40 days till exam, advice?

[tvbbnumber41]

I realized I've been posting on the wrong thread.

So far I've been studying for about a month now, honestly doing more so casual studying. So far I've done decent job on content review of biochemistry and chemistry. I've done all the sections banks and completed 3 FL.

My scores in chronological order is as follows
1.) AAMCFL1 126/122/125/126
2.) AAMCFLSample 70%/74%/75%/77%
3.) NS Diagnostic 125/123/126/127

From now on I plan on doing the remainder of content review giving myself about 3 hours a day on just content review, followed by a section test + review of questions (and maybe some random passages from Q packs from AAMC), and lastly at least 3 passages for CARS (bc I seem to suck at them).

Do you guys think this is a good plan to improve my score?
My target score is 510+. I have about 40 days left. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

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[joe_1395]

I realized I've been posting on the wrong thread.

So far I've been studying for about a month now, honestly doing more so casual studying. So far I've done decent job on content review of biochemistry and chemistry. I've done all the sections banks and completed 3 FL.

My scores in chronological order is as follows
1.) AAMCFL1 126/122/125/126
2.) AAMCFLSample 70%/74%/75%/77%
3.) NS Diagnostic 125/123/126/127

From now on I plan on doing the remainder of content review giving myself about 3 hours a day on just content review, followed by a section test + review of questions (and maybe some random passages from Q packs from AAMC), and lastly at least 3 passages for CARS (bc I seem to suck at them).

Do you guys think this is a good plan to improve my score?
My target score is 510+. I have about 40 days left. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

YES YOU CAN. I would really sit down and know why you are missing questions (content issue, you missed info from the passage, you misread the question?) If it's a content issue, then you have to structure review based on your weak topics. I would take section test to get in the habit of doing passages.. And try to slow down when reading the passage. I think you can improve in bio, psych, and chem if you know why you're getting questions wrong. I would suggest getting altius FLs as they helped me sharpen the way i read passages and what I was looking for (what do the graphs mean, what is the importance of the experiment, why is the experiment being done, what is the importance of this procedure, etc.) For CARS, I got a 122 in FL1 and went up to a 126 on FL2. EVERY CORRECT ANSWER IS IN THE PASSAGE. I'm SERIOUS. Try to look for that authors pov, the details that the author uses to support his/her argument. Eliminate choices that are nowhere stated in the passage, and extreme choices. When I started studying for this test, I didn't know how to 'study' for cars. Do the passages, then review the passages the day later. What is the author saying? why is he using the examples that he uses? what is he trying to get across? For the sciences, I would suggest to constantly test the material, you will retain the information better this way. I hope this helps!

 

[tvbbnumber41]

Just as an update. I took a lot of the people's advice here, especially with CARs and some update...

4.) NS FL 1 127/125/127/127
5.) NS FL 2 126/127/128/127
6.) NS FL 3 127/126/128/127

 

[akimhaneul]

Just as an update. I took a lot of the people's advice here, especially with CARs and some update...

4.) NS FL 1 127/125/127/127
5.) NS FL 2 126/127/128/127
6.) NS FL 3 127/126/128/127

How did you improve on cars so much? Did you just practice a lot?


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[DameJulie]

How did you improve on cars so much? Did you just practice a lot?


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Also want to know how you improved CARS!

 

[tvbbnumber41]

How did you improve on cars so much? Did you just practice a lot?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Also want to know how you improved CARS!

I practiced a lot and experimented with techniques that worked for me and didn't. After doing so many I started to notice little patterns here and there as far as what would be the "more" correct answer. But most importantly for me was the timing. Also, for me personally, discovering the highlighting tool and the answer cross out capability saved me a lot of time. After a good amount of practice you can start to notice, without even reading the question, what the important areas of the passage are so it would help to highlight. Also, it helped me to THINK LIKE THE AUTHOR as opposed to myself. It was difficult at first, because the author's viewpoints sometimes is a bit extreme, but I'm starting to get used to it. I'm in no way efficient at CARS so take everything with a grain of salt. I was always a poor reader (490 reading and 790 math SAT scores lol).

 

[akimhaneul]

I practiced a lot and experimented with techniques that worked for me and didn't. After doing so many I started to notice little patterns here and there as far as what would be the "more" correct answer. But most importantly for me was the timing. Also, for me personally, discovering the highlighting tool and the answer cross out capability saved me a lot of time. After a good amount of practice you can start to notice, without even reading the question, what the important areas of the passage are so it would help to highlight. Also, it helped me to THINK LIKE THE AUTHOR as opposed to myself. It was difficult at first, because the author's viewpoints sometimes is a bit extreme, but I'm starting to get used to it. I'm in no way efficient at CARS so take everything with a grain of salt. I was always a poor reader (490 reading and 790 math SAT scores lol).

Which sources did you use? People say I should only stick with AAMC stuff but I'm just wondering

 

[tvbbnumber41]

Which sources did you use? People say I should only stick with AAMC stuff but I'm just wondering

To be honest I messed up. I began with AAMC (which I should've saved for last). I used all of AAMC CARS first (FL sample, FL 1, Cars vol 1/2), then i did 6 NS practice CARS sections, and the TPR CARS workbook. If i could do it over again I would've saved AAMC for last. The most improvement I saw was through the INCREDIBLY hard passages in Cars 1 (i think like first 3-4 passages). Also, I personally would not recommend EK 101 passages. I don't know what they're smoking, but the explanations on some of their answers was beyond logic. I did a few passages and when I couldn't understand why the answers I chose were wrong, I realized it was no good for me. Lastly, the TPR CARS starts off pretty easy-moderate and then a few difficult ones here and there so don't get cocky as they are not representative of the difficulty of the actual AAMC ("allegedly" because I have not taken it yet either). Also, AAMC sample CARS is very easy so take that with a grain of salt.