What is wrong with this student?

[Hrycian]

So where to begin… I am a 32 years old post-bac. Student. Actually I just finished it last week.
15 years ago I went to a State College thinking that I am a premed material and successfully blew it over the next 3 years. Excuses go pretty much with language difficulties and a culture shock: I was semi-fresh off the boat from what used to be USSR. I did my US version of high school in a catholic monastery along with the novitiate studies. But hospitals raised more interest than the churches and I left the convent to study in the “real school” At the same time I volunteered in the hospital for a couple of years and took certifications for things like Nurse’s Aid and similar trainings. My grades in college were mostly “w”, others ranged from d to a. Eventually, realizing that this pass takes me no way fast, I dropped out and joined the Army. There, I completed a “bachelors of basket weaving” degree based on “CLAPPing” and Linguistics (traveling around the world helped me with learning 5 extra languages). Later got talked into a grad school and got a Masters in Human relations, which is a crossbreed between sociology and psych. My GPA there was 3.7. Over 10 years I worked as medic in many different fields. Had a regular collection of deployments for the time frame to include a year in Iraq. There I decided to give medicine one more try. Got out, came to US again and enrolled in a small college on Long Island (NY) in a post baccalaureate program, which consisted of all the basic pre-requirements with exception of English and Calculus, which I took and successfully passed before. So I did 1 upper bio course and 2 independent studies instead. If things will be fine, one of them may even be published in a journal of some sort. With exception of the first semester in gen. chemistry (scored an A-), every other course was either A or A+. So, at this point my GPA is 3.97.

Now, if you did not fall asleep on the lengthy life story here comes an interesting and equally weird part. This spring I began doing the Princeton Review and slowly started to feel, like something is going seriously wrong. The 3 Princeton diagnostics that I took so far gave me scores of 16 each in different combinations. The AAMC practice test gave me a 20. What’s weird that the difference in Verbal scores was kind of big: 5 in PR and 9 in AAMC. I also noticed that a bunch of topics reviewed in PR were completely new to me and were never covered in gen. courses.

I have scheduled for June MCAT. But now I am not sure if that is a good idea. What’s worse is that all of a sudden, from a Dean’s roll student, I have wound up in dunce hat. I seem to do the college textbook stuff with no problems, but the things from PR compendium make me feel like a total degenerate. Is this the age, or some other factor that I did not consider? Does MCAT encompass things other than gen. sciences? I haven’t broken a sweat intubating a patient under a direct mortar fire in Mosul, so freaking out is probably not the case here. What is then wrong with either myself or the approach I am taking here?

I will appreciate any sort of advice and diagnosis on my mishap. Thank you all for your time!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[KenDoll]

Mastering the MCAT can take months of practice and study. It sounds like your academic background is strong enough to yield a decent MCAT score if you can put some additional time in now. Definitely do not take the real test until your diagnostic scores are consistently in the upper 20s or higher (personally, I wasn't happy until I was scoring in the 30s).

Also, try taking some of the AAMC's practice tests here:

http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/practicetests.htm

I thought these tests, along with the explanations, were extremely helpful when I was studying.

 

[Hrycian]

Thank you, for the answer and the advice. I have been to the AAMC resource, that you have mentioned and will go there again. But my biggest confusion is why do I have such monstrous difficulty in this preparation? What is it: am I doing something wrong, or am I doing not enough and things like that? Or is it a normal thing for everyone who is just getting into it?

 

[menaniac]

So where to begin… I am a 32 years old post-bac. Student. Actually I just finished it last week.
15 years ago I went to a State College thinking that I am a premed material and successfully blew it over the next 3 years. Excuses go pretty much with language difficulties and a culture shock: I was semi-fresh off the boat from what used to be USSR. I did my US version of high school in a catholic monastery along with the novitiate studies. But hospitals raised more interest than the churches and I left the convent to study in the “real school” At the same time I volunteered in the hospital for a couple of years and took certifications for things like Nurse’s Aid and similar trainings. My grades in college were mostly “w”, others ranged from d to a. Eventually, realizing that this pass takes me no way fast, I dropped out and joined the Army. There, I completed a “bachelors of basket weaving” degree based on “CLAPPing” and Linguistics (traveling around the world helped me with learning 5 extra languages). Later got talked into a grad school and got a Masters in Human relations, which is a crossbreed between sociology and psych. My GPA there was 3.7. Over 10 years I worked as medic in many different fields. Had a regular collection of deployments for the time frame to include a year in Iraq. There I decided to give medicine one more try. Got out, came to US again and enrolled in a small college on Long Island (NY) in a post baccalaureate program, which consisted of all the basic pre-requirements with exception of English and Calculus, which I took and successfully passed before. So I did 1 upper bio course and 2 independent studies instead. If things will be fine, one of them may even be published in a journal of some sort. With exception of the first semester in gen. chemistry (scored an A-), every other course was either A or A+. So, at this point my GPA is 3.97.

