What can I do to make the MOST possible improvement from now til Jan 20?

[Odysseus23]

Hey everyone,

I'm testing Jan 20 and these are my practice scores so far.

• Altius Half Length: 505
• Altius Full Length 1: 493 (123, 123, 122, 125)
• Altius Full Length 2: 503 (125, 126, 126, 126)
• Altius Full Length 3: 499 (124, 125, 126, 124)
• Altius Full Length 4: 504 (125, 127, 126, 126)
• NS Full Length 1: 504 (126, 126, 124, 128)

The first four full lengths I broke up over 2 days. I took the NS yesterday. I noticed I do better when I'm more focused and in the zone, especially on those Altius exams. For the NS exam yesterday, I started having really bad stomach ache in the middle of the B/B section and I think it messed me up. Still, my issues clearly go deeper than just focusing more.

I'm feeling very anxious because my scores are all over the place and I'm not exactly sure how best to proceed. My goal was a 515 (have low GPA) but as the days pass it's looking grim.

I think I'm alright with reasoning and inferring from passages, and I think content is my issue. With about 40 days left I'm not sure if I have time to keep going over content.

My plan keeps changing (anxiety) but after the result from yesterday this is what I've scheduled.

• DAILY:
• Morning – Metabolic pathways, C/P formulae, Kaplan Quicksheets
• Evening – ANKI, TPRH passages, KA P/S
• Mon 12/11 40 days out: Review Weaknesses
• Tue 12/12 39 days out: Review Weaknesses
• Wed 12/13 38 days out: Review Weaknesses
• Thu 12/14 37 days out: NS FL 2
• Fri 12/15 36 days out: Full Length Review
• Sat 12/16 35 days out: AAMC Official Sample Test
• Sun 12/17 34 days out: Full Length Review
• Mon 12/18 33 days out: Review Weaknesses
• Tue 12/19 32 days out: AAMC Section Bank 50q’s
• Wed 12/20 31 days out: AAMC Section Bank 50q’s
• Thu 12/21 30 days out: AAMC Section Bank 50q’s
• Fri 12/22 29 days out: AAMC Section Bank 50q’s
• Sat 12/23 28 days out: AAMC Section Bank 50q’s
• Sun 12/24 27 days out: AAMC Section Bank 50q’s
• Mon 12/25 26 days out: AAMC CARS 9 passages + AAMC BS QP 60q’s
• Tue 12/26 25 days out: AAMC QP BS 60q’s + AAMC CARS 9 passages
• Wed 12/27 24 days out: AAMC QP PS 60q’s + AAMC QP GC 60q’s
• Thu 12/28 23 days out: AAMC CARS 9 passages + AAMC QP BS 60q’s
• Fri 12/29 22 days out: AAMC QP PS 60q’s + AAMC QP GC 60q’s
• Sat 12/30 21 days out: AAMC Official Full Length #1
• Sun 12/31 20 days out: Full Length Review
• Mon 1/1 19 days out: AAMC QP BS 60q’s + AAMC CARS 9 passages
• Tue 1/2 18 days out: AAMC Official Guide 60q’s
• Wed 1/3 17 days out: AAMC Official Guide 60q’s
• Thu 1/4 16 days out: Finish TPRH and KA P/S

Please help me do a thorough "means end analysis" on how to get the biggest increase I can muster in this last stretch. I have blocked out everything but the MCAT so I can study around 10 hours a day. Thanks for all the help everyone, I can't express my gratitude enough for this place. I'm feeling really down because I've been studying since July (part time) and really wanted and needed to get one of those top scores

I went back through the 5 practice tests I've taken and tried to seriously figure out what my weaknesses are (sometimes it feels like everything is a weakness lol). I used the criteria from the Mcatmatt article "how to review conscientiously" (can't post a link yet). These are how many "D"s I got for the topics.

