Thoughts on May 31st MCAT

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The BS passage about vascular development = 😱

I totally bombed that passage: going for a 7 in BS!
 
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christian15213 said:
What the f gives. Who is at fault here. AMCAS or Kaplan... I think it to be AMCAS... what nerve do they have making a passage that is almost identical to some companies test. WTF how unfair is that. Wasn't like the questions weren't hard enough without discriminating self studiers.
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I wouldn't worry too much about it. The questions are completely different.
 
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--

**WARNING**

Ok, as noted and posted all over this forum as well as in your agreement with the AAMC, SPECIFIC discussions of questions on the test are NOT allowed. I am deleting ANY post on this thread that has mention of a specific question and there are ALOT of them so I'm deleting rather than editing. Sorry in advance.

General mentioning of topics is ok, but please adhere to this guys. There are way too many posts on here with mention of specificity in questions. Thanks.

--
 
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Woohoo the MCAT is finished... for now. Overview:
PS - I thought that some questions were tricky... and I KNEW that I had seen the first passage soemwhere before. Thank God I took that practice test lol. It was more conceptual based (once againk, thank God!) because I do better on that type of test.
Verbal - WTF was that passage on geology about!? I thought I was taking the SAT all over again... almost all the questions on that passage looked for very specific details as opposed to main idea and author's viewpoint like most MCAT passages. Blah. Oh and the last passage was insane. Who the hell writes crap like that? I was running out of time at that point so I had to glean the passage and make some quick answers.
BS - Not too much emphasis on orgo. YEEEEEHAW! The Bio was straightforward but I got some really easy ones wrong. Dammit. Too top it all off, at the very end of this section I checked my to see I answered every question, and it turns out I had left 3 unanswered that I thought I had answered already. I discovered this with about 1:25 seconds to go. Thus, I went back and hopefully chose the answers I supposedly put in before. ARGH. Ah wellz... at least it's done with.

Oh and whoever said that last minute studying doesn't help, was wrong. I went over harmonic motion, waves, hardy-weinberg and some other things and much of that showed up on the test. I'm hoping I did okay... we'll see in a month right?
 
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ShaqKillz451 -

That drum question is similar to one of the early Kaplan exams. I took the test today - felt prepared going into it and felt horrible going out of it. PS and BS were harder than I have seen yet. I took 6 Kaplan tests and all of the AMCAS tests. Was not prepared for the beating today. Topics were familiar, but the way they were asked and some of the derivations seemed ridiculous. VR was much easier, though much longer, than I had expected.
 
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AppleseedCast said:
did you guys have an option to save your essays after time ran out? I ran out of time while writing them and hopefully they were submitted as is when time ended.


Also, when you guys finished, the the program just exit out and then go to the prometric desktop? I'm so paranoid about these thigns hah
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Hey, for anyone who forgot to save their essays in the writing section, I looked into it and you don't have to worry, a friend of mine didn't click save once during his April 12th exam and it turned out fine.
 
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I am trying to be general... did everyone get that one question was inverted...


Is that better?
 
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christian15213 said:
Let, me start by saying this.

Why did they have to start off PS this way? You have to be kidding me? I couldn't for the life of me understand the system they were trying to implore regarding drums and sand. I read through this verbal like type passage and tried to understand what it was about. After reading it twice as fast as I could I proceeded to say in my head, "this is stupid and I am not getting it, go to the questions and try to answer those and see if the questions make more sense." NOPE!

They were WORSE than the passage. What happens to SAND when you put it is a bag and walk to the BEACH and open the bag and pour it all over your head. Where might the sand Land.

A. Mostly on your head
B. Mostly in your ear hair
C. Mostly there is no mostly
D. Sand wouldn't leave the bag because it would have static forces from walking to the beach and not rubbing the pole from across the street while looking left and right to cross. <<<<<<<< This must be the answer.

IMO, starting off like that was horrible. I mean I don't mind skipping questions to come back and I thought about it, but JHC I didn't want to skip a passage after reading it twice.

Calculations... Someone said there wasn't calculations... What crack rock are you on. Perhaps you might have forgotten but there was a ton of calculations and a couple were easy and then some where like huh? For Jimminy Cricket there were calculations in the BIO... Again, WTF...

Verbal, was going along smoothly untill middle earth... And how many Art passages could they have? I was thinking gEEZ another art passage. I just got mad because the middle passage was hard enough that it took so much time away, that by the end passage that was super rediculous I probably screwed that up too. I will never forget where MY freaking spring water comes from and how it is made...