Now, if you did not fall asleep on the lengthy life story here comes an interesting and equally weird part. This spring I began doing the Princeton Review and slowly started to feel, like something is going seriously wrong. The 3 Princeton diagnostics that I took so far gave me scores of 16 each in different combinations. The AAMC practice test gave me a 20. What’s weird that the difference in Verbal scores was kind of big: 5 in PR and 9 in AAMC. I also noticed that a bunch of topics reviewed in PR were completely new to me and were never covered in gen. courses.

I have scheduled for June MCAT. But now I am not sure if that is a good idea. What’s worse is that all of a sudden, from a Dean’s roll student, I have wound up in dunce hat. I seem to do the college textbook stuff with no problems, but the things from PR compendium make me feel like a total degenerate. Is this the age, or some other factor that I did not consider? Does MCAT encompass things other than gen. sciences? I haven’t broken a sweat intubating a patient under a direct mortar fire in Mosul, so freaking out is probably not the case here. What is then wrong with either myself or the approach I am taking here?

I will appreciate any sort of advice and diagnosis on my mishap. Thank you all for your time!

I definately agree with the above poster. Keep practicing until you are doing well (and by well I mean in the 30's). If you really are doing well in the pre-reqs, then learning how to take the test is your best bet. Also, you note that your verbal section is sometimes as low as a 5, but you don't mention your physical science score or Biologic science score. Are they also consistantly low (ie. less than 9?)? If so, you have a lot of work ahead of you. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but if you've already taken a review class, done all the work they ask you to do (yes...you do actually have to practice and study what they ask you to do to see your scores improve) and are still scoring this low, then maybe its time to get a private tutor through Kaplan or PR. Maybe you just need a bit of 1 on 1 attention to show you where you are going wrong, or if its just not fixable at all.

When I re-read your post just now, you stated that you have taken 3 diagnostic tests from PR. Are you actually enrolled in the class, or are you just taking the diagnostic over and over as a practice? If you aren't enrolled in the class, then get to it! I started Kaplan with a 23 diagnostic, and got a 34 the time I took the test for real. I worked my behind off for 3 months, but it really paid off. I had been out of school for 15 years, and needed a refresher and tips on how to approach the test. The MCAT tests your interpretive skills as much as your raw knowledge of science, so being instructed on how to approach each type of question was very helpful to me.

Good luck on everything!

 

[Hrycian]

I definately agree with the above poster. Keep practicing until you are doing well (and by well I mean in the 30's).

OK this does it! June is getting suspended. No chances taken

When I re-read your post just now, you stated that you have taken 3 diagnostic tests from PR. Are you actually enrolled in the class, or are you just taking the diagnostic over and over as a practice?

Yes, I am currently enrolled in Princeton Review course. And you are very much on the money, when you asked if I did all of the assignements. Very selectively and definetely not enough.

Good luck on everything!

Thank you

 

[QofQuimica]

Yes, I am currently enrolled in Princeton Review course. And you are very much on the money, when you asked if I did all of the assignements. Very selectively and definetely not enough.

That's the answer to your question. The MCAT isn't a science test, OP. It's a critical reasoning test that happens to be about scientific topics. You don't need to know more than the most elementary (sophomore level) science to do well on the MCAT. Look at the AAMC stats, and you will see that *humanities* majors are among the highest scoring students, while bio majors are among the LOWEST. I don't think that's an accident; humanities majors are trained for four years to analyze arguments. (If you don't believe me, try arguing about something with any philosophy major. )

I think you are doing the right thing by postponing. In answer to your question about how to improve, the answer is practice, and lots of it. Make use of your investment in TPR's course, and do all of your assignments, especially the practice tests. to you.

 

[Hrycian]

Thank you very much. This is a revelation that I wasn't so sure about. One of the dumb habbits that I developed while taking the PR was not read the passages much, but rather to go straight for the questions and if they were totally out of scope of the material covered in school or through professional exposure... to guess them.
And every time that I would run into something unusual, I would blame it on absence of training in things like biochemistry or cell biology. Meanwhile it could be that all I need is read the bloody texts more attentively. Well, time to change strategies. Thank you again!