Wasn't it difficult??

[medical22]

I thought the exam was very very hard, especially the VR and Bio. I was not expecting that. I took the Kaplan prep course and probably did better on those tests than today's. People kept telling me that the actual MCAT is easier than the kaplan tests and everyone scores higher. But I know that I did not do well. The verbal reasoning passages were sooooo complicated. I did not have enought time to finish (I was left with two whole passages). I was short of time even in the other two sections. The writing section was ok. I know I will have to take it again unless there's a miracle.

By the way, don't you think that it's not fair that different tests are given out? I think so. I might have done better if I were given a different version of the test. Are the passages completely different?. Someone on this board brought up a question that did not appear on my exam. I found my exam to be very tough.

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[medical22]

By the way, I had test CT (52854). Anyone else?
Are the people tommorrow also going to have different tests than were given out today? How about for the writing part?

 

[jdub]

medical22,

hey, i would relax a bit, you have 2 whole months before you are going to get your scores, do not kill yourself by saying you did horrible or by worrying about, things can turn out different than you think.

i took kaplan and did fine on the VR, did really well on the biology, and did okay on the physics.

when i took the test, i thought that the VR was impossible and that the bio was also very difficult.

i ended doing just fine on both the verbal and the bio and i did really well on the physics.

also, remember that you are "graded" against how every else did on the exam, so if you had a hard time, it is very likely that everyone else did too.

now is just the time to be glad that you are done with the darn thing . . .

 

[jakethaiCSULA]

Hey guys I agree that the exam were difficult. I had form BG. VERBAL was a killer, it was comparable to Princeton Review test A-D. AND gosh that darn BIO. I bombed it for sure. I have to take it again in April. Oh by the way, four people out of 25 voided their test.

 

[Mystique]

I had test form EK, and I have yet to come across anyone in SDN who had that test form. My verbal included passages about Achilles/Patroclus, computers, and I forget the rest of the topics...

I thought some passages in the Verbal were difficult, not necessarily the ones I mentioned above. I'm accustomed to finishing Verbal on time, but yesterday, I didn't have a chance to attack two passages. I'm extremely weary about my verbal score.

Physical Science was alright. Most passages were pretty straightforward, but there were two that were a bit "out there" in my opinion. My passages included a swimmer playing an instrument while another dude was laying out on his paddle boat, and um...I can't remember the rest.

Biology was not too bad at all. I had about four organic passages, I think. Organic was very much "do-able", and Biology was alright for the most part.

I felt well-prepared going into the test, but once I got there I just kind of overdid myself I guess. I'm weary about my scores; I'm a reapplicant. I just hope that the majority of people felt the same way, and the scale will help me, not hurt me. We'll see...I don't know if I can stand the wait!!!

 

[Amy B]

Hi Pendulum, I had EH and I had the swimmer, music, stupid one you spoke of. Do you remember the question in that passage that said
Why is the swimmer floating?
A
B Doppler
C Beauvilles (something like that)
D Achemides (I cant spell)

Here the passage is about sound and it aske us why can the swimmer float. Do you remember what you put?

 

[Legend]

Originally posted by Amy Beth:
•Hi Pendulum, I had EH and I had the swimmer, music, stupid one you spoke of. Do you remember the question in that passage that said
Why is the swimmer floating?
A
B Doppler
C Beauvilles (something like that)
D Achemides (I cant spell)

Here the passage is about sound and it aske us why can the swimmer float. Do you remember what you put?•

It is 'D'. I am 100% sure.

I had form EG, and I had the same verbal passages as you and pendulum, but I thought it was impossible. Other passages I had were DNA/Mitochondria, Beads, Fashion, Literary Curriculum, Homer Illiad, etc.
But, I thought both PS and BS were doable. I hope.[/

 

[Mystique]

Amy Beth,

The answer was Archimedes Principle (bouyant force). I'm glad you felt the verbal was easy. Personally, I'm scared of my scores; there's no telling what I got. I guess we'll all find out in two months.

 

[Amy B]

Crap, I was going to put D, but chose C instead. I knew it was due to Buoyancy but I didn't know what scientist came up with it. I picked the other answer only because it began with the letter B.

Wow what logic, Amy. HAHAHAHA

 

[Legend]

pendulum, did you have the passage about sorting proteins to either basolateral material or apical membrane?

If you did, do you remember the question where it asked for the location of L-amino acid labeling?

A. Nucleus
B. Gorgi Stacks?
C. Gorgi Vesicles
D. ER Lumen

I guessed B. Can anyone interprete this question?

(I thought this passage was the hardest in my bio section).

 

[Mystique]

Legi,

I did indeed have that passage. To be honest, I didn't fully comprehend that passage because time was running out. Was that the passage that only had like 5 questions? I guessed B b/c I put "B" for all answers I didn't get a chance to look at. So, we both guessed right or wrong. Haha! I'm sorry I can't be of further assistance.