B/B

• Genetic Information/Expression - 29
• Metabolism - 9
• Kinetics - 6
• Enzymes - 6
• Cell Biology - 3
• Immunology - 3
• Amino Acids - 3

C/P (most of these are calculations)

• Work/Energy - 8
• Forces - 7
• Equilibrium - 7
• Acid/Base - 7
• Carbonyls/Alcohols - 5
• Stoichiometry - 5
• Lab Techniques - 4
• Light - 4
• Thermodynamics - 3
• Titration - 3
• Circuits - 3
• Solubility - 3
• Gases - 3

I knew I was weak in Genetics but I didn't know it was killing me this badly. Makes sense as it's a huge topic for the B/B section and it's on every exam, extensively. I'm going to slam these topics as hard as I can, following the order of priority. For the C/P section I really need to drill lots and lots of calculations I think.

Thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Just looking purely at practice exam numbers here. Your average scores have been C/P 124.6, CARS 125.4, B/B 124.8 and 125.8. In your schedule you have two full days dedicated to P/S, three partial days for B/B, and three days for Phys/Chem. It would make more sense to me if you dedicated much more time to doing PASSAGES on B/B and C/P material. Doing free-standing questions is nice, but the MCAT is about working your way through passages and then answering questions on a passage you may not fully comprehend in a short window of time. You have to focus on getting good at doing that. Taking FLs will help with that, but from what it looks like you need to do more C/P and B/B practice exams than FLs. And whether they are on a computer in the format of the exam is absolutely irrelevant. You need more C/P and B/B passages anyway you can get them. You have had enough exposure working on line that you will be fine taking the MCAT in that format. Right now you need to be time efficient, and working from a paper format is more time-efficient than a computer format. Add more passages in C/P and B/B to your schedule. Improve the areas where you are the lowest.

 

[Odysseus23]

Just looking purely at practice exam numbers here. Your average scores have been C/P 124.6, CARS 125.4, B/B 124.8 and 125.8. In your schedule you have two full days dedicated to P/S, three partial days for B/B, and three days for Phys/Chem. It would make more sense to me if you dedicated much more time to doing PASSAGES on B/B and C/P material. Doing free-standing questions is nice, but the MCAT is about working your way through passages and then answering questions on a passage you may not fully comprehend in a short window of time. You have to focus on getting good at doing that. Taking FLs will help with that, but from what it looks like you need to do more C/P and B/B practice exams than FLs. And whether they are on a computer in the format of the exam is absolutely irrelevant. You need more C/P and B/B passages anyway you can get them. You have had enough exposure working on line that you will be fine taking the MCAT in that format. Right now you need to be time efficient, and working from a paper format is more time-efficient than a computer format. Add more passages in C/P and B/B to your schedule. Improve the areas where you are the lowest.

Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it. I agree, I'm not really scared of CARS or P/S the way I am of the B/B and C/P sections, so I will try to focus on those. I think I suffer from wanting to get through everything that's supposed to be valuable. For example I've seen so many people praise the TPRH CARS book and the K/A psych passages that I feel like I'm missing out by not doing them, even though my B/B and C/P sections are much weaker. I'm feeling depressed that my scores have been stagnant for several weeks now. I admittedly haven't done that many practice passages since I started taking practice tests, so I will follow your advice and focus on that. But is that the best thing to do if I feel like my content is weak? Most of the questions I get wrong seem to be because I lack knowledge rather than reasoning. Which is very disheartening because I spent several months on content review, making ANKI cards on the TBR books since July It looks like I do a lot but I don't do it effectively.

I have a little over a month, so do you think the best thing I can do is just slam as many B/B and C/P passages as I can and thoroughly learn from the AAMC materials? Will that help me with my gaps in content knowledge? I was also considering watching a lot of Youtube videos on my weak topics. I took a B/B section from Altius today (only got 125 ) but at least 3 or 4 questions were directly about DNA replication, which I had just watched some AK Lectures videos on prior. If I hadn't, I would have gotten those wrong. Isn't that a sign that my content knowledge is the major issue?

