*The Official MCAT June 2018 Thread*

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Cheerfulcheeto said:
So...Kaplan FL #2 500 Testing June 30. Thoughts? My brain is fried 😕

I scored lowest on CARS and Psych
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Kaplan is very hard to tell where you’re at. However, if P/S and CARS were your worst, its looking good for the sciences for you! I feel AAMC C/P at least is easier.

But yeah, my P/S and CARS went down on AAMC. Maybe try CARS QPack 1 before your first AAMC FL and see how that goes. For P/S and the sciences, I recommend at least digging into the SBs a bit before your first FL as well. That way your first FL will be as indicative of where youre at as possible!
 
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PopeKnope98 said:
Kaplan is very hard to tell where you’re at. However, if P/S and CARS were your worst, its looking good for the sciences for you! I feel AAMC C/P at least is easier.

But yeah, my P/S and CARS went down on AAMC. Maybe try CARS QPack 1 before your first AAMC FL and see how that goes. For P/S and the sciences, I recommend at least digging into the SBs a bit before your first FL as well. That way your first FL will be as indicative of where youre at as possible!
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Thank you!! I will do that 🙂

Yeah, my science passages were both in the 70th percentile. So hopefully Kaplan is harder in that respect.

For AAMC CARS, I'm almost done with QP1..I felt like their questions and wrong answer choice patterns were totally different and not so hard.
 
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omg guys...I completely forgot to do the AAMC official guide questions -.- I realized this just now! I've completed SBs, QBanks, all of the practice exams but somehow thought I'd already done this too :'( Do you think it's worth doing the problems tomorrow (I test Friday) or just YOLO and review the AAMC questions tomorrow (what I was planning on doing anyway?)

I can't believe I did that omg I'm the worst
 
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PopeKnope98 said:
I'm honestly not feeling ready at all. Like it's gonna kick me in the butt. I'm still doing practice questions and getting lots wrong. But at this point, just gonna go in with confidence and hope for the best. Any advice for my last day tomorrow?!
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I don't know if this is comforting, but I was told that you will never feel ready for it because it is so huge. How have you been scoring on AAMC practice?
 
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PopeKnope98 said:
Ahhh thank you! And best of luck tomorrow!! How are you feeling?
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I wish I had more time (don't we all haha), but mostly ready to take it and see what happens 😛 I hit a 515 in AAMC FL 3, and if I maintain that I'll be happy. I'm not applying this cycle so I'm telling myself that if it's bad or if I decide I want to shoot higher I still can. eekkk.

Going to bed. LET'S DO THIS THING!!
 
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Cheerfulcheeto said:
I don't know if this is comforting, but I was told that you will never feel ready for it because it is so huge. How have you been scoring on AAMC practice?
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I scored a 506 on FL 3, and if I score that on Saturday I’ll be satisfied. It’s not great, but I got a 503 then 501 on FLs 1 and 2 which was demoralizing. Ugh. I just don’t want to fall below a 505.
 
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PopeKnope98 said:
I scored a 506 on FL 3, and if I score that on Saturday I’ll be satisfied. It’s not great, but I got a 503 then 501 on FLs 1 and 2 which was demoralizing. Ugh. I just don’t want to fall below a 505.
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You won't!! You got this. You scored that high before, so you can do it again! Keeping my fingers crossed that all passages will be about topics you are solid on. 🙂 Get lots of sleep...Adrenalin's got your back tomorrow...it'll give you another push 😎 lol
 
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Cheerfulcheeto said:
You won't!! You got this. You scored that high before, so you can do it again! Keeping my fingers crossed that all passages will be about topics you are solid on. 🙂 Get lots of sleep...Adrenalin's got your back tomorrow...it'll give you another push 😎 lol
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Thank you so much!!! I don't test til Sat so I got tomorrow too, but I'm defs gonna get a good night sleep tonight and practice waking up early tomorrow (and figuring out what breakfast I wanna eat on Saturday lol). Little things that may make a big difference!
 
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stressedandpremed said:
I wish I had more time (don't we all haha), but mostly ready to take it and see what happens 😛 I hit a 515 in AAMC FL 3, and if I maintain that I'll be happy. I'm not applying this cycle so I'm telling myself that if it's bad or if I decide I want to shoot higher I still can. eekkk.

Going to bed. LET'S DO THIS THING!!
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Let us know how it goes asap!! You got this!!
 