On another note, what did you put for that discrete question about two bones that were movable and served a connective and supportive function?
The choices were
-neck
-hands
-leg
-skull.

I put neck...do you remember what you put?

 

[Legend]

Originally posted by pendulum:
•Legi,

I did indeed have that passage. To be honest, I didn't fully comprehend that passage because time was running out. Was that the passage that only had like 5 questions? I guessed B b/c I put "B" for all answers I didn't get a chance to look at. So, we both guessed right or wrong. Haha! I'm sorry I can't be of further assistance.

On another note, what did you put for that discrete question about two bones that were movable and served a connective and supportive function?
The choices were
-neck
-hands
-leg
-skull.

I put neck...do you remember what you put?•

That Golgi passage was worth guessing because I had 20 minutes left when I started this passage and it took me 10 minutes to understand that passage. But, the questions were really tough.

I remember this question and I thought this question was either so ******ed or so tricky.

by the way choice B was 'fingers'.

I put 'legs' because there are TWO of them! 'LOL'

 

[Amy B]

Oh I had these questions also. I had no idea about the passage about the basolaterial stuff either. i saved it till last. Looked at it for 7 minutes and guessed the best I could.

I also picked the neck as the answer to the other question about the bones. Wow did I get one right?

 

[Legend]

Originally posted by Amy Beth:
•Oh I had these questions also. I had no idea about the passage about the basolaterial stuff either. i saved it till last. Looked at it for 7 minutes and guessed the best I could.

I also picked the neck as the answer to the other question about the bones. Wow did I get one right? •

I think it is either neck or legs but are there two bones in our necks?

It looks like all E* series had the same passages but in different order. Basolateral passage was the last one in my test.

Amy Beth, you seriously thought Verbal was easy?
I even thought mitochondria passage was hard.

 

[Halaljello]

anyone have form FH? what did you think of the bio? Remember that passage about the hippocampus? what the hell was that? and wasnt the physical sciences kind of decieving?

 

[pandabear]

Hey Guys!!

I had form EH and am feeling the nostalgia!

I thought the VR was a bit difficult. I usually finish and yesterday I rushed through the last passage, which basically meant guessing. By far, the worst passage was the Homer/Illiad passage.

I guess Amy Beth and I are the only two who thought PS was difficult. Too much E+M for my liking on the physics aspect of it and some of the acid/base chemistry I had a difficult time with. BTW, I picked Archimedes principle (buoyancy) for that one. But I can sympathize Amy Beth, I almost picked Bernouilli because that principle deals with fluids.

BS was pretty doable, I thought, with the exception of that damn basolateral vs apical membrane passage. Legi and Pendulum, I too was running out of time when I arrived at this passage and even after a good two read-thrus I didn't fully comprehend the experiment. At this point I just hung on for dear life and used the graphs to make as many good guesses as possible! Orgo wans't too bad, most of it could be gotten from the passages, I thought.

Oh, and that connective-supportive question...I haven't taken any anatomy, so I was quite disgruntled with this question. For some reason, I chose fingers. I don't remember the question specifically stating "two" bones...and for some reason, I thought legs just looked too good to be true.

Did anyone else run out of time for their writing samples? I am not one to write under pressure...and I had to drop my pencil mid-sentence cuz the proctor called time.

Well, it's over and now we just have to wait.
Happy fall semester!

 

[mj]

Originally posted by Legi:
•It is 'D'. I am 100% sure.

•

WOOO HOOO. I got one right. I almost put Bernulie (or however the hell you spell it).

I'm a fellow EHer. I feel like I'm in group -- Hi, my name is mj and I'm an EHer. lol

While I didn't think verbal was easy, I didn't think it was hard either. I kept looking for the REALLY hard passage like last year (tonality -- I still have nightmares) but they were all just kind of hard. All the answers all seemed gray, though.

And I thought PS was AWFUL. Where were all the things I studied for? Did anyone get the degrees of freedom questions? It showed you a phase diagram of H2O and then gave you two formulas for calculating degrees of freedom. I completely didn't get that. The first time I saw it, I thought well it's only one question...and then there were two more questions on it.

Seems like people who had ridculous verbal had easy PS and vice versa.

Bio was OK. The bone question -- I could have swore it said "protective" not "connective" so picked skull. Sorry Legi, but I didn't get the basolaterial question either. I think I picked ER. My only saving grace on that passage was that two of the questions dealt with the graph and I understood the graphs so I didn't totally bomb it. Looks like we were all in the same boat on that one.

Praying to the good curve gods for everyone...

mj

 

[KatieKat]

I had the EH form too. For that skull, neck, legs, and hands question I chose neck because the questions said the bones didn't have a shaft (I think) and had a supportive function. Only the neck and legs have a supportive function, and all long bones (legs) have a shaft.

