*Official MCAT January 2017 Thread*

[Singerpremed]

Hi, I know there are many people who are also studying for the MCAT in January and I would like to connect with you guys and get insights. I'm currently taking a live online Kaplan MCAT course. I go to the University of Florida.

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[azul21]

So you used EK CARS strategy? is that right? or did you combine it with TPR and others?

I actually didn't use a CARS strategy. CARS has always been my strong suit, so I didn't really prep for it. All I used was whatever was in the Kaplan books, which I thought was sufficient for my needs.

 

[shield349]

Hey good Job sir!! I know you had been worried about it. I was surprised because I got a 508 even after getting a 513 on FL2 but what can I do? I'm just gonna keep my score and apply responsibly to only certain allopathic programs.

I must really have gotten lucky seeing how I felt like I butchered the BB and CARS. 508 is actually the average of matriculants so I wouldn't worry so much if you have a decent gpa. I have an abysmal GPA so I don't exactly have a broad choice in programs either.

 

[bananaslug4life]

Not sure whether or not to retake, first time tester. 508 (124, 127, 130, 127). Sketched about my 124 on the C/P. Got caught up on all the calculation questions. 3.86 gpa

 

[H_Scheck]

I must really have gotten lucky seeing how I felt like I butchered the BB and CARS. 508 is actually the average of matriculants so I wouldn't worry so much if you have a decent gpa. I have an abysmal GPA so I don't exactly have a broad choice in programs either.

Thanks yeah I am just glad I didn't dip below 125 in anything because last time I got a 123 in CARS my oh my. The rest of my app is good. 3.98 cGPA along with lots of extracurriculars, lots of shadowing time, and 900+ hours of clinical service. So it looks like I am gonna be a doctor and so are you!!

 

[beaucoup]

Highest on practice tests were 506 and 508. Took these within 3 days apart and 1 week before real exam. Scored a 513. Just believe in yourself!


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Congrats! Were your scores from the AAMC FLs?

 

[coffemug]

First time test taker. Scored a 510! Highest FL score was a 507 so I am super happy with this. Cheers everyone

 

[Lardy Boy]

Congrats! Were your scores from the AAMC FLs?

yes they were!

 

[CJhooper123]

514 (127/132/128/127). I think I'll drop anchor here.

Congrats to everyone who received his/her scores today, regardless of outcome. There aren't many people loony enough to do this.

Congrats on the score! How did you prepare for CARS?

 

[Carmiche]

514 (127/132/128/127). I think I'll drop anchor here.

Congrats to everyone who received his/her scores today, regardless of outcome. There aren't many people loony enough to do this.

Damn with that CARS.. You got a kind of opposite 514 compared to me.. mine was a 128/125/130/131 lol. Lowest CARS I have ever gotten .

 

[sinuous sausage]

Congrats on the score! How did you prepare for CARS?

Danke. It definitely feels good.

I didn't formally prepare for CARS, though you could say I'd been preparing for it all my life: I just read a lot.

The CARS section had a lot of philosophy, economics and art criticism. This is a frequent stop for me, and if you can teach yourself to understand and enjoy content like that, I imagine you'd net out a pretty solid CARS score.

 

[autocrave]

I got a 519 on both scored FLs but wow am I nervous about my score for this one. I felt pretty good leaving the test center but now I'm starting to worry that I may have tanked down to a 509.
Overall impressions:
C/P: Normally my best section but I'm really dissatisfied with how many questions I marked. Very calculation heavy and emphasized some nasty low-yield topics. I'm very glad I have somewhat of a background in spectroscopy and kinetics.
CARS: I don't get everyone's hate for this section. I enjoyed reading the passages and found the questions very similar to the practice FLs. Not at all like EK's CARS, thank goodness. Or I may have gotten rused, we'll see.
B/B: This section better be curved to hell and back. The signaling passages were poorly written imo and that certainly didn't help with answering questions. Lots of head scratchers, lots of questions I got incorrect. Pretty disappointed in my performance here.
P/S: It was easy? Almost too easy. There were several lowball questions and only a few terms I didn't recognize. Probably not much of a curve here.

