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- Jul 20, 2018
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anyway, ask me anything about studying, exam day/process and exam/productive studying dynamics.
i'm very non-traditional. probably one of the older candidates writing and i don't have any science pre-req's (not even old ones..... i was a top chem/physics student in my state in HS FWIW)... 2.5 months studying always with intention to later take some pre-req courses and take the test again in the future. i tried to push it a month later but didn't realize i was at end of testing window.
got my percentile scores back. mid's 20%ish for hard sciences. 40%-50%ish for P/S and CAR's... what i expected for the sciences. a little disappointing on the softer subjects but i did nothing on CAR's pre-test.
my thoughts on the exam process:
although i didn't do too well, i sensed that almost all the questions in C/P, P/S and CARs were reasonably gettable. i.e. i always thought "i could have got that one right with a very quick look at the kaplan book"..... B/BC was another story. you really need to know early biology and BC chapters.
as for studying, OC was just really tough esp. trying to learn everything at same time.....
next time i do exam, practice Q's (anywhere you can find them) and flash cards almost exclusively. maybe take some sort of memory course..... basically need to nail down chem/physics/OC analytics way before the exam. and then pound the more memory-intensive and important subjects nearer test day.
really simple things i wish i knew better as i was taking test:
BC: enzymes
chem: thermodyamics/heat/entropy/enthalpy/spontaneous/etc. i consider this one area. might some of this in BC with enzymes.
physics: nothing really....... didn't think it got into obscure subjects. pretty straight-forward.
OC: the basics (i'd almost say to stick with one source and augment with more info elswhere. easy to get confused on this subject) ........ measurement science (huge area you need to know that might slip in cracks. i think there's some in BC too..... also, basic experimental design etc.)... i think someone needs to offer a $100 basic online course on this subject. not so for the other subjects............ one difficulty i found in general is you need to be able to read/interpret many different types of chemical formulae (might have been more studying than the exam, but it certainly served to confuse me)
P/S: anything with someone's name attached to it....... classical/operant learning (and this has names with it)
biology: nothing really. although cell/virus/bacteria = the backbone of the MCAT. basically this is a ton of work to learn/remember. i probably couldn't do that much better with a quick flip though kaplan's material. (all other areas i could do better with simple scan of material)
you also need to know amino acids but that is a lot of work.
so basically i'd say i really wish i'd know enzymes, learning theory and thermodynamics better. 2 of which i knew well at one time.....
the painful thing was that a month before the exam i knew enzymes and classical/operant really well. but in learning so much stuff so fast and at last minute, i think i lost it somehow...note: i sort of did this write-up out of order.......... and i knew enzymes and learning theories were going to be huge areas. thermochemistry not so much.
kaplan weights were good............... might have been a few questions where i didn't know what they were asking (bio/bc). and at least one i didn't think was on curriculum anymore. but that's ok with 230 Q's.... EK is good but i agree with others that you need to know the material first. to some degree i'd say that about kaplan's (at least for OC)
surprised at how little physiology. also atomic structure seemed light... not sure about this but i thought metabolic channels was very light too.......
i'm very non-traditional. probably one of the older candidates writing and i don't have any science pre-req's (not even old ones..... i was a top chem/physics student in my state in HS FWIW)... 2.5 months studying always with intention to later take some pre-req courses and take the test again in the future. i tried to push it a month later but didn't realize i was at end of testing window.
got my percentile scores back. mid's 20%ish for hard sciences. 40%-50%ish for P/S and CAR's... what i expected for the sciences. a little disappointing on the softer subjects but i did nothing on CAR's pre-test.
my thoughts on the exam process:
although i didn't do too well, i sensed that almost all the questions in C/P, P/S and CARs were reasonably gettable. i.e. i always thought "i could have got that one right with a very quick look at the kaplan book"..... B/BC was another story. you really need to know early biology and BC chapters.
as for studying, OC was just really tough esp. trying to learn everything at same time.....
next time i do exam, practice Q's (anywhere you can find them) and flash cards almost exclusively. maybe take some sort of memory course..... basically need to nail down chem/physics/OC analytics way before the exam. and then pound the more memory-intensive and important subjects nearer test day.
really simple things i wish i knew better as i was taking test:
BC: enzymes
chem: thermodyamics/heat/entropy/enthalpy/spontaneous/etc. i consider this one area. might some of this in BC with enzymes.
physics: nothing really....... didn't think it got into obscure subjects. pretty straight-forward.
OC: the basics (i'd almost say to stick with one source and augment with more info elswhere. easy to get confused on this subject) ........ measurement science (huge area you need to know that might slip in cracks. i think there's some in BC too..... also, basic experimental design etc.)... i think someone needs to offer a $100 basic online course on this subject. not so for the other subjects............ one difficulty i found in general is you need to be able to read/interpret many different types of chemical formulae (might have been more studying than the exam, but it certainly served to confuse me)
P/S: anything with someone's name attached to it....... classical/operant learning (and this has names with it)
biology: nothing really. although cell/virus/bacteria = the backbone of the MCAT. basically this is a ton of work to learn/remember. i probably couldn't do that much better with a quick flip though kaplan's material. (all other areas i could do better with simple scan of material)
you also need to know amino acids but that is a lot of work.
so basically i'd say i really wish i'd know enzymes, learning theory and thermodynamics better. 2 of which i knew well at one time.....
the painful thing was that a month before the exam i knew enzymes and classical/operant really well. but in learning so much stuff so fast and at last minute, i think i lost it somehow...note: i sort of did this write-up out of order.......... and i knew enzymes and learning theories were going to be huge areas. thermochemistry not so much.
kaplan weights were good............... might have been a few questions where i didn't know what they were asking (bio/bc). and at least one i didn't think was on curriculum anymore. but that's ok with 230 Q's.... EK is good but i agree with others that you need to know the material first. to some degree i'd say that about kaplan's (at least for OC)
surprised at how little physiology. also atomic structure seemed light... not sure about this but i thought metabolic channels was very light too.......