Thank you very much for your help, I really appreciate it.

 

[NextStepTutor_1]

Hi @Odysseus23 -

Just a couple thoughts in addition to the suggestions that others have made...If you've been focusing on flashcards, one possible issue is that you're reviewing content too passively. When you go back and review content based on practice materials, such as the section bank, try to switch it up and get more active with it. Try to explain the content to someone else -possibly another student in a study group, or a friend/family member who is either very patient or you can bribe w/ pizza, or worst case, just try to write it out yourself. This can be time-consuming but it really does help. Some other strategies might include drawing things out more actively, making your own diagrams, using study sheets, Venn diagrams, and so on.

It's also important to make sure you're getting the most out of your review of practice materials. In general, try to shift from focusing on weaknesses to identifying action points that you can use to develop strengths. However, in addition to this general guidance (it may be useful for you to browse various threads about practice test review to get more detailed perspectives on this), here's something else to try. Review some questions, and for each question ask yourself:

1. What is the least amount of outside knowledge you need to get this question right?
2. What is the least amount of outside knowledge you need to eliminate 2 answer choices and make a 50-50 guess?
3. How many answer choices can you eliminate with essentially no outside knowledge?

The point of this exercise is twofold. First, it helps develop reasoning patterns that you can use to get the most bang for your buck in terms of your knowledge on Test Day. Second, it helps clarify the balance between passage-based knowledge & external knowledge on the test, which will help you more accurately diagnose how much content re-review you need to do.

Hope this is helpful, & best of luck!

 

[Zenabi90]

I'm going to offer some additional advice here, and while I'm not a test prep company, if a little bit helps you then it was worth my time to post.
*Just for credibility, my most recent MCAT was in September and I scored a 517: 129/129/130/129, and worst MCAT was in 2012 with a 55th percentile score*

You said you are aiming for a 515. That's roughly 128.75 in each section, meaning you need three 129s and one 128. You seem to be averaging 125s, so you need growth in ALL subjects.

I would argue that the easiest sections to score high in would be CARS and P/S. Now I can see myself getting a lot of flak for this but here's my rationale.

--CARS is the only section that requires ZERO pre-existing knowledge. Every single person is capable of scoring high on this section.
--P/S is currently pure memorization as its a new section, very easy to simply regurgitate (I got a C in Into to Psych 5 years ago, and didn't take sociology, still scored great)

My strategy for you would be
C/P: Find a copy of the old EK1001 C/P books for discrete practice since you say that calculations are your issue in that section. Doing tons of discretes will solve that very quickly.
B/B: Slam Genetics (your weakness) and amino acid properties (high high yield). Metabolic pathways can be hit and miss. My MCAT had very little metab, lots of amino acid and reasoning, which you may or may not see in your MCAT
P/S: Flash cards and Khan Academy will do wonders here
CARS: Daily practice! 3 passages minimum, utilize the Golden Rule as much as possible (wrong is wrong, least wrong is right)

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

I will help you figure this out the best I can. But the truth is that you need a 10+ pt. improvement and that looks quite challenging based on my limited understanding of your situation. If you were my student, I would first conduct a diagnostic exercise. Here are some important questions:

1. Have you been reviewing every question and using the tool provided in the altius exams to categorize the reason for which you missed each question? (This is the drop-down menu that says something like "I missed this question because; it's similar to the AAMC drop-down but has more options, and uses reasons that are more common among students). If you haven't, you need to do that right now. If you have, tell me the top 5 reasons.

2. Have you printed out the excel report available at the end of the Altius exams? The visual/graphic report page is nice, but the excel report gives a more analog set of data that is really nice for identifying patterns. Share those with me via PM.

3. Show me a variety of the questions you believe you have missed only because of content defiticits. Often, when a student of mine thinks it is a content issue, I discover that they only THINK it is a content issue.