*****************************************

Ok, yea it was hard, but what is the deal with giving something obviously no one is going to get in mass right on the first opening passage. What a joke. I am a competative person and when I see something it is harder for me to walk away then per se another person that would quickly concede defeat and go on to the next passage. I dunno yea, there will be a curve but what about the other passages that those couple CRAZY passages ruined.
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Oh, how about this one?
 
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Wow, good to hear that the rest of SDN thought it was as hard as I did. I was regularly killing the AAMC online tests with scores in the mid-30's. I felt so violated coming out of this test. A lot of the discretes were pretty tough. It feels like the most marginal material was tested on this MCAT. I felt like it wasn't the typical stuff you would see on the AAMC online tests. But yeah, I feel more comfortable that most of you SDNers agree on the difficulty level. Hopefully that translates to a big curve. I'd rather not take it again if I don't have to.

Only thing I was happy about was the BioSci passage about exercise because I'm an exercise science major 🙂

But if I did poorly, then I'm hoping I did REALLY poorly. That way, my retaking the test will be justified. I wouldn't be satisfied with a 30 or so after pulling 34's on my practice tests, but that's in the scoring purgatory where you're not low enough as to justify a retest and not high enough to be considered for the top schools. So if I did poorly and curve won't help us, I just hope I did poorly enough for like a 24 lol.
 
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Overall I thought the test was okay...
Physics: more concept-based than quantative; overall seemed different than practice tests, dont know why... Was dissapointed: no optics or sound questions that I remember. gen chem questions were straight-foward as usual
Verbal: I actually didn't think it was too bad which is a bad sign. Lengthy passages, one or two really hard to follow...
Biology: The most difficult section to me... agree with others who said the wording was awful on questions. Little organic chemistry, no hormones!!
I was happy to finish all the sections without time running out. Did horrible on the second essay... nevertheless can't wait to find out my score!
 
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Forgot to add for future test takers...
Verbal seemed to have you refer to the text alot more for answers than on practice tests.
Since the search function is gone when they refered to a word they at least gave you the paragraph # so you didn't have to search the whole passage.
 
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HoistDaColors said:
someone got to it before I could edit it. :laugh:
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so if i thought the drum passage from that kaplan full length wasnt too bad, i should be fine right? considering that was one of the harder passages on your real MCAT?

lol im freaking out here by reading the posts of the May 31st-ers and im trying to calm myself down :scared:
 
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Wait remember this...

hmmmm/...mm

Ok, I just thought of something... I don't need to dry my clothes. I am from now on going to shower with them on. when I go outside I am going to sit in the yard for 20 30 minutes and meditate until they become dry.

here is a video of it...

10-tumo2-450.jpg


Click here for more information.
>>>http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html
 
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sehnsucht said:
I had a few seconds to spare as the timer on the WS section was winding down. I asked the attendant if the program automatically saves everything once the timer runs out and she said that it should be alright. I intend on calling prometric tomorrow to check.

Overall the test was pretty hard and I don't know how I feel about it at all. I even stared at the void option for a couple of minutes to contemplate voiding but chickened out. What will be - will be, I think. If I didn't do as well as I had hoped, I hope to take it again soon enough to be able to still submit for this application cycle. Good luck to everyone who took it!
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Do you know when we can schedule another test? Also, if we schedule can we cancel if we found out we did well on this one?
 
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AAMC also took the diagram of the magnets on rails from Kaplan. Questions were all different though.

And synoviam? I put something else =/
 
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christian15213 said:
Wait remember this...

hmmmm/...mm

Ok, I just thought of something... I don't need to dry my clothes. I am from now on going to shower with them on. when I go outside I am going to sit in the yard for 20 30 minutes and meditate until they become dry.

here is a video of it...

10-tumo2-450.jpg


Click here for more information.
>>>http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html
Click to expand...


That's not fair... What is the deal with Kaplan getting priority? this is BS...
 
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christian15213 said:
That's not fair... What is the deal with Kaplan getting priority? this is BS...
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yep it is but even if we mass complain to them we will probobly end up with the same choices that Jan MCATers had...and since i didn't void i would not want to do it now...i want to know, even if i did really bad(which i have a feeling i did).
 
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AppleseedCast said:
Do you know when we can schedule another test? Also, if we schedule can we cancel if we found out we did well on this one?
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You can definitely schedule another test before you get your score back. I hear you haveto wait a few days though. So you can try on Monday. If you decide to cancel, you only get half your money back like dr. kicia says.
 
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christian15213 said:
That's not fair... What is the deal with Kaplan getting priority? this is BS...
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Yeah...even though people say that they are different questions. Having previous understanding, however minuscule, would help on a timed test. But I should be the last person to complain. I had those tests all this time and yet, I didn't even looked at them. I thought kaplan Full length tests are so over the top that similar type of passages would never appear on the real MCAT. I only did their topical and subject tests. oh well.