Also, for that L-amino acid labelling question, I think my options were cytosol, Golgi vesicles, ER lumen, and Golgi stacks...Did we get different answer choices? I put cytosol because even though the peptide chain is threaded into the ER after translation, actual translation takes place on the ER surface...and in the cytosol.

What did everyone think of EH's physical sciences? I thought it was pretty tough. There's just one passage that's bothering me though. That one that had a phase diagram in it and the degrees of freedom formula. What the hell did the C (components) in the formula stand for??? I couldn't figure it out!

 

[praying mantis]

I took form EM today (Sunday) and it sounds just like all the other E versions. I thought VR and BS were fine, but the PS was awful!! The phase diagram formula was very confusing and there was another passage that I really didn't understand (at the moment my brain is so fried that I can't remember a thing about it). I took the MCAT last summer and the PS section was much easier!

 

[praying mantis]

Oh I remember that other crappy PS section. It was on E=hv and the energy of photons coming off a metallic plate or something? Anyone else remember this one? I sort of panicked when I got to it b/c I realized I didn't have too much time left. I couldn't think and probably got them all wrong

 

[lilycat]

Congrats on having survived the MCAT you guys!

First off, each year, everyone thinks they had a pretty hard test. I never, ever had a problem on VR in practice, scored well, finished early, etc., and then when it was the actual MCAT, I didn't even have time to finish the section!! The point is, the test IS hard, but that's why there is a curve. Don't start stressing until you get your scores back -- there's nothing you can do now, so you might as well enjoy yourself.

 

[Mystique]

Thanks for the uplifting words Lilycat. If only my mind would steer clear of worry....

 

[Valeriya]

Hey, everybody!
Congrats on having the hard part behind us. I took the exam on saturday and had form BG, which is identical to AG and several other forms. It was in between medium and hard, I would say. I prepared by using Kaplan review book, but not the class. I though it was a good preparation. Verbal was kind of challenging, but not too impossible to read, like most Prinston passages I have seen. Physics was outright easy - I did not take the Physics II yet, just browsed the textbook on my own, and what little info I got, was good enough for the test. It was straightforward passages, i guess. Bio was very, very hard, even though it was supposed to be my strongest subject - I tutor organic and biology for a living, but it was hard, too scientific and tricky. But hey - everybody thought that way in the huge auditorium, so we will see that curve SDN promised me. All in all, I am very optimistic, so don't freak out and if you have questions on BG let me know. Good luck, and celebrate - it feels GOOOOOOOD!

 

[scubadiva]

hey valeriya, I know you thought that PS was easy, but since you said you had the same form as AG (which is the one I took), I just wanted to check if we had the same topics:a car hitting another car off of a cliff, AC current. For bio: glomerular filtration - twice i think - once for snakes and one about humans, and something about terpene units. Just curious, thanks.

 

[Legend]

Originally posted by KatieKat:
•I had the EH form too. For that skull, neck, legs, and hands question I chose neck because the questions said the bones didn't have a shaft (I think) and had a supportive function. Only the neck and legs have a supportive function, and all long bones (legs) have a shaft.

Also, for that L-amino acid labelling question, I think my options were cytosol, Golgi vesicles, ER lumen, and Golgi stacks...Did we get different answer choices? I put cytosol because even though the peptide chain is threaded into the ER after translation, actual translation takes place on the ER surface...and in the cytosol.

What did everyone think of EH's physical sciences? I thought it was pretty tough. There's just one passage that's bothering me though. That one that had a phase diagram in it and the degrees of freedom formula. What the hell did the C (components) in the formula stand for??? I couldn't figure it out!•

I think 'C' was 1 for all our calculations.

For the basolateral stuff.. I chose 'golgi stacks' because the whole experiment was about SORTING the proteins.

On another note,
'Does decreasing pressure increase CO2 solubility? '

 

[Legend]

Originally posted by lilycat:
•Congrats on having survived the MCAT you guys!

First off, each year, everyone thinks they had a pretty hard test. I never, ever had a problem on VR in practice, scored well, finished early, etc., and then when it was the actual MCAT, I didn't even have time to finish the section!! The point is, the test IS hard, but that's why there is a curve. Don't start stressing until you get your scores back -- there's nothing you can do now, so you might as well enjoy yourself.•

Thanks for your reassurance.

 

[VC15]

Originally posted by scubadiva:
•hey valeriya, I know you thought that PS was easy, but since you said you had the same form as AG (which is the one I took), I just wanted to check if we had the same topics:a car hitting another car off of a cliff, AC current. For bio: glomerular filtration - twice i think - once for snakes and one about humans, and something about terpene units. Just curious, thanks.•

Hello, I had form BG and it contained all of the passages you mentioned above...

