*Official June 2017 MCAT Thread*

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ICUBlue

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I haven't seen a thread for this month so let's get this one going! Share study plans, questions, and motivation.

My test is June 17th and I started using TBR over winter break and doing ~15 hours each week during the semester leading up to full time studying starting in May.

What's everyone else's plans? Good luck!


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I feel like I completely failed that exam...I ran out of time on all the sections (even P/S which I usually have 30min left for!) CARS and Biology felt easy, but I still ran out of time and had to guess a bit...so I'm upset about that. It means my score will be much lower since the curve will be less. C/P was very difficult too. I'm hoping P/S will be my best section, considering I had time to at least finish most of the questions. I'm already studying for a retake, but I really wish my score on this one will be at least a 504 :bang: AAMC FLs are cake compared to the real exam. I don't get why the AAMC makes such easy practice exams and then, shellshocks us with super hard tests. This sucks :/
 
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C/P: I guess I share the sentiment with everyone else here; this section was ridiculously hard. I felt like I never took a practice question with how hard this was. If I have to retake, I'll definitely spend A LOT more time practicing and studying for this section. It seemed like 95% chemistry, 5% physics to me (physics questions were pretty straight forward.)

CARS: I honestly felt like the first three passages were pretty dense on hard questions, which ate up a lot of my time. I ended up almost not finishing this section and I regret not practicing this religiously. It definitely affected my score when, in reality, I could have been in the 85th %ile

Bio/Biochem: This was definitely easy for me. I had ~35 minutes to spare which let me review all my marked Q's and then some. Highest score of all four sections. The passages were okay and I definitely had to reread a few to make sure I understood what I needed to know. The only reasons I did well were 1.) Bio major and 2.) 2.5 years of hard science research. Plethora of research studies I had to read, reread, and analyze for credit in undergrad. If anyone still has a month or so left before the MCAT, I highly suggest finding any PubMed articles for free and analyze them. If you can understand all the sections of the paper, then you will do very well. This test section was on-par with the AAMC FL/practice passages provided.

P/S: What I expected as far as practice passages/FL from AAMC provided. It honestly seemed like a psychology test rather than a sociology test. This includes methodologies, but those were straight forward for the most part. Definitely missed the mark with studying certain aspects of psychology section, but I feel like I got a good amount correct.

Optimistic: 506 -508
Realistic: 503-505

If I make a 506+, I won't withdraw my application to the state schools and hope I get taken off the waitlist. Anything below and I'll have to assess my mistakes and retake.
 
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I feel like I completely failed that exam...I ran out of time on all the sections (even P/S which I usually have 30min left for!) CARS and Biology felt easy, but I still ran out of time and had to guess a bit...so I'm upset about that. It means my score will be much lower since the curve will be less. C/P was very difficult too. I'm hoping P/S will be my best section, considering I had time to at least finish most of the questions. I'm already studying for a retake, but I really wish my score on this one will be at least a 504 :bang: AAMC FLs are cake compared to the real exam. I don't get why the AAMC makes such easy practice exams and then, shellshocks us with super hard tests. This sucks :/
I share this sentiment for 3/4 of the exam. The practice passages seem to distribute different foundation skills evenly, yet on the real test, they REALLY harp on 1-2 skills per passage. CARS seemed to love testing a lot on "certain skills" that need a minute to reason with (quotes because I'm afraid to violate the contract with e AAMC.)

AAMC FL 1: Scored a 507, no glaring weak spots
AAMC FL 2 (1 month later): 512

Pretty sure I'll be lucky to break 500 with this test.
 
I share this sentiment for 3/4 of the exam. The practice passages seem to distribute different foundation skills evenly, yet on the real test, they REALLY harp on 1-2 skills per passage. CARS seemed to love testing a lot on "certain skills" that need a minute to reason with (quotes because I'm afraid to violate the contract with e AAMC.)