May I ask what happened with the January MCAT? Was there a similar incident where passages from prep companies showed up on the real MCAT?
 
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christian15213 said:
That's not fair... What is the deal with Kaplan getting priority? this is BS...
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I wouldn't worry about it too much. You have to figure that the AAMC test writers struggle for ideas and seek sources of inspiration elsewhere. On every exam, there are always people talking about one or two passages out of an exam that seem similar to ones from commercial materials. If you average out the comments over the years, K, BR, and PR probably all get equal indirect input. There are always test takers commenting that some of their real passages were almost identical to some of their practice passages from one of the courses. Other times, they come back saying it was nothing like the commercial exams. It's random.

And the test writers have been known to put passages from their practice exams directly on a real MCAT. It would seem that the person in charge of assembling the MCAT just randomly grabs passages from a pool of passages for each section. It would explain the complete inconsistency between exams, as you can see from the feedback here about the different exams.

If any of you need a calming thought, go back and read the feedback for some of the April exams first and then the score comments from the posters a month or so later. Have faith that the curve will help you. It usually does. Over the many years I've seen scores, it is the hardest exams that generate the best scores for our students.
 
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christian15213 said:
That's not fair... What is the deal with Kaplan getting priority? this is BS...
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Why do you think it's unfair? Individuals who enroll in MCAT prep courses already have an economic advantage but that doesn't necessarily guarantee he/she will do better/worse than a person who studied independently.

HoistDaColors said:
May I ask what happened with the January MCAT? Was there a similar incident where passages from prep companies showed up on the real MCAT?
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There was a programming glitch on one of the VR passages where the questions didn't match the passage content.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=363552
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=368280
 
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I thought the test was hard, but I walked out of the room feeling as if I'd held my own. I never know for sure until I see the scores, of course; the test goes by too quickly for me to really analyze how I'm doing. I'm glad to see that most of you also thought it was hard and struggled with the same passages I did. I think that if I'd come home to find everyone saying "That was the easiest test ever!" I would have been pretty depressed!

Question: where on AAMC does it say the score release is due on July 3rd? I logged in under the THx score release thing, but it just says I don't have any scores.
 
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The schedule is under "2007 MCAT exam test dates and times" on the MCAT page of AAMC (a few links below "prepare to register"). When you click on the link, the expected score release is to the far right.
 
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BerkReviewTeach said:
I wouldn't worry about it too much. You have to figure that the AAMC test writers struggle for ideas and seek sources of inspiration elsewhere. On every exam, there are always people talking about one or two passages out of an exam that seem similar to ones from commercial materials. If you average out the comments over the years, K, BR, and PR probably all get equal indirect input. There are always test takers commenting that some of their real passages were almost identical to some of their practice passages from one of the courses. Other times, they come back saying it was nothing like the commercial exams. It's random.

And the test writers have been known to put passages from their practice exams directly on a real MCAT. It would seem that the person in charge of assembling the MCAT just randomly grabs passages from a pool of passages for each section. It would explain the complete inconsistency between exams, as you can see from the feedback here about the different exams.

If any of you need a calming thought, go back and read the feedback for some of the April exams first and then the score comments from the posters a month or so later. Have faith that the curve will help you. It usually does. Over the many years I've seen scores, it is the hardest exams that generate the best scores for our students.
Click to expand...

I understand what you're saying but I disagree. They should avoid K, EK and PR like the plague because it isn't fair. Why does someone get to look at a freaking passage and say... COOL I remember this BS because when I took it the first time on my own I got "OWNED" and now I just looked at the explanations and wahhhhhLAAAAA I understand it a little per se. That sucks. It was the first passage right outta the gate. I wish the didn't delete the post but seriously you have to see how rediculous this passage really was. It had an equation that wasn't even USED but just sitting there as if to say, " I am a little equation and I will help you out just come stare at me for 5 minutes till you figure out that I don't have anything to do with the passage what so ever." Yea it was a silly passage that didn't ask or bring out knowledge of anything that was testable material that was learned by the normal person studying for this test. ALBEIT unless you had previously seen some glimpse of what this passage could do. EVEN reading it would have made the whole situation so much better. IF YOU DEALT WITH this passage before your advantage was tremendous compared to the rest of us.

NO ONE still can tell me what the heck the passage was about and how exactly it worked... REDICULOUS...

Furthemore, like I already illuded to previously.... I am a competitor... I didn't want to give up or go out like that so I tried to fight with it a little. Again, advantage to the KAPLAN people that got access to the material... BS!!!!
 