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Cheerfulcheeto said:
Guuuyssss....I so want to start with AAMC question packs but I'm not completely through with content yet. Are the Qpacks only content based or do they include passages as well? I'm starting with the QBank passages in about 9 days.. Thanks y'all!!!
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the Qpacks contain passages as well but nearly all the questions are content based. if that's how the old mcat was, I am kind of pissed that i have to take the new one lol
 
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Who wants to feel better about themselves? So, I officially have 2 weeks left until I sit for the exam. I have not even started reviewing for P/S or C/P. No FL taken yet (I wanna save it for at least until I review P/S to SOME degree). Chemistry is my strong point, but physics is 100% NOT (not because I suck at physics--i LOVE physics, it sticks very well w me, I just forgot everything so have to relearn it all). Main reason is because I had to move from my apt (my landlords are heartless and wouldn't renew my lease, because they planned renovations). Overall I have been out of it for the last week. I am so mad at myself. Is it delusional to think that not all is lost w/ two weeks left for me?
 
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So I’ve been reviewing the Kaplan books and I have done one fl of TPR. I didn’t get the AAMC full package to prepare because I couldn’t afford it. But I am buying three AAMC FL and taking one on Monday and then each week after that. I test on 6/29. I am almost finished going through the biochem book for Kaplan and working my way through the others. Is it going to kill me that I don’t have all the resources that you guys keep referring to?
 
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Does Laplace law show up on MCAT? It isn't on the list of things to memorize for AAMC but it's in my physics textbook in fluids
 
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Thecomposer said:
Who wants to feel better about themselves? So, I officially have 2 weeks left until I sit for the exam. I have not even started reviewing for P/S or C/P. No FL taken yet (I wanna save it for at least until I review P/S to SOME degree). Chemistry is my strong point, but physics is 100% NOT (not because I suck at physics--i LOVE physics, it sticks very well w me, I just forgot everything so have to relearn it all). Main reason is because I had to move from my apt (my landlords are heartless and wouldn't renew my lease, because they planned renovations). Overall I have been out of it for the last week. I am so mad at myself. Is it delusional to think that not all is lost w/ two weeks left for me?
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I think it is hard to tell if you haven't taken a practice test yet. You should take a couple of them to build stamina and to practice how to take the test..so I think if I were in your shoes, I would take an AAMC practice test ASAP, see how I'm scoring and then decide what to do. You could also take a Kaplan or NS, but those won't be as accurate of an indicator for where you stand.
 
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Cheerfulcheeto said:
I think it is hard to tell if you haven't taken a practice test yet. You should take a couple of them to build stamina and to practice how to take the test..so I think if I were in your shoes, I would take an AAMC practice test ASAP, see how I'm scoring and then decide what to do. You could also take a Kaplan or NS, but those won't be as accurate of an indicator for where you stand.
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The thing is I don't wanna waste an AAMC FL. Why take it so that I get a 119 on P/S? I wanna prepare my physics and P/S as best I can first, then do the FL as soon as possible. Is that crazy? Otherwise, P/S will come down to common sense, which I doubt it will be, because people say it is memorization heavy.
 
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Thecomposer said:
The thing is I don't wanna waste an AAMC FL. Why take it so that I get a 119 on P/S? I wanna prepare my physics and P/S as best I can first, then do the FL as soon as possible. Is that crazy? Otherwise, P/S will come down to common sense, which I doubt it will be, because people say it is memorization heavy.
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I totally understand that. I have not taken FL 1 yet either. Content is just one (important!) part of prepping for this beast. I was just thinking let's say you take it a week before your test date, and you realize that you are not ready yet because you have not come up with a good strategy for timing and seeing wrong answer choice patterns yet, what would you do? On the other hand, there are people who are just really good test takers, maybe you are one of them 🙂
 
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stressedandpremed said:
I wish I had more time (don't we all haha), but mostly ready to take it and see what happens 😛 I hit a 515 in AAMC FL 3, and if I maintain that I'll be happy. I'm not applying this cycle so I'm telling myself that if it's bad or if I decide I want to shoot higher I still can. eekkk.

Going to bed. LET'S DO THIS THING!!
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How did it gooooo??? How hard was it? Were the question types similar to the AAMC practice? Was is content heavy or more critical thinking with passage info? Any feedback would be amazing!
 
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chem/phys made me question my scientific worth.

CARS: ugh.

B/B: not too shabby. A lot of experimental.

Psych/soc: prepare for a FL 2 curve...

Overall, not horrible. Had some timing issues on chem/phys and CARS, but that’s normal for me.
 
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twhite said:
chem/phys made me question my scientific worth.

CARS: ugh.

B/B: not too shabby. A lot of experimental.

Psych/soc: prepare for a FL 2 curve...