AAMC FL 1: Scored a 507, no glaring weak spots
AAMC FL 2 (1 month later): 512

Pretty sure I'll be lucky to break 500 with this test.

I can't tell you how scared I am that I will get below a 502 or worse a 490 something. I don't know, I really feel stupid and like I underperformed. You said B/B was easy, and it was... but my time management on that section sucked. I didn't make use of the "easiness." Really worried about my score here.

The practice passages seem to distribute different foundation skills evenly, yet on the real test, they REALLY harp on 1-2 skills per passage.

So true. I wish I could write a strong letter to the AAMC and gather a petition of support from all the pre-meds lol
 
C/P: I guess I share the sentiment with everyone else here; this section was ridiculously hard.

Agreed. I felt like I was making educated guesses more often than I was selecting an answer that I was sure about on C/P. I also ended up without enough time to figure out a couple of calculation based problems that I'm sure I could have figured out if I'd had a few more minutes. That said, I always felt like I was bombing the C/P section while I was taking practice exams, but my scores always turned out ok. So hopefully the same applies here and I didn't really do as bad as I'm currently worrying I might have.

Otherwise, I felt pretty good about B/B and CARS, and not too terrible about P/S. Just hoping that my C/P score isn't so bad that it can't be balanced out with a strong B/B score.
 
Wow really? That's a very conservative prediction of B/B was as easy for you as you say. Can I ask how you scored on FL1 and FL2?

For me: C/P was a better than B/B. I thought there was a lot of physics ‍♂️

CARS passages were straightforward, but CARS is a crapshoot for me anyways.

B/B: I felt like it was missing lots of big topics

P/S: I don't agree, it wasn't like FL1/2 imo. Again skipped out on all the big theories. Very strange section, you should see Reddit's reaction to it haha.


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On FL1 I got a 127, FL2 I got a 130 for B/B. I'm not sure why but this section seemed straight forward to me, 80% of the time. I don't believe I got a perfect score by any means but I'm confident on this one.

The other 3 scores are a crap shoot because I barely had any time to finish the first half of the exam. A big factor for CARS was definitely feeling deflated after C/P; which is probably what the AAMC wanted to see if they could weed out good test takers from mediocre ones.
 
Just finished the exam today, here are my thoughts...

Chem/Physics: Incredibly difficult. C/P usually is the hardest section so I'm not surprised. I tend to do fairly well on this section despite usually thinking it's the most difficult question. But man it was tonight today. I heard that the physics isn't too bad on the MCAT, but it was definitely on the tough side today, although the orgo and chemistry weren't too bad. This part definitely has the most questions that I've never seen before. I felt like there were questions harder than section bank material and that a few were easier but still harder than the AAMC practice test. On average I felt like this section as a whole was about section bank difficulty. This was significantly more difficult than the AAMC FL.

CARS: I felt like it was pretty easy. I didn't notice any absurdly hard passage and for the most part the passages were fairly straightforward outside a couple passages. I have no idea how my score will turn out because it's common to feel like the cars was easy to then see your score dip much lower than expected. These were very similar to the cars practice questions in terms of difficulty. Cars Pack 2 specifically, as I hear that Cars 1 is a bit more on the difficult side.

Biology: I feel like this section was okay. I wouldn't say it was easy, but much more manageable than the Chem/Physics. The passages were pretty difficult, but I think a lot of the questions were pretty straightforward. The passages were very similar to the section bank difficulty, but the questions were a bit easier to figure out. But this was slightly more difficult than the AAMC FL.

Psych/Soc: This was surprisingly tricky. This was definitely more difficult than the AAMC FL and was comparable to the section banks in terms of difficulty. No idea how this section will turn out for me.

Conclusion: The difficulty of the test is surely more difficult than the AAMC FL. I would say in terms of difficulty your test will be more comparable to the section banks than anything else. But it gets scaled in the end so your score will probably be most similar to your AAMC score, despite the added difficulty. Just don't panic.

Thank god it's over with.


I took the test yesterday as well and have a very similar assessment as you.