February 28 pls come now

oh YES

520 (130, 129, 130, 131)

I am pleased

 

[sinuous sausage]

Damn with that CARS.. You got a kind of opposite 514 compared to me.. mine was a 128/125/130/131 lol. Lowest CARS I have ever gotten .

That's still a great mark, though. I'd rather have your score composition than mine.

 

[mc1214]

513 (128, 132, 129, 124)

Considering I studied less than 100 hours, I will definitely take it. Congrats to all Jan 28th takers!

 

[Chromium Surfer]

Damn, with some more time you could have pulled up your psych score at least! Either way I'm glad you got a score you're happy with! Best of luck on your app cycle

 

[Groggs]

I ended up with a 524 -- I'm absolutely in shock right now because near the end, I was just hoping that I scored near my AAMC FLs (I scored a 518 on FL 1 and 2). I can't tell you what happened during test day because I really don't remember any of it. I'm just so happy that this ordeal is over!

Had to show me up hahaha. Glad to see out streak of similar scores continued through the real MCAT.

 

[DexterMorganSK]

Any of you used either NS108 or the new EK 101 CARS for your prep? Just wondering if the passages from these books helped you in CARS on exam day? Thanks!

 

[H_Scheck]

Any of you used either NS108 or the new EK 101 CARS for your prep? Just wondering if the passages from these books helped you in CARS on exam day? Thanks!

I didn't use those, but you should try the essays on ALdaily.com. They are really MCAT like and it was recommended for me to read those. In the end, they were very helpful because some of the papers were like 20-30 minute reads which helped me with stamina. As for NS and EK, I didn't use them. Hope, this is helpful somehow.

 

[mc1214]

Any of you used either NS108 or the new EK 101 CARS for your prep? Just wondering if the passages from these books helped you in CARS on exam day? Thanks!

I only used Kaplan's materials and it helped me significantly.

 

[sparkleberry27]

Late to the party but I didn't check my score until today hahah. 521!!! So happy! Congrats to all of you on your phenomenal scores!

 

[mc1214]

Late to the party but I didn't check my score until today hahah. 521!!! So happy! Congrats to all of you on your phenomenal scores!

How did it not eat you alive to check the day it was released? I had it written large in my planner and everything cause I NEEDED to know the earliest I could!


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[sparkleberry27]

How did it not eat you alive to check the day it was released? I had it written large in my planner and everything cause I NEEDED to know the earliest I could!


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haha it did, but I had a lot of stuff going on and wanted to take care of all of that first

 

[DaAlienist]

So would any Jan takers agree that the exam was way tougher than either of the practice tests, and literally like a copy of the AAMC section bank?

 

[H_Scheck]

So would any Jan takers agree that the exam was way tougher than either of the practice tests, and literally like a copy of the AAMC section bank?

Possibly, My AAMC FL 2 was a 513 (130/126/130/127) and FL 1 512 (130/126/129/127) and then the actual came out 508 (126 (what happened I have no idea)/125/129/128) a five-point drop is no fun. At this point, though I am just going to apply wisely and allow my ECs, PS, and GPA to do the talking.

 

[Lozzo]

So would any Jan takers agree that the exam was way tougher than either of the practice tests, and literally like a copy of the AAMC section bank?

I scored like 3 points higher on the real thing than my highest AAMC practice test, but maybe that was just a fluke

 

[sparkleberry27]

i scored 5 points higher
section bank all the way.

 

[eaddie27]

Hi All- I've been lurking here for a little bit, finally reset my password and decided to post a little advice that I found helpful.

My score on the 1/28 MCAT, first time taking, was 520 (129/132/129/130)

I self-studied for 6 months while working using the TPR online course, with Khan and AAMC, and I have to say that the TPR FLs were significantly lower than my final score! It wasn't until my final TPR FL two weeks before that I got close to my goal score of 515, so don't get discouraged if your TPR scores seem alarmingly low. My AAMC FLs were 513 and 521. Good luck to everyone still preparing!