Overall, not horrible. Had some timing issues on chem/phys and CARS, but that’s normal for me.
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What do you mean by a FL2 curve?
 
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mariposas905 said:
Good luck! How'd you do on FL 3?
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I thought it was really hard. I just don't know enough of the content. I usually score 128 in CP, and the rest of scores are consistent.
34135409_10107613030557539_1684293161955885056_n.png

--

Anyway I just took the actual test today. It wasn't bad. It was very much like the FLs. Of course I suck at timing so I completely guessed on at least 5qs per section. I also spent like two hours verifying my answers after the test on a bench outside before all that test content completely faded from memory. I even found many of the original papers that the passages were based on.

Overall I was very behind on content and had only taken four FLs. Most of the questions I got wrong on FL's were content based ie. forgetting what histidine looks like, and not knowing titration, etc.)I actually have been up since Thursday cramming (ie. Inferior Massed repetition; there was a question about that) so by the time I took the test I wasn't too bad about content. Except for PS where I will never know like half of what the answer choices mean. Oh and what specific stuff comes from the three derms and four tissue types. It's mostly straightforward but there are some that just aren't. At last the PS didn't necessitate much reading, as like 5 of the questions kept referring to one particular study that I just highlighted and kept going back to.

I estimate a score of around 504. I am taking it again definitely - this time with due diligence. I improved my time strategy just today by BB but it was too little too late. Now I will aim to see all the questions with 30m to spare, flagging a bunch of stuff that will take too long just so I don't have like 7m and an entire passage and discretes to do. I tend to find myself so screwed in terms of timing that I end up with 30m left and 30q to do. Not good.

I also hate the erasable marker pen thing they give you that writes like crap and constantly dries out. However, I did like the testing center and format. Big monitor (although square aspect ratio for no reason at all), and I like to spend time on the tutorials getting used to the keyboard short-cuts. It's kind of annoying, though, that alt+S and alt+H must be done by different hands because the S key and H key are so far apart.

Thecomposer said:
The thing is I don't wanna waste an AAMC FL. Why take it so that I get a 119 on P/S? I wanna prepare my physics and P/S as best I can first, then do the FL as soon as possible. Is that crazy? Otherwise, P/S will come down to common sense, which I doubt it will be, because people say it is memorization heavy.
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That was my reasoning, but at least for me, things never go according to plan. I posted here earlier that I was going to do all the AAMC section banks, all 3 AAMC FL's, all 4TBR FL's, and all 10 NS FL's. I ended up doing 4 total, and only one section bank.

Fact of the matter is, this test is long and it really sucks the life out of you. I would say the highest yield way to prep is to do as many FL's (timed) as possible, and review your answers and repeat.
 
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PopeKnope98 said:
Lmaoo I’m screwed cuz it wasnt that hard but I’m stupid and can’t do calculations under pressure. Also B/B had some super random low yield questions that you needed rote memorization for. Lol I’m done cash me w a gap year!
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I hope you will not have to take it again!! You were under stress during the exam, it's probably hard to know how you did right after. I know some people who thought they screwed up but ended up with a 510..you never know how everyone else did!!
 
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Cheerfulcheeto said:
I hope you will not have to take it again!! You were under stress during the exam, it's probably hard to know how you did right after. I know some people who thought they screwed up but ended up with a 510..you never know how everyone else did!!
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I am taking it again. I'm re-registering as soon as the 48 hrs are over.

Compared to AAMC FL 3, this test was easy. Yet, I am upset that I screwed up the timing so bad.

CP: on AAMC FL 3 it was all orgo and biochem, and those are my weakest subjects. I am a Physics major so whenever I see a question about photon energy, and calculations I am ecstatic. I don't use kinematics formulas and have my own way of solving these problems if anyone's interested. Only I didn't keep track of time and had to blindly speed-guess 10q's at least. Very upset about that. This is my strongest section, and I tend to score 128-131 on it. I want this to be a 132 next time definitely.

CARS: I didn't think was so bad, but then again I don't remember much of anything about it and I can never predict how I'll do on CARS. I always think I do well, but usually end up with a 125-126. On other standardized tests (I'm a tutor), I am excel at reading passages no matter how long because I am a very fast reader. The questions, however, in CARS are like troll questions. Even after reading the solutions it doesn't make much sense to me. I did feel there were a lot of in-passage inference questions that I do better at. But again, I ran out of time and had to blindly-speed guest about 5 questions.