The C/P section was tougher than the section bank. Very VERY strong requirement to apply knowledge in creative ways to determine the solutions. Of all the timed practice I have completed, this was the first time I have ever not had time to review questions I marked. Section bank was the best prep for this section.

CARS was straight forward and fortunately there seemed to be less questions where there were two that made sense. In my opinion, the MCAT solutions to some of these passages in the FL and SB are often tenuous at best.

B/BC was fair and very comparable to what I experienced on the FLs.

P/S was absurd. I have a B.S. in psychology and a M.S. In counseling PLUS i hit this section harder than i should have in test prep because it is interesting to me. The questions for the most part left it open to interpretation between two possible choices after eliminating two obviously incorrect answers. I would also not be surprised if there were challenges to a particular section due to a lack of necessary information to apply the terms of a theory to the situation described in the passage. In psychology classes, there are often multiple answers to the same question depending upon the logic one uses to reach the conclusion which is reflected in the June 1st exam version I took. Furthermore, they asked about a few obscure terms which have provided for amusing banter on these blogs. Mostly the terms were familiar but require some leaps in logic to arrive at the accurate conclusion.
 
Thank you guys, keeping posting 6/1 Exam thoughts!

Yesterday I took EK 3... got 73% which I'm pleased with but got 61% in CP. needless to say I will be spending some time reviewing Gen Chem and physics concepts. Did much better in their CARs than I did in NExt step's.

Hoping to fit in one more EK Fl (probably 4) and do some separate passage work in BB, CP, and CARS then focus mainly on AAMC materials for the final 2 weeks of my study.


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Also, I feel like reviewing NS and EK CARS sections has been a complete waste of time. I may just use them as practice but only really review AAMC CARS from here on out


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Also, I feel like reviewing NS and EK CARS sections has been a complete waste of time. I may just use them as practice but only really review AAMC CARS from here on out


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I've only been using AAMC and Khan Academy at this point. NS and EK CARS are not good IMO, I never take my scores from those sources seriously.
 
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Thank you guys, keeping posting 6/1 Exam thoughts!

Yesterday I took EK 3... got 73% which I'm pleased with but got 61% in CP. needless to say I will be spending some time reviewing Gen Chem and physics concepts. Did much better in their CARs than I did in NExt step's.

Hoping to fit in one more EK Fl (probably 4) and do some separate passage work in BB, CP, and CARS then focus mainly on AAMC materials for the final 2 weeks of my study.


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If you're done with content review, I'd really focus on how to take the test and time yourself. Anything you missed, double down and go back to your notes/book(s) to make sure you hammer it all down. IMO EK is the worst for integrating several concepts from practice passages. My personal preference is AAMC > TBR > Kaplan > EK. I have no experience with NS nor TPR outside of CARS review.

AAMC definitely helped with CARS the most. VERY good predictor as to how well you'll do on the real thing, barring any complications (like me, who spent too much time of the first few passages and had to play catch-up with the rest.)
 
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Would you suggest pretty much moving to AAMC now? My test is 6/30 but I have four days the week before my test where I will be unavailable plus I can't do anything this weekend. So that leaves me with exactly 21 solid work days.

I'm concerned bc people have been saying the difficulty of all AAMC materials minus the section bank haven't matched Exam day.



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If you're done with content review, I'd really focus on how to take the test and time yourself. Anything you missed, double down and go back to your notes/book(s) to make sure you hammer it all down. IMO EK is the worst for integrating several concepts from practice passages. My personal preference is AAMC > TBR > Kaplan > EK. I have no experience with NS nor TPR outside of CARS review.

AAMC definitely helped with CARS the most. VERY good predictor as to how well you'll do on the real thing, barring any complications (like me, who spent too much time of the first few passages and had to play catch-up with the rest.)