 

[mcwmark]

Originally posted by Legi:
•
I think it is either neck or legs but are there two bones in our necks?
•

Yes, there are more than two bones in the neck, but the C1 Atldas and C2 Axis bones support the skull.

I'm glad I took the MCAT years ago...it seems it's gotten much harder since then!

 

[KatieKat]

Originally posted by Legi:
•
For the basolateral stuff.. I chose 'golgi stacks' because the whole experiment was about SORTING the proteins.
•

But wasn't the question asking where the labelled amino acid got incorporated into the protein? The Golgi modifies a pre-exisitng protein chain, but cannot add amino acids because it has no ribosomes, right? Oh, I probably can't even remember the question correctly anymore. Thank goodness it's finally over!

 

[sunflower79]

Hey Scubadiva and Valeriya,

I had form AH and had exactly the same questions. Here are my two cents:

For me BS was more challenging than I expected, even given that I had done the Princeton practice tests A-D. Got confused for a minute there on the osmotic pressure stuff (2 questions on that!), and there was that damn o-chem passage on ester synthesis. And what did people think about that discrete question at the end about K-selected species vs. r-selected? I think that was unfair and I happened to know only because I had taken ecology in school.

Physics was easy (damn, I know I'll have jinxed myself!), except for the few questions such as acid-base and photoelectric effect. VS was difficult as usual and I didn't finish reading through one passage. There was this passage with 10 questions that was impossible to understand, something about literature and irony and hope vs. skepticism. I'm hoping for 11 but who knows. And how in the world do people even get 12+ on that?!

Personally, I felt great during and after the test and thought it was for the most part very straightforward, but for some reason have nagging doubts about whether I messed up on something and didn't even know it...

Anyway, congrats everyone on having survived! "And now we return to our regularly scheduled program..."

p.s. I think decreasing pressure decreases CO2 solubility, because according to Le Chatelier gas formation would be favored to return the gas pressure to equilibrium. (I don't think I had this question though.)

 

[Legend]

Originally posted by KatieKat:
•But wasn't the question asking where the labelled amino acid got incorporated into the protein? The Golgi modifies a pre-exisitng protein chain, but cannot add amino acids because it has no ribosomes, right? Oh, I probably can't even remember the question correctly anymore. Thank goodness it's finally over!•

interesting. I somehow thought the golgi sorted proteins by labeling preexisting proteins with other molecules. Well. at least it is over.

 

[SicVic]

I feel all your pains!! I thought the VERBAL was hard...
I had BT and it had passages on
CATS, THINKING, THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION, PHOTOGRAPHY, AGRICULTURE, IMPORTANCE OF HISTORY EDUCATION(political)
Those are the passages i got to read and could not go into the remaining two. Such a bummer and i took the damn exam to try and increase my VB especially. The writing section was ok but i thought i could have done a little better.
The PHYSICAL section and BIO sec, I think i understood it generally.
BIO had some stuff on
SNAKE GLOMERULAR INTERMITTIVITY
that i felt was the tough passage.
Interestly, my physical sci. section had little passages. HMMMmm are the test makers going soft in the PHYsical, WATCH OUT APRIL.

 

[poloace]

hey vic- i had form BM... where did you take the exam??? i was in nebraska. anyway, the passages sound the same. dear god, i thought that verbal section bent me over and did some damage... i wonder how many different versions of the exam AAMCAS had out that day. i've never seen anything as difficult as those verbal passages we got. it was odd... usually the passages are hard and the questions are easy or vice versa. this verbal set combined the options into one hellish scenario- passages that were not only difficult to comprehend, but questions about them that were too difficult as well. as for the other sections, those sound the same as well. i actually thought that the physical wasn't too bad... the biological had some hard material on there, but overall, i think the exam pretty much sucked only because of that verbal section. hope the rest of you did well-

 

[poloace]

vic- also- i think that our verbal section was by FAR the hardest in the nation... so just chill out and relax man... its over (at least temporarily til april)

 

[dtreese]

Originally posted by pendulum:
•
On another note, what did you put for that discrete question about two bones that were movable and served a connective and supportive function?
The choices were
-neck
-hands
-leg
-skull.


I put neck...do you remember what you put?•

I had EK and I think that this question mentioned that the bones lacked shafts, didn't it? I don't know, maybe the Bass I had right after the test muddled my memory, but I do know that I chose the vertebrae.

 

[Amy B]

It did say it lacked shafts and it was a joint of some kind I think it said it could pivit on the other bone. Two of the choices have shafts and the third, the skull is not a joint like the one they mentioned. I also put neck.

 

[Hopkins2010]

Just remember the curve. I thought that bio was very easy but it was my lowest score because evidently everybody else thought it was even easier than i did. In contrast, to me physical sciences was pretty tough but it was my highest score.