BB: My weakest section, but I somehow always score 127-128. I don't know how. There weren't that many biochem/orgo questions which was nice, but there were some low-yield strange questions that made absolutely no sense to me. I had never seen ω or Δ in a biochem context before, and while I have a general understanding that sphingolipids exist, I did not recognize a sphingosine at all because it didn't have its lipid or phosphate portion. I never liked the format of the "tables" and the way they present data in BB, because much of it is not notated. In hindsight, however, I see that it could be somewhat inferred and intuition/instinct is key when facing uncertainty.

PS: I usually score second lowest on this section, with 126. It's mostly always due to a combination of a) not knowing the content; b) feeling that excitement that it's all about to end soon. On practice exams, I would always finish with 30m to spare (the only section where I don't run out of time) and just end it then and there because I just stop caring at that point. This is another major reason I'm re-taking because you shouldn't take the MCAT when you don't know half of the content for a section.
 
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pretty_positron said:
I am taking it again. I'm re-registering as soon as the 48 hrs are over.

Compared to AAMC FL 3, this test was easy. Yet, I am upset that I screwed up the timing so bad.

CP: on AAMC FL 3 it was all orgo and biochem, and those are my weakest subjects. I am a Physics major so whenever I see a question about photon energy, and calculations I am ecstatic. I don't use kinematics formulas and have my own way of solving these problems if anyone's interested. Only I didn't keep track of time and had to blindly speed-guess 10q's at least. Very upset about that. This is my strongest section, and I tend to score 128-131 on it. I want this to be a 132 next time definitely.

CARS: I didn't think was so bad, but then again I don't remember much of anything about it and I can never predict how I'll do on CARS. I always think I do well, but usually end up with a 125-126. On other standardized tests (I'm a tutor), I am excel at reading passages no matter how long because I am a very fast reader. The questions, however, in CARS are like troll questions. Even after reading the solutions it doesn't make much sense to me. I did feel there were a lot of in-passage inference questions that I do better at. But again, I ran out of time and had to blindly-speed guest about 5 questions.

BB: My weakest section, but I somehow always score 127-128. I don't know how. There weren't that many biochem/orgo questions which was nice, but there were some low-yield strange questions that made absolutely no sense to me. I had never seen ω or Δ in a biochem context before, and while I have a general understanding that sphingolipids exist, I did not recognize a sphingosine at all because it didn't have its lipid or phosphate portion. I never liked the format of the "tables" and the way they present data in BB, because much of it is not notated. In hindsight, however, I see that it could be somewhat inferred and intuition/instinct is key when facing uncertainty.

PS: I usually score second lowest on this section, with 126. It's mostly always due to a combination of a) not knowing the content; b) feeling that excitement that it's all about to end soon. On practice exams, I would always finish with 30m to spare (the only section where I don't run out of time) and just end it then and there because I just stop caring at that point. This is another major reason I'm re-taking because you shouldn't take the MCAT when you don't know half of the content for a section.
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Thanks for the detailed post! Hopefully you don't have to retake. Are you applying this cycle though?
 
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pretty_positron said:
I am taking it again. I'm re-registering as soon as the 48 hrs are over.

Compared to AAMC FL 3, this test was easy. Yet, I am upset that I screwed up the timing so bad.

CP: on AAMC FL 3 it was all orgo and biochem, and those are my weakest subjects. I am a Physics major so whenever I see a question about photon energy, and calculations I am ecstatic. I don't use kinematics formulas and have my own way of solving these problems if anyone's interested. Only I didn't keep track of time and had to blindly speed-guess 10q's at least. Very upset about that. This is my strongest section, and I tend to score 128-131 on it. I want this to be a 132 next time definitely.

CARS: I didn't think was so bad, but then again I don't remember much of anything about it and I can never predict how I'll do on CARS. I always think I do well, but usually end up with a 125-126. On other standardized tests (I'm a tutor), I am excel at reading passages no matter how long because I am a very fast reader. The questions, however, in CARS are like troll questions. Even after reading the solutions it doesn't make much sense to me. I did feel there were a lot of in-passage inference questions that I do better at. But again, I ran out of time and had to blindly-speed guest about 5 questions.

BB: My weakest section, but I somehow always score 127-128. I don't know how. There weren't that many biochem/orgo questions which was nice, but there were some low-yield strange questions that made absolutely no sense to me. I had never seen ω or Δ in a biochem context before, and while I have a general understanding that sphingolipids exist, I did not recognize a sphingosine at all because it didn't have its lipid or phosphate portion. I never liked the format of the "tables" and the way they present data in BB, because much of it is not notated. In hindsight, however, I see that it could be somewhat inferred and intuition/instinct is key when facing uncertainty.