Also I've seen so many different opinions on order of usage of AAMC. I know I should do qpacks and OG first as almost a content check bc they're the least representative. Should I try to get to the section banks before or after the full lengths? The sample test before the scored exams I'm assuming? My remaining schedule is odd bc my four days of unavailability is the weekend before my exam so I have this awkward three isolated days available to prep the very week of my test; feels like not enough time to get a final full length in and I know some people say to hit the SB early so I wouldn't want to save that til then.

Not sure what to plan for those last three days.


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For those of you who took it and had lot of physics. What tips would u give someone who has to completely self study physics but has months to prepare. Which books should I get.


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Taking the test on 6/30. Took AAMC full length 1 (scored) today and only scored 504 (CARS and Bio being the weakest). Kinda disappointed considering I was scoring 507-509 range on my next step full lengths. The last day for the silver zone deadline is 5/14 so I was thinking of taking AAMC FL 2 and seeing my score on that before deciding to reschedule or not. I am aiming for a 511 (128/127/128/128) as I am in a BS/MD program. Just wanted to know your guys thoughts? Would I be taking FL 2 too early?
 
Taking the test on 6/30. Took AAMC full length 1 (scored) today and only scored 504 (CARS and Bio being the weakest). Kinda disappointed considering I was scoring 507-509 range on my next step full lengths. The last day for the silver zone deadline is 5/14 so I was thinking of taking AAMC FL 2 and seeing my score on that before deciding to reschedule or not. I am aiming for a 511 (128/127/128/128) as I am in a BS/MD program. Just wanted to know your guys thoughts? Would I be taking FL 2 too early?

It seems like a lot of people including me and my girlfriend do worse on their AAMC exam than on Next Step. I guess it's not uncommon to have an overly inflated next step score.
 
Taking the test on 6/30. Took AAMC full length 1 (scored) today and only scored 504 (CARS and Bio being the weakest). Kinda disappointed considering I was scoring 507-509 range on my next step full lengths. The last day for the silver zone deadline is 5/14 so I was thinking of taking AAMC FL 2 and seeing my score on that before deciding to reschedule or not. I am aiming for a 511 (128/127/128/128) as I am in a BS/MD program. Just wanted to know your guys thoughts? Would I be taking FL 2 too early?
I'm planning to take AAMC1 tomorrow and am also taking real thing 6/30. I'm actually going against conventional wisdom and taking FL 2 next week. I want to know where I stand at least 2 weeks before my exam and before section bank because there's a very slim change score would go down after that.
 
It seems like a lot of people including me and my girlfriend do worse on their AAMC exam than on Next Step. I guess it's not uncommon to have an overly inflated next step score.
Yea I got 14 wrong on my next step exam for CARS and got 127 and then today i also got 14 wrong on my CARS section and got a 125
 
I'm planning to take AAMC1 tomorrow and am also taking real thing 6/30. I'm actually going against conventional wisdom and taking FL 2 next week. I want to know where I stand at least 2 weeks before my exam and before section bank because there's a very slim change score would go down after that.
Ok, yeah I was thinking the same. I planned on taking one full length exactly a week before the test and I just didnt want to take FL 2 and then not have a full length practice exam that was close to the real thing to use for that one week before
 
I've read somewhere on here that the curve for CARS and Psych/Soc is kinda harsh for FL1 I think.
oh okay, hopefully. Just need to improve my scores. I got down content but am having a hard time analyzing data/dense passages in the Bio section
 
oh okay, hopefully. Just need to improve my scores. I got down content but am having a hard time analyzing data/dense passages in the Bio section
Lol I'm the exact opposite. Doing content review based on test mistakes so still lacking.
 
I'm planning to take AAMC1 tomorrow and am also taking real thing 6/30. I'm actually going against conventional wisdom and taking FL 2 next week. I want to know where I stand at least 2 weeks before my exam and before section bank because there's a very slim change score would go down after that.