As a consequence of the tremendous over-emphasis on content and memorization in prep courses AND college coursework, most students think in a binary way about questions: if the answer seemed to "pop into my head" I translate that to mean "I knew this topic/answer." If the answer did NOT "pop into my head" I translate that to mean "I didn't know that topic..." In reality, nearly all of my students who have even a modest mastery of the basic sciences actually have EVERYTHING they need in terms of content already in their brains. What they lack is the skill and confidence to draw that information to the forefront and/or associate it correctly with the question being asked. At Altius we teach what we call "The Socratic Method" as a way to gradually become better at drawing out what you do know and connecting it to the question you are attempting.

Because the above scenario is usually the real problem, studying more and more content doesn't resolve the issue. It only gives the student a false sense of security that they "know more", and then added frustration as they continue to miss questions. HOW YOU THINK >>> WHAT YOU KNOW!

It is potentially possible that you are truly deficient in content, but one can usually score well beyond 505 even with content deficiencies, IF your conceptual understanding, reasoning and experimental logic is strong. 80-90% of the questions on the MCAT are testing something other than content: critical thinking, experimental logic, interpretation of graphs/figures, etc.

Bottom line...improving content will get you a few more points, only learning to think like the MCAT will get you the 10-15 points you need.

 

[Odysseus23]

Hi @Odysseus23 -

Just a couple thoughts in addition to the suggestions that others have made...If you've been focusing on flashcards, one possible issue is that you're reviewing content too passively. When you go back and review content based on practice materials, such as the section bank, try to switch it up and get more active with it. Try to explain the content to someone else -possibly another student in a study group, or a friend/family member who is either very patient or you can bribe w/ pizza, or worst case, just try to write it out yourself. This can be time-consuming but it really does help. Some other strategies might include drawing things out more actively, making your own diagrams, using study sheets, Venn diagrams, and so on.

It's also important to make sure you're getting the most out of your review of practice materials. In general, try to shift from focusing on weaknesses to identifying action points that you can use to develop strengths. However, in addition to this general guidance (it may be useful for you to browse various threads about practice test review to get more detailed perspectives on this), here's something else to try. Review some questions, and for each question ask yourself:

1. What is the least amount of outside knowledge you need to get this question right?
2. What is the least amount of outside knowledge you need to eliminate 2 answer choices and make a 50-50 guess?
3. How many answer choices can you eliminate with essentially no outside knowledge?

The point of this exercise is twofold. First, it helps develop reasoning patterns that you can use to get the most bang for your buck in terms of your knowledge on Test Day. Second, it helps clarify the balance between passage-based knowledge & external knowledge on the test, which will help you more accurately diagnose how much content re-review you need to do.

Hope this is helpful, & best of luck!

Thanks for the advice! Yes, I fear that my content review was much too passive over the last several months. Not only that, but I also kinda glazed over all the topics that were hard to me, especially in C/P. That's really hurting me now. What I'm doing now is doing as many practice passages I can, and when I hit a topic I'm not good with, I go back and learn it. Then, I take my whiteboard and try to teach the concept to an imaginary student. This is working very well to understand topics. I just hope I have enough time to get through all the topics!

 

[Odysseus23]

I'm going to offer some additional advice here, and while I'm not a test prep company, if a little bit helps you then it was worth my time to post.
*Just for credibility, my most recent MCAT was in September and I scored a 517: 129/129/130/129, and worst MCAT was in 2012 with a 55th percentile score*

You said you are aiming for a 515. That's roughly 128.75 in each section, meaning you need three 129s and one 128. You seem to be averaging 125s, so you need growth in ALL subjects.

I would argue that the easiest sections to score high in would be CARS and P/S. Now I can see myself getting a lot of flak for this but here's my rationale.