PS: I usually score second lowest on this section, with 126. It's mostly always due to a combination of a) not knowing the content; b) feeling that excitement that it's all about to end soon. On practice exams, I would always finish with 30m to spare (the only section where I don't run out of time) and just end it then and there because I just stop caring at that point. This is another major reason I'm re-taking because you shouldn't take the MCAT when you don't know half of the content for a section.
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That makes total sense! Thank you for sharing your experience. It is super helpful! I think it is super hard to know when you're ready to take the exam. There is just so much to know that it seems like there is a lot of luck involved. If you are fortunate, you will see more of the content you are good at. Timing in CARS is also a huge problem I'm working on, but it is getting better.

Did you take the Bio QPack? I kind of like their questions. I just started it and tt seems a little easier than the Bio section bank..or am I wrong?
 
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NS FL#3 sucked! (Mainly C/P and CARS). My confidence and “self efficacy” kind of died so, I am eating pie and watching ER.


Sent from my iPhone
 
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pretty_positron said:
I am taking it again. I'm re-registering as soon as the 48 hrs are over.

Compared to AAMC FL 3, this test was easy. Yet, I am upset that I screwed up the timing so bad.

CP: on AAMC FL 3 it was all orgo and biochem, and those are my weakest subjects. I am a Physics major so whenever I see a question about photon energy, and calculations I am ecstatic. I don't use kinematics formulas and have my own way of solving these problems if anyone's interested. Only I didn't keep track of time and had to blindly speed-guess 10q's at least. Very upset about that. This is my strongest section, and I tend to score 128-131 on it. I want this to be a 132 next time definitely.

CARS: I didn't think was so bad, but then again I don't remember much of anything about it and I can never predict how I'll do on CARS. I always think I do well, but usually end up with a 125-126. On other standardized tests (I'm a tutor), I am excel at reading passages no matter how long because I am a very fast reader. The questions, however, in CARS are like troll questions. Even after reading the solutions it doesn't make much sense to me. I did feel there were a lot of in-passage inference questions that I do better at. But again, I ran out of time and had to blindly-speed guest about 5 questions.

BB: My weakest section, but I somehow always score 127-128. I don't know how. There weren't that many biochem/orgo questions which was nice, but there were some low-yield strange questions that made absolutely no sense to me. I had never seen ω or Δ in a biochem context before, and while I have a general understanding that sphingolipids exist, I did not recognize a sphingosine at all because it didn't have its lipid or phosphate portion. I never liked the format of the "tables" and the way they present data in BB, because much of it is not notated. In hindsight, however, I see that it could be somewhat inferred and intuition/instinct is key when facing uncertainty.

PS: I usually score second lowest on this section, with 126. It's mostly always due to a combination of a) not knowing the content; b) feeling that excitement that it's all about to end soon. On practice exams, I would always finish with 30m to spare (the only section where I don't run out of time) and just end it then and there because I just stop caring at that point. This is another major reason I'm re-taking because you shouldn't take the MCAT when you don't know half of the content for a section.
Click to expand...

Can you PM me about the physics tips? I’ll take any help I can get.




Sent from my iPhone
 
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Cheerfulcheeto said:
Did you take the Bio QPack? I kind of like their questions. I just started it and tt seems a little easier than the Bio section bank..or am I wrong?
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Nope. Against all conventional wisdom, I did not. I only took 4 FL's in total. Oh, the Qpack? No, I haven't tried that either. There's simply SO much material around. My TBR CBT's expire today and I only got to take one. 🙁

Cheerfulcheeto said:
Another question for those who just took it: how long were the passages? Comparable to the AAMC practice?
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Super short. I forgot about the last AAMC FL3 I took, but compared to TBR -> super short. If passage length is an issue for you, I would suggest reading the questions first and then highlighting the relevant references from the question stem in the passage. This is very useful for CARS and PS. For CP, I feel that it's mostly all discretes. Especially with physics stuff. BB took me a very long while to even begin to comprehend, but by the time I took the test this morning I felt comfortable with it. But even in BB, I read the question, and direct myself to whichever study they are talking about and I only do a quick skim of the introduction so I know what the hell ERB is or whatever acronyms they have. PS on the exam today was unbelievably short, many passages continuously referred to one out of the two studies and they're just very easy to find in the passage which you should highlight. I seldom read the entire passage before reading the questions, except for main idea type questions in CARS where I tend to read the first paragraph, skim through the body, and read the last. The rest of the questions are asking about specific things.

In general, for the MCAT, I've always found the questions to be far more difficult than the length of the passages. The exception being BB, whose "passage" is primarily composed of ugly looking tables and data.

