Yall have very good scores. Mine feel like dirt compared to yalls haha.
Op, if you've got 1 month, worry less about how hard the practice exams are and more about how you can learn the material and getting comfortable with the test at the same time. I took my 3rd attempt (yeah yeah I know) 2 days ago so here are some things that helped each time.
- Use both TPR practice exams as well as AAMC released ones. Favoring one over the other won't help you. You need BOTH and do as many as you can. You have to live breathe and want to beat this thing to a pulp. Once you get comfortable with it, its not as scary as it seems. Its just the amount of material. There were certain TPR exams that felt super easy and I'd score a 505-507. Load a different one and now I'm at 495-497. They are not consistent in difficulty. Some are easier/harder than others. The AAMC material was much more straight forward and easier to run through.
- Use the exams to study the material while you go through questions you got wrong. I can't stress this enough. There is no point in you taking a practice exam, seeing your score, then moving on to a completely new one without at least going over the one you just took. Read through the ones you got wrong. Take notes and study it like you would for any exam in school. Focus on knowing why you got it wrong and what subject you got wrong. Was it because you simply didn't know the material, or did you misread the question/info given? Don't be afraid to Google and use other resources to study while you go through questions.
-1 Month is a pretty short amount of time, but if you've already taken the TPR course, you know how it runs. Don't stress out. Pick a study tactic that works and stick with it. Put in those extra hours on Saturday and Sunday. Wake up early (even if you can't pull yourself out of bed by 6 or 7am, even an 1 hour or 3omin earlier than you usually would helps. Every bit helps!) and study the material or run through questions every single day. Get something done each day so you don't feel so helpless and depressed. That way you know you're making a little bit of headway and feel a little more confident.
-Think of it as studying for 4 x 1.5 hour exams on 4 different subjects instead of 1 huge long ass exam. Don't know why but when I stuck that in my head, approaching the sheer bulk of material I needed to understand felt a little easier. Maybe because categorizing it like that helped reduce stress and organized my brain around subject based numbers instead of "Jesus I need to get through 6-7hrs wtf"
- Stay alert and build up a stamina. This sounds bad but I took the advice of some people on here who suggested I close my eyes for a bit for a few minutes when I had the extra time. One of my biggest problems was staying alert and awake enough to read the bio passages clearly. More mistakes were attributed to misreading the question or not understanding the passages because I was drowsy than not knowing the material. A little nap goes a long way.
-Last but not least, just do the best you can. At the end of the day, the amount of effort and how much you learn at the starting point is really what's going to get you the score you want. And I think deep down inside, you can kind of tell where you're at score wise or if you've got the material down well enough or what area you're lacking in. **** happens. I thought I was going to get plenty of sleep the night before but only got 5 hours. The plan for staying well rested the night before went completely out the window. Be as prepared as you can and just focus on doing better ok?