--CARS is the only section that requires ZERO pre-existing knowledge. Every single person is capable of scoring high on this section.
--P/S is currently pure memorization as its a new section, very easy to simply regurgitate (I got a C in Into to Psych 5 years ago, and didn't take sociology, still scored great)

My strategy for you would be
C/P: Find a copy of the old EK1001 C/P books for discrete practice since you say that calculations are your issue in that section. Doing tons of discretes will solve that very quickly.
B/B: Slam Genetics (your weakness) and amino acid properties (high high yield). Metabolic pathways can be hit and miss. My MCAT had very little metab, lots of amino acid and reasoning, which you may or may not see in your MCAT
P/S: Flash cards and Khan Academy will do wonders here
CARS: Daily practice! 3 passages minimum, utilize the Golden Rule as much as possible (wrong is wrong, least wrong is right)

Hi Zenabi, I've read your posts in the past and have found them super helpful and inspiring (your green banana tip is going to save my life), and I really appreciate your advice. I agree about CARS and P/S, in fact I haven't been studying them much (besides flash cards for P/S terms) because the consensus is that third party materials aren't very representative. It's a very encouraging thought that you don't need outside knowledge for CARS. I will be taking the AAMC sample this weekend and I hope that will give me a better idea of how much I need to focus on CARS and P/S.

I have the EK1001 books for C/P and am definitely going to dig into those. My plan is to do as many TBR C/P passages as I can, and when I hit a calculation question, to find it in the EK1001 books and drill it. I have been doing the same with B/B TBR passages except using Youtube videos when I encounter weak topics.

I also have the TPRH book to practice CARS if I need more practice outside the AAMC materials which I am going to go through starting next week.

It's been a kind of disheartening experience thus far, but I'm going to stop worrying about it and keep hammering away, practicing everything I can til Test Day arrives. I just hope I have enough time to get through all these materials. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Odysseus23]

I will help you figure this out the best I can. But the truth is that you need a 10+ pt. improvement and that looks quite challenging based on my limited understanding of your situation. If you were my student, I would first conduct a diagnostic exercise. Here are some important questions:

1. Have you been reviewing every question and using the tool provided in the altius exams to categorize the reason for which you missed each question? (This is the drop-down menu that says something like "I missed this question because; it's similar to the AAMC drop-down but has more options, and uses reasons that are more common among students). If you haven't, you need to do that right now. If you have, tell me the top 5 reasons.

2. Have you printed out the excel report available at the end of the Altius exams? The visual/graphic report page is nice, but the excel report gives a more analog set of data that is really nice for identifying patterns. Share those with me via PM.

3. Show me a variety of the questions you believe you have missed only because of content defiticits. Often, when a student of mine thinks it is a content issue, I discover that they only THINK it is a content issue.

As a consequence of the tremendous over-emphasis on content and memorization in prep courses AND college coursework, most students think in a binary way about questions: if the answer seemed to "pop into my head" I translate that to mean "I knew this topic/answer." If the answer did NOT "pop into my head" I translate that to mean "I didn't know that topic..." In reality, nearly all of my students who have even a modest mastery of the basic sciences actually have EVERYTHING they need in terms of content already in their brains. What they lack is the skill and confidence to draw that information to the forefront and/or associate it correctly with the question being asked. At Altius we teach what we call "The Socratic Method" as a way to gradually become better at drawing out what you do know and connecting it to the question you are attempting.

Because the above scenario is usually the real problem, studying more and more content doesn't resolve the issue. It only gives the student a false sense of security that they "know more", and then added frustration as they continue to miss questions. HOW YOU THINK >>> WHAT YOU KNOW!

It is potentially possible that you are truly deficient in content, but one can usually score well beyond 505 even with content deficiencies, IF your conceptual understanding, reasoning and experimental logic is strong. 80-90% of the questions on the MCAT are testing something other than content: critical thinking, experimental logic, interpretation of graphs/figures, etc.

Bottom line...improving content will get you a few more points, only learning to think like the MCAT will get you the 10-15 points you need.

Thanks so much for helping me out! Sent you a PM