Angelyka said:
NS FL#3 sucked! (Mainly C/P and CARS). My confidence and “self efficacy” kind of died so, I am eating pie and watching ER.


Sent from my iPhone
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I thought so too. Definitely the hardest FL I've taken, then again I've only taken 4. Reason being that AAMC FL3's CP section (my strength) was pretty much all orgo.

Angelyka said:
Can you PM me about the physics tips? I’ll take any help I can get.

Sent from my iPhone
Click to expand...

Just send me a passage and I'll tell you how I'd go about it.

In general, think always in terms of energy and energy conservation. I never use kinematics (unless I have to, but so far I haven't had to), if something is falling whether it's falling straight down or down an inclined plane with whatever θ, it's always going to be a complete conversion from potential energy to kinetic. So v = rad(2gh). Hell, even Bernoulli's equation is conservation of energy. Make sure you know your units, because you can deduce any formula based on units and you can deduce any unit based on formula.

As for math, you should be able to quickly see 400nm as 400E-9m as 4E-7m. Know your exponent rules and put things in that notation. Know your logs, squares, roots, etc.

Ultimately, everything comes down to and can be expressed in physics - when you boil it all down - even blood flow is the same as voltage.

V = IR is essentially the same as ΔP = QR.

Know your proportionalities. It helps me to visualize them on an x-y plane. I also like using fractions whenever I can because things always cancel out. Instead of h being 6.626 I just write 20/3.

So somehting you'd see often is finding the energy of a photon based on its wavelength. We know that as hc/λ. So let's do this: (20/3)E-34 * 3E8 -> the 3's cancel, and you add the exponents -> 20E-26 or 2E-25.

Let's take that 400nm from before, to get 2E-25 / 4E-7 -> 2/4 is just 1/2 and subtracting the exponents gives you E-18, so you'd have 0.5E-18 or 5E-19 J.

That exponent E-19 is familiar isn't it? 1.6E-19C is the charge of a particle. 1eV = 1.6E-19J.

There's lots you can do with numbers. Hell, even 1/12 is roughly equal to R (the L*atm one).
 
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pretty_positron said:
Nope. Against all conventional wisdom, I did not. I only took 4 FL's in total. Oh, the Qpack? No, I haven't tried that either. There's simply SO much material around. My TBR CBT's expire today and I only got to take one. 🙁



Super short. I forgot about the last AAMC FL3 I took, but compared to TBR -> super short. If passage length is an issue for you, I would suggest reading the questions first and then highlighting the relevant references from the question stem in the passage. This is very useful for CARS and PS. For CP, I feel that it's mostly all discretes. Especially with physics stuff. BB took me a very long while to even begin to comprehend, but by the time I took the test this morning I felt comfortable with it. But even in BB, I read the question, and direct myself to whichever study they are talking about and I only do a quick skim of the introduction so I know what the hell ERB is or whatever acronyms they have. PS on the exam today was unbelievably short, many passages continuously referred to one out of the two studies and they're just very easy to find in the passage which you should highlight. I seldom read the entire passage before reading the questions, except for main idea type questions in CARS where I tend to read the first paragraph, skim through the body, and read the last. The rest of the questions are asking about specific things.

In general, for the MCAT, I've always found the questions to be far more difficult than the length of the passages. The exception being BB, whose "passage" is primarily composed of ugly looking tables and data.



I thought so too. Definitely the hardest FL I've taken, then again I've only taken 4. Reason being that AAMC FL3's CP section (my strength) was pretty much all orgo.



Just send me a passage and I'll tell you how I'd go about it.

In general, think always in terms of energy and energy conservation. I never use kinematics (unless I have to, but so far I haven't had to), if something is falling whether it's falling straight down or down an inclined plane with whatever θ, it's always going to be a complete conversion from potential energy to kinetic. So v = rad(2gh). Hell, even Bernoulli's equation is conservation of energy. Make sure you know your units, because you can deduce any formula based on units and you can deduce any unit based on formula.

As for math, you should be able to quickly see 400nm as 400E-9m as 4E-7m. Know your exponent rules and put things in that notation. Know your logs, squares, roots, etc.

Ultimately, everything comes down to and can be expressed in physics - when you boil it all down - even blood flow is the same as voltage.

V = IR is essentially the same as ΔP = QR.

Know your proportionalities. It helps me to visualize them on an x-y plane. I also like using fractions whenever I can because things always cancel out. Instead of h being 6.626 I just write 20/3.