Idk if I would do that. I've heard the section bank makes a giant difference. You may want to do that before you use up your last AAMC FL
 
Just finished AAMC unscored. According to the score conversion sheet on reddit, I got from 508-512 with an overall percentage of 72% (66/77/66/80). Has anyone else taken this and tried to scale their score? Does this seem accurate?
You should not worry about these scales but rather pay attention to the percent correct. If you are aiming for 508+, you should try to get at least 80% correct on each section of an AAMC practice test. Remember, the test is graded on a predetermined scale, so depending on which version you have, the percent correct could change. Dont pay attention to these "scales" as they are never correct. A 508 is already in the ~80th percentile (dont remember the exact %). That means you scored better than ~80 percentile of those who took the mcat, so you can see that getting less than 70% correct on more than 1 section will not give you that score.
 
I'm halfway through FL1 and am so surprised with my results... C/P 124 (I knew this was a weakness and am confident I can raise this 1 point in a month) and a... wait for it... 128 in CARS. I have NO, I repeat, NO!!!! idea how I managed a 128. This 100% has to be luck because I've always considered CARS my biggest weakness. Could it be that AAMC style CARS questions just really play to my strengths? I've been doing TPRH passages.
 
You should not worry about these scales but rather pay attention to the percent correct. If you are aiming for 508+, you should try to get at least 80% correct on each section of an AAMC practice test. Remember, the test is graded on a predetermined scale, so depending on which version you have, the percent correct could change. Dont pay attention to these "scales" as they are never correct. A 508 is already in the ~80th percentile (dont remember the exact %). That means you scored better than ~80 percentile of those who took the mcat, so you can see that getting less than 70% correct on more than 1 section will not give you that score.
Scoring a 508 does not mean that you get 80% of the questions right just because that score is the 80th percentile. Yes, aiming for at least 80% is good, but its not indicative of your percentile. I normally get 80% right on p/s and according to the scaled scores I'm in the 85th-90th percentile for that section (129)
 
Updating on my FL2 score. I scored way below expected - 506 (127/126/127/126). My CP and BB went up and I'm comfortable with where I stand there. PS I got the highest percentage of questions correct but the curve killed me. CARS I have no idea what happened. I'm happy with a 512+ at this point and I hope this is all a fluke. I'm still going to take FL1 next week and decide whether I'll void or not the week after. I'm so disappointed right now though.
How did you get your c/p and b/b to go up?
 
Took AAMC FL2 last friday. 130/126/131/127 (514), I'm scared. I thought this test was easy imo. I took FL1 back in february and scored a 496 (125/122/125/124) (was supposed to test March 31 but rescheduled). Reviewing things idk yet for physics. There's a general consensus that the real thing is harder, I hope the FL2 is representative
 
Took AAMC FL2 last friday. 130/126/131/127 (514), I'm scared. I thought this test was easy imo. I took FL1 back in february and scored a 496 (125/122/125/124) (was supposed to test March 31 but rescheduled). Reviewing things idk yet for physics. There's a general consensus that the real thing is harder, I hope the FL2 is representative

wow that's a big jump! what did you do in the meantime to improve so much? I think FL 2 would be more representative of the real deal, at least score-wise. But yes, it is much easier in comparison to the actual test.
 
Anyone know what percentage correct in Psych/Soc will basically guarantee me a 127 on the real thing? I feel like I have to be getting close with 75%+
 
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Took AAMC FL2 last friday. 130/126/131/127 (514), I'm scared. I thought this test was easy imo. I took FL1 back in february and scored a 496 (125/122/125/124) (was supposed to test March 31 but rescheduled). Reviewing things idk yet for physics. There's a general consensus that the real thing is harder, I hope the FL2 is representative

The real thing is undoubtedly harder, but it will be scaled differently than the practice FL so don't worry if you feel like your confused on more questions on the real thing than on the full length.
 
Anyone know what percentage correct in Psych/Soc will basically guarantee me a 127 on the real thing? I feel like I have to be getting close with 75%+

There's no way of telling what %right will equate to a 127 on the real thing. But on AAMC FL 1 and 2 I got about 85% right and that led to a 127. Ironically a 78% right on C/P led to a 128 so every section is scaled to its difficulty level.
 
wow that's a big jump! what did you do in the meantime to improve so much? I think FL 2 would be more representative of the real deal, at least score-wise. But yes, it is much easier in comparison to the actual test.