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I wonder how the curve will be... It would be interesting to see how our predictions correlate with our actual scores........😎
 
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dr.kicia said:
yep it is but even if we mass complain to them we will probobly end up with the same choices that Jan MCATers had...and since i didn't void i would not want to do it now...i want to know, even if i did really bad(which i have a feeling i did).
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And they did it twice with the magnet and the rails... I don't care if the question was different... If you see it before you are familiar with it and one looks at it and says, "oh this is dealing with such and such... " cuts reading time down and one can go almost straight to the questions and begin working them out. Instead I am wondering if I had a musical instrument, where the sand went when I BEAT it... WTF... mean I was pictureing me at the BEACH beating an instrument that had sand on it... Why is that my punishment because I didn't have a 2000 dollar MCAT course.
 
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christian15213 said:
And they did it twice with the magnet and the rails... I don't care if the question was different... If you see it before you are familiar with it and one looks at it and says, "oh this is dealing with such and such... " cuts reading time down and one can go almost straight to the questions and begin working them out. Instead I am wondering if I had a musical instrument, where the sand went when I BEAT it... WTF... mean I was pictureing me at the BEACH beating an instrument that had sand on it... Why is that my punishment because I didn't have a 2000 dollar MCAT course.
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was that passage really that hard to interpret and start answering the questions? I mean, was that kaplan passage almost exactly the same as the one on your real MCAT? See, I understand why this could make someone upset, but I seriously just looked at that passage on the Kaplan full length, and it took like an extra minute than normal, but its possible to wean out the right answer on some of the questions...

So i guess what im asking is, was the passage exactly alike to the kaplan passage?
 
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Tensyle said:
So i guess what im asking is, was the passage exactly alike to the kaplan passage?
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Someone on the thread said no.

I had never seen the Kaplan passage until today but I answered 4/5 of the questions correctly just from the information given in the passage. The passage I did miss had a term I wasn't familiar with, cla---something, that meant formation of a standing wave pattern. I didn't think it was that difficult.
 
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So where do we get our scores at first? AAMC's website?
Am I the only one that didn't have the option to void my scores?
 
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PseudomonasPAO1 said:
And that will become your favorite phrase for the next month 🙂
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ACK!! Don't remind me! Do you know what I did last night? My church was having this fancy dinner as a fundraiser for the youth group, and I had agreed to help . However, I couldn't get there until it was almost over because I had to drive back from the test. So I went over there and the organizers all said, "No, no...go home. We know you've had a rough day." I, having used all of my brain cells on the MCAT, replied, "Oh no, I want to help. Here, I'll wash dishes." So I washed dishes. For 160 people. For 3 hours. 3 hours. Is it any wonder I can barely move this morning?

So the moral of the story is...I'm going to work myself to the point of exhaustion in hope that I won't notice how long it's taking for July 3rd to get here. 😴
 
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emquiksilver said:
You can definitely schedule another test before you get your score back. I hear you haveto wait a few days though. So you can try on Monday. If you decide to cancel, you only get half your money back like dr. kicia says.
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You can re-register on the 2nd day after the exam, so tomorrow.

christian15213 said:
Oh, how about this one?
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If that is a real question on AAMC then yes, but I didn't take the test and I thought you were joking.
 
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Does anyone else think that the AMCAS practice tests were a poor representation of the real MCAT? First of all, I thought the program layout for the practice test was much more user friendly. For example, the P.Test has the search function, but no search function on the real MCAT!!. Why put it in the P.test if it’s not on the real thing??!?!! I felt like the real MCAT was an older, less-polished version of the P.Test program. Not to mention that in terms of difficulty the P.Test are much easier. I was getting scores of 34 and 36 on the P.Tests. After the real thing, I’m sure I’m going to have to take it again. At least now I know not to trust the Practice tests. 😡
 
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Worst. Test. Ever.

Totally unrepresentative of AAMC's practice tests. I'm hoping for a 30 flat.
Absolutely ridiculous.

They say that good tests should be reproducible and posses validity neither qualities which I think the 31st exam had.
 
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BerkReviewTeach said:
There are always test takers commenting that some of their real passages were almost identical to some of their practice passages from one of the courses. Other times, they come back saying it was nothing like the commercial exams. It's random.
Click to expand...

I have been reading these forums for 4 years and i do not remeber a time when people would have a passage almost identical to that of prep company. WTF??? Even the figures were identical...and yes maybe questions were different but when you saw that passage before and read, went over it and understood what it was about you save a lot of time on the test...especially that it was the first passage. I wasted a LOT of time trying to understand it. So no it is not fair. For 210 bucks from each person they could try a little better then just copying Kaplan's material🙄
 
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