So somehting you'd see often is finding the energy of a photon based on its wavelength. We know that as hc/λ. So let's do this: (20/3)E-34 * 3E8 -> the 3's cancel, and you add the exponents -> 20E-26 or 2E-25.

Let's take that 400nm from before, to get 2E-25 / 4E-7 -> 2/4 is just 1/2 and subtracting the exponents gives you E-18, so you'd have 0.5E-18 or 5E-19 J.

That exponent E-19 is familiar isn't it? 1.6E-19C is the charge of a particle. 1eV = 1.6E-19J.

There's lots you can do with numbers. Hell, even 1/12 is roughly equal to R (the L*atm one).
Click to expand...

Thanks so much!!!!
 
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My thoughts on the June 2nd test.
- My C/P section felt like it was about 75% gen chem, with lots of calculations. There was almost no ochem and very little physics. Was a little pressed for time on this one but I normally is short on time in this section. Out of everything on test day, my score in this section is the only one that I am worried about.
- CARS, which is normally my strongest section, felt like there were a couple of particularly nasty passages with some really convoluted questions, but overall 7 of the passages were about spot on with the three AAMC FL's
- B/B: I felt like there was more ochem here than I normally see (good for me). The standard fare, high-yield topics were present in their normal percentages, along with the few "obscure" bio definitions. More calculations involved here than I think. A few obscure biochem knowledge questions as well but thankfully I found the topics curious enough the first time I learned about them to commit them to memory, even though I was never tested on them in the past.
- P/S: I never know with this section b/c I always felt like I did well on this section on practice tests but sometimes I didn't do well even though I felt fine. I had plenty of time and reviewed all questions that I was concerned about and changed a couple of answers. The questions in P/S seemed to be more extreme in their difficulty on the real thing. That is, the questions on the FL's seem to be all of similar difficulty but on the real thing a lot of the question were either really really easy (like there was no way you could pick the wrong answer) or super hard, where they asked you some finely nuanced detail about a theory that would never have been covered in a intro psych course, wasn't covered in the KA video's, and that you likely would only know if you have had upper division psych courses (which I have), and even then the distinctions were debatable.

In retrospect, my best advice is to know everything on the KA 300 page document inside and out and be able to give specific examples. P/S really is the easiest way to improve your score but I was more afraid of getting a bad score in C/P so I neglected P/S until the very end. I also crushed the P/S section bank questions but the FL's and real thing did not seem to be representative of the SB Q's. As a matter of fact, I would say the SB was much harder than the real thing for all 3 sections and I spent a lot of time trying to understand the really complex questions in the SB instead of focusing on how to do basic gen chem calculations fast and efficiently.
 
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esob said:
My thoughts on the June 2nd test.
- My C/P section felt like it was about 75% gen chem, with lots of calculations. There was almost no ochem and very little physics. Was a little pressed for time on this one but I normally is short on time in this section. Out of everything on test day, my score in this section is the only one that I am worried about.
- CARS, which is normally my strongest section, felt like there were a couple of particularly nasty passages with some really convoluted questions, but overall 7 of the passages were about spot on with the three AAMC FL's
- B/B: I felt like there was more ochem here than I normally see (good for me). The standard fare, high-yield topics were present in their normal percentages, along with the few "obscure" bio definitions. More calculations involved here than I think. A few obscure biochem knowledge questions as well but thankfully I found the topics curious enough the first time I learned about them to commit them to memory, even though I was never tested on them in the past.
- P/S: I never know with this section b/c I always felt like I did well on this section on practice tests but sometimes I didn't do well even though I felt fine. I had plenty of time and reviewed all questions that I was concerned about and changed a couple of answers. The questions in P/S seemed to be more extreme in their difficulty on the real thing. That is, the questions on the FL's seem to be all of similar difficulty but on the real thing a lot of the question were either really really easy (like there was no way you could pick the wrong answer) or super hard, where they asked you some finely nuanced detail about a theory that would never have been covered in a intro psych course, wasn't covered in the KA video's, and that you likely would only know if you have had upper division psych courses (which I have), and even then the distinctions were debatable.

In retrospect, my best advice is to know everything on the KA 300 page document inside and out and be able to give specific examples. P/S really is the easiest way to improve your score but I was more afraid of getting a bad score in C/P so I neglected P/S until the very end. I also crushed the P/S section bank questions but the FL's and real thing did not seem to be representative of the SB Q's. As a matter of fact, I would say the SB was much harder than the real thing for all 3 sections and I spent a lot of time trying to understand the really complex questions in the SB instead of focusing on how to do basic gen chem calculations fast and efficiently.
Click to expand...