I started studying in December, was studying around 8 hours every day during the winter break, and then I cut it down to 6 because I was full time student at school and I also worked. In the semester I always tried to hit 6 hours, but I would sometimes hit 4 or 5 hours. I did a lot of questions, used different books and was taking FLs every other friday because I wanted to make sure that my scores on these FLs improved. The only day that I would take off was Friday after I would take a Fl. I learned how to review FLs efficiently. Constantly did anki, closed the gaps that I had in gen chem and bio. I hope I can bring up that psych score. But yeah, I studied throughout the whole semester, and continued to hit 6 hours in the same pattern. I would study different subjects every day.
 
Punch MCAT in the FACE.jpg
 
Scoring a 508 does not mean that you get 80% of the questions right just because that score is the 80th percentile. Yes, aiming for at least 80% is good, but its not indicative of your percentile. I normally get 80% right on p/s and according to the scaled scores I'm in the 85th-90th percentile for that section (129)
My whole point is that the scales predicted by these correlations are way off. I never said that getting a 508 means that you got 80% of the questions right. I said that you did better than at least 80% of the people who tested. My "at least 80% on each section" was an attempt to show why the hypothetical score (508 to 512) that the OP got with his less than 70% correct on each section would not fly. And that the OP should aim to get a higher percentage of corrects per section.
 
Took AAMC sample test today. Got 87% right. I know the sample test is much easier than the real deal, especially in cars, but it was atleast a confidence boost. I had a NS average of 509 and EK of 73% so far, and the converter on Reddit put my predicted score as likely 516-519. To be taken with a grain of salt I know, but my goal of 514 on 6/30 is still alive and well


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Remember that for most questions, you can find the answer somewhere in the passage - or strong clues to help you find the answer. I scanned the passage briefly before starting questions, then scanned it again for nearly every question to find the right clues and make sure I wasn't missing anything. You'll do great!
 
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I have, my AAMC I was 512, sample was 510-515 depending on which scale (since it's unscored), and AAMC II was 515. It's past the 508 mark for sure, but my dream school might require a little higher MCAT score because of my average gpa

Ariri, I get the feeling that I was a very similar applicant. My practice scores were similar (highest was 515 the week before the actual test) but then on test day the pressure, focus propelled me to a 521. Wishing you the same effect!
 
I took AAMC FL1 a few days ago and received a 128 in CARS. Convinced that this was a fluke (considering my best CARS score that point was a 125), I took AAMC FL2 CARS only today and received a 126. I'd be happy with a score in the 126-127 range on test day, so I'm looking for ways to AT WORST maintain where I'm at on CARS. I still have both Question Packs to go through, so should I just do 2-3 passaged per day from these? I'm scared to change my reasoning for passages and regress as a result
 
Ariri, I get the feeling that I was a very similar applicant. My practice scores were similar (highest was 515 the week before the actual test) but then on test day the pressure, focus propelled me to a 521. Wishing you the same effect!
Oh gosh, I doubt that now after the test. I felt like mine was so difficult and out of nowhere... I'm pretty sure I under-performed! That's amazing though, congrats!!
 
So I have been doing a little research on the content within the June 2017 MCAT and it looks like the B/B is just straight biology with little to no Biochem. C/P is supposed to be pretty hard with lots on conversion factors, and optics. CARS was said to have some intersting articles and questions that were pretty easy (although many said there were some they didn't understand) and P/S was said to be ridiculously hard. But so far I have heard that optics, immunology, molecular geometry, and gas law are pretty common on this years test. I know it changes so we may not get the same test, but has anyone heard anything else?

I have been using the FL's and SB's to study with Khan academy videos to review content, but I am afraid this is not enough now haha.
 
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