 

[SciencCat]

I have couple of questions on AAMC sample test C/P section. Did you guys understand these two questions?

Question #38: Organic Chemistry mechanism asking which carbons will be labeled. Does anyone understand what mechanism/reaction is happening to see why only the answer’s carbons are labeled? I remember orgo, but I’m really confused on how to answer this.

Second Question: I don’t remember the question number. Why is the sodium cation smaller than the chloride anion? Doesn’t the trend of atomic size increase as you go down and to the left of the periodic table? And aren’t anions smaller than cations?

I have couple of questions on AAMC sample test C/P section. Did you guys understand these two questions?

Question #38: Organic Chemistry mechanism asking which carbons will be labeled. Does anyone understand what mechanism/reaction is happening to see why only the answer’s carbons are labeled? I remember orgo, but I’m really confused on how to answer this.

Second Question: I don’t remember the question number. Why is the sodium cation smaller than the chloride anion? Doesn’t the trend of atomic size increase as you go down and to the left of the periodic table? And aren’t anions smaller than cations?

That is the overall trend for Atomic radii, but within ions you have to look at adding or removing electrons and that sort of flips the trend within a set of cations or a set of anions. This summarized pretty well.

 

[5words]

So guys how representative was FL1 (in terms of content) compared to the Jan Exam? I almost got blind-sided.. It looks way too much like the old MCAT!

Question to you guys, AAMC FL1 vs SB vs Real jan 19 exam? In terms of content that is.

 

[autocrave]

So would any Jan takers agree that the exam was way tougher than either of the practice tests, and literally like a copy of the AAMC section bank?

Definitely agree
Dunno if it's legal to say this (mods can delete if it's not) but I remember one or two questions seeming like they were lifted directly from the OG

 

[futuredrummerdoctor]

Did anyone here who got their score back in february use the next step exams in january to prepare? If so, were your NS exam scores lower than your actual scores?

 

[CoffeeintheMorning]

514 (127/132/128/127). I think I'll drop anchor here.

Congrats to everyone who received his/her scores today, regardless of outcome. There aren't many people loony enough to do this.

***Edit to splice in my diagnostic exam info***

I used Kaplan for general content review, Khan Academy for the gritty concepts and the AAMC practice exams.

Kaplan FL #1 (12/31)
504 (125/128/127/124)

Kaplan FL #2 (1/7)
508 (127/129/126/126)

Kaplan FL #3 (1/14)
506 (127/128/127/124)

AAMC FL #1 (1/21)
511 (126/131/127/127)

AAMC FL #2 (1/26)
511 (127/131/128/125)

MCAT (1/28)
514 (127/132/128/127)

Dunno if anyone has ever collated the data around here to build a regression model to predict test scores, but that would be keen.

In terms of similarity, how close do you think the Kaplan FLs are to the AAMC FLs?

 

[shield349]

In terms of similarity, how close do you think the Kaplan FLs are to the AAMC FLs?

Not at all similar, Kaplan relies more on prior knowledge while the actual exam is a lot more focused on critical thinking. They are great however to simulate the feel of an actual exam in terms of difficulty of content, pacing and know when to cut your losses and guess a question. Their science passages are definitely more challenging, but the rest of the content is at best on par with AAMC in difficulty.

 

[KEF]

Hi I know this was awhile ago now, but I thought I'd still post for those of you looking to retake soon.

First-time test taker and scored 522 (128/132/130/132).

I did the Kaplan self-paced course and would certainly recommend it. However, truth be told, I never scored above a 509 on a Kaplan or AAMC full-length. There is always hope!

People often ask what I did leading up to test day to cause my significant score increase. Here are some tips:

1) You have probably heard it before and laughed it off but actually DO NOT STUDY THE