CP
This is mostly true, but is this rare? It seemed rare. On the old MCAT, they would separate CP and BB as simply PS which mean physical sciences and only consisted of physics and chemistry, and BS or biological sciences which consisted of biology and orgo.

Now they've bridged the gaps with literally BIO-CHEM so I never know what to predict.

CARS
What is your method or what is some advice on improving CARS. It is such an ambiguous low-yield section that I can't imagine improving on. I can't differentiate any CARS sections from their FL's. They're all the same to me.

What did you do?

BB
Interesting attitude you have towards BB. I'm guessing it's your second strongest section. I felt comfortable, fortunately, on test day to not be completely overwhelmed by the vastness of its content. Initially, I never saw passages like this in my life. They are literally from medical journals. Thank god, I"m improving on it.

PS
I literally feel and act the same way about this section in every single point you've made. For instance, I thought socialization and gender schema was nuanced.

What is the KA document you're talking about? I've honestly just been doing problems, and google image searching every word I don't know. I always end up at a nice number of slides that explains it to me. I'll look into the KA 300 thing. You're right, examples are very important for PS.

I was mostly afraid of getting a bad score in BB so I neglected PS as well. I was reading up on ANOVA's literally 2 hours before the test until I found some random post somewhere that it wasn't on the MCAT. It came up on some FL's I took though and I don't know any of that stuff. t-chi square, etc.

You're point about the section banks I also agree on. Everyone recommended to me that they were essential, but I just was at a point where I needed low yield, as I really kicked it into gear a week before the test. That's when I just did FL's. Timing is, at the moment, the most important thing for me now.

As for the math, it's just speed. Like a little working memory and procedural. It just takes physical practice. There's no real complex thought. You'll improve that definitely.

But the fact that you did some serious elaborative rehearsal means you've gotten a much better grasp over the whole test, with just a few minor irks.
 
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pretty_positron said:
CP
This is mostly true, but is this rare? It seemed rare. On the old MCAT, they would separate CP and BB as simply PS which mean physical sciences and only consisted of physics and chemistry, and BS or biological sciences which consisted of biology and orgo.

Now they've bridged the gaps with literally BIO-CHEM so I never know what to predict.

CARS
What is your method or what is some advice on improving CARS. It is such an ambiguous low-yield section that I can't imagine improving on. I can't differentiate any CARS sections from their FL's. They're all the same to me.

What did you do?

BB
Interesting attitude you have towards BB. I'm guessing it's your second strongest section. I felt comfortable, fortunately, on test day to not be completely overwhelmed by the vastness of its content. Initially, I never saw passages like this in my life. They are literally from medical journals. Thank god, I"m improving on it.

PS
I literally feel and act the same way about this section in every single point you've made. For instance, I thought socialization and gender schema was nuanced.

What is the KA document you're talking about? I've honestly just been doing problems, and google image searching every word I don't know. I always end up at a nice number of slides that explains it to me. I'll look into the KA 300 thing. You're right, examples are very important for PS.

I was mostly afraid of getting a bad score in BB so I neglected PS as well. I was reading up on ANOVA's literally 2 hours before the test until I found some random post somewhere that it wasn't on the MCAT. It came up on some FL's I took though and I don't know any of that stuff. t-chi square, etc.

You're point about the section banks I also agree on. Everyone recommended to me that they were essential, but I just was at a point where I needed low yield, as I really kicked it into gear a week before the test. That's when I just did FL's. Timing is, at the moment, the most important thing for me now.

As for the math, it's just speed. Like a little working memory and procedural. It just takes physical practice. There's no real complex thought. You'll improve that definitely.

But the fact that you did some serious elaborative rehearsal means you've gotten a much better grasp over the whole test, with just a few minor irks.
Click to expand...

My point for C/P was that I was expected more ochem and definitely more physics. C/P for FL 3 was pretty ochem heavy.

As for CARS, well I was a religion major for 3 years so any CARS passage is a breeze compared to reading academic theories on Irenaeus or the theories of theodicy posited by 17th century clerics. For the most part, CARS seems to be an opposing skill to the other sections. I often see people who crush the cars section struggle with the other sections, and those that score 132's in the C/P make average scores in CARS. That could be all anecdotal though, I haven't looked at actual statistics, though I do believe that CARS is typically the subsection with the lowest score.

For the KA document, just google "Khan Academy 300 page"
 
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Future testers: I have 4 sample test starts, 4 FL2 starts, 4 FL3 starts, and 6 Section Bank starts unused from my prep. If you would like access to my e mcat account at a discounted price, hmu
 
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