis/bio background will save you a lot of time. The book is really short and written in bullet point form to get the big points across. If you are lacking in orgo then definitely give Chad's videos a shot. And make sure you carefully read each passage, a lot of times there will be questions that you think you should know from memory and therefore spend a ton of time raking your memory when the answer is actually written clearly in the passage.

Verbal is a crap shoot in terms of raising your score. You just need to do a **** ton of passages until you find a strategy that works for you. I personally usually quickly read/skim through the passage, read the questions, then do a detailed read of the passage and answer the questions as I go, but this might not work for other people.

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help!
 
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Dr Turkelton said:
What books are you using? If it's TBR I would drop that and switch to EK asap. If you dont like EK that's fine but IMO TBR is the absolute worst prep book out there. I would really consider pushing your test back until July at least if you are aiming 30+.

For PS, where are you missing the majority of your points? Make sure you have every single equation memorized. Once you have them memorized you should be approaching every PS the exact same way. First as you read the passage jot down any known variable (Height, Mass, Charge, Molarity etc...) and any equation they give you. Then I jot down any equation I can think of relating to the variables. (the 3 motion equations if it was a kinematics questions, Buoyant force and Bernoulli's equation if it was a liquid passage...). Usually if you just do this you can get at least 2 or 3 questions right by quickly just plugging things in to the equations. Make sure you are comfortable manipulating equations and working in scientific notation. Also test taking strategy can help you a ton in PS, often times you can find the right answer just by deciding whether it is positive or negative and looking at what order of magnitude you should be looking for. Generally at least 2 of the answers will be blatantly wrong.

For BS it looks like you have a solid content base. I would get BRS Physiology and give that a read. It seems there are more and more physiology questions on the MCAT these days and having a solid phis/bio background will save you a lot of time. The book is really short and written in bullet point form to get the big points across. If you are lacking in orgo then definitely give Chad's videos a shot. And make sure you carefully read each passage, a lot of times there will be questions that you think you should know from memory and therefore spend a ton of time raking your memory when the answer is actually written clearly in the passage.

Verbal is a crap shoot in terms of raising your score. You just need to do a **** ton of passages until you find a strategy that works for you. I personally usually quickly read/skim through the passage, read the questions, then do a detailed read of the passage and answer the questions as I go, but this might not work for other people.

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help!
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for the advice - it's much appreciated! I used EK for content review and only referred to TBR if I needed more background on particular topic. I also used TBR for its review questions. However, I agree that EK is the better of the two for content review.

After reviewing the exam:

PS: I noticed I made easy questions harder, by trying to recall formulas. I also found myself narrowing down two answer choices and then choosing the wrong answer choice. :smack: Overall, I think I'll do better next go around.

VR: I noticed I misinterpreted the main idea. My worst section thus far, but I've noticed tremendous improvement from a taking it the last year. I will try your method and see how it goes.

BS: I'm the most confident in this section, but sometimes I feel the BS section is reminiscent of verbal - very tricky!

I tried to postpone until July, but of course there are no available seats in my area and the deadline to postpone was yesterday. There is availability for August 7th, but I really don't want to postpone til then. 🤔 As of now, being a URM, I hoping for a 26-27. (8/8/10) or (9/8/9) or (9/8/10)
 
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Hey everyone, Im retaking on this date. I'm currently taking ek or tprh verbal section tests everyday, but I wasn't sure if I should be redoing my aamc full lengths or using new non-aamc full lengths? Any thoughts on this? I know retaking FLs inflates your score, but I thought the aamc ones have the closest "question types" to the real mcat. My new FLs include 3 tpr cracking and 2 kaplan, and I took the aamc FLs about 2 months ago for the first time.
 
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lawlzi said:
Hey everyone, Im retaking on this date. I'm currently taking ek or tprh verbal section tests everyday, but I wasn't sure if I should be redoing my aamc full lengths or using new non-aamc full lengths? Any thoughts on this? I know retaking FLs inflates your score, but I thought the aamc ones have the closest "question types" to the real mcat. My new FLs include 3 tpr cracking and 2 kaplan, and I took the aamc FLs about 2 months ago for the first time.
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I've found retaking has helped solidify concepts that I thought I knew well but didn't. When you retake the test try not to just click the right answer because you remember but actually think about stronger justifications for your answer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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beethousand said:
I've found retaking has helped solidify concepts that I thought I knew well but didn't. When you retake the test try not to just click the right answer because you remember but actually think about stronger justifications for your answer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I've retaken some of them and you're right - I'm realizing some things that I never saw before even if I got the question right both times. Thanks for the advice!
 
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Just took AAMC 11 and I think I might cry... 3 points below my average... AH! I still have 2 more practice tests left - 3 and 10. Not sure if I should do both or just one because I've been doing these practice tests on paper (so 3 would be good for computer but 10 is more representative?) What do you all think?
 
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Member5072 said:
Just took AAMC 11 and I think I might cry... 3 points below my average... AH! I still have 2 more practice tests left - 3 and 10. Not sure if I should do both or just one because I've been doing these practice tests on paper (so 3 would be good for computer but 10 is more representative?) What do you all think?
Click to expand...

Saving 11 for last. Took 8 today (36); verbal is bane of my existence.There's enough time for 3 more practice test!

I guess you could save 3 for last just so you're comfortable with the format. But it's least likely to be representative of your actual performance score-wise. So take your score with a grain of salt.
 
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beethousand said:
I've found retaking has helped solidify concepts that I thought I knew well but didn't. When you retake the test try not to just click the right answer because you remember but actually think about stronger justifications for your answer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

lawlzi said:
I've retaken some of them and you're right - I'm realizing some things that I never saw before even if I got the question right both times. Thanks for the advice!
Click to expand...

I have been retaking some of the passages from the AAMCs that i did a long, long time ago. It's crazy how i can still remember these passages... I don't remember the answers and very rarely remember the questions, but i still somewhat remember reading the information. Along with the AAMCs i've been doing EK and kaplan. Another reason i like doing the AAMCs so i can get used to the format of the exam.
 
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Heday said:
Saving 11 for last. Took 8 today (36); verbal is bane of my existence.There's enough time for 3 more practice test!

I guess you could save 3 for last just so you're comfortable with the format. But it's least likely to be representative of your actual performance score-wise. So take your score with a grain of salt.
Click to expand...
Haha, I don't want to burn out before the actual thing! Think I'll just do 3... I need to get used to the computer! I realized I made lots of stupid mistakes on 11... so hopefully I'll be more careful and READ the passages this time.
 
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What's everyones schedule like for the next few days? I just took AAMC10 (36) and made a ton of stupid mistakes, think I'm starting to get burnt out. Might just take AAMC11 on monday then do light content review the rest of the time.
 
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I"m gonna do two more FLs tomorrow and monday..Do content review (going over outline) and 1 verbal test on tuesday...Take the day off on wednesday.
 
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I am currently doing all the self assessments. I started yesterday and plan on having them all done tomorrow. After the seven passages from each, im also going to try and do some TPRH passages as well as take the PS and BS section of some of the other AAMC exams that I took a year ago. Then im gonna do AAMC 11 on monday and focus on content and verbal on tuesday and a bit on wednesday.
 
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btw, are you guys memorizing your formulas and know what you're gonna write on your scratch paper in the first 10 min? I think im gonna focus on all the forumlas i never could internalize in my head. I dont think i need to write down that f=ma lol
 
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Nah I'm not gonna write down the equations when I start, would take up too much time.

Also I just realized my scores for the past 5 tests have gone 40-39-38-37-36 😱
 
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Dr Turkelton said:
Nah I'm not gonna write down the equations when I start, would take up too much time.

Also I just realized my scores for the past 5 tests have gone 40-39-38-37-36 😱
Click to expand...

When I took the test, I used the first 10 minutes of the tutorial to write down common equations (to solve proportion problems quicker) and some of the more obscure equations from my studying. One of the proctors came up to me to check what I was doing, rushed to their computer to check the official rules and came back to me to say that there was no rule against what I was doing. So it is allowed.

However, the equations themselves did not serve much purpose other than to remind me of subject material and to refresh my memory. I'd do it if I were you. It really can't hurt and it may even help you if you happen to be stumped.

I know this week is going to be rough for you guys, as rough as these last three weeks have probably been for, but hang in there and don't give in to awful pretest dread/anxiety!
 
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Sounds like a good idea, didn't know you could do that.



Also ****, should not have looked at the may31st thread, everyone's freaking out about their PS section.
 
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Dr Turkelton said:
Sounds like a good idea, didn't know you could do that.



Also ****, should not have looked at the may31st thread, everyone's freaking out about their PS section.
Click to expand...
Don't be deterred. Just keep course. You are going to put major stress on yourself by listening to a bunch of anxious premeds right after their mcat.
Come Thursday we will be DONE! That is plenty to be excited about!
 
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Dr Turkelton said:
Sounds like a good idea, didn't know you could do that.



Also ****, should not have looked at the may31st thread, everyone's freaking out about their PS section.
Click to expand...

Most of us from the April 24 mcat did really well in that section. Don't psych yourself out. PS was so much easier than I thought it would be.
 
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I took AAMC 11 today. (10/9/9). bio was a question off from a 10 lol. I hate dumb mistakes. Anyways guys, good luck. im just gonna content review and get myself quicker on math questions. I almost didnt finish the PS section
 
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Just took my last AAMC today as well, AAMC11. Ended up with a 13/11/13. I know for sciences it's gonna come down to focus, most of the errors I made today were just stupid mistakes. Verbal on the other hand I'm not too sure of... I would like to be scoring a bit higher but I'm too scared to change up my strategy this late in the game.

Final averages:

AAMC: 36.9
Kaplan: 38.5

Will likely just practice some verbal passages and do some light content skimming the next few days to make sure I don't forget anything. I think the most important thing to do know is try to relax a bit (And send out amcas and aacomas apps 😱). Good luck everyone!
 
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Uafl112 said:
I took AAMC 11 today. (10/9/9). bio was a question off from a 10 lol. I hate dumb mistakes. Anyways guys, good luck. im just gonna content review and get myself quicker on math questions. I almost didnt finish the PS section
Click to expand...

There were so many calculations in this one! Don't remember the real mcat I took being that math focused.
 
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Dr Turkelton said:
Just took my last AAMC today as well, AAMC11. Ended up with a 13/11/13. I know for sciences it's gonna come down to focus, most of the errors I made today were just stupid mistakes. Verbal on the other hand I'm not too sure of... I would like to be scoring a bit higher but I'm too scared to change up my strategy this late in the game.

Final averages:

AAMC: 36.9
Kaplan: 38.5

Will likely just practice some verbal passages and do some light content skimming the next few days to make sure I don't forget anything. I think the most important thing to do know is try to relax a bit (And send out amcas and aacomas apps 😱). Good luck everyone!
Click to expand...

Dont change your verbal strategy. Just keep doing what you're doing. On exam day, you'll hopefully be concentrating much better and firing on all cylinders so you can catch all those small mistakes. For the sciences, I use to finish with 15 minutes remaining and score around a 9 to a 10. However, this would make me look over all my small mistakes. When I started taking my time a little bit more and marking questions, I saw an increase in right answers for PS. Im still working more on Bio to ensure myself that I score at least in the 10 range.

It seems that you're already killing your sections though lol

And I agree, the physical sciences was definitely much more math oriented. I am gonna spend the next two days doing discrete physics questions from the TPRH SW so I can hopefully strengthen my math skills
 
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doing a bunch of experimental passages today and some tomorrow. Then look over certain chapters I think I should look over a bit more
 
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Yeah I haven't done **** since submitting my apps this morning. Just gonna go through all my past tests and look at the questions I got wrong this afternoon.
 
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Pretty burnt out lol. Kinda resigned to the fact that there isnt much that I can learn anymore. Just gonna relax tonight, do a couple passages tomorrow and then sleep early. It's all about being focused. Hbu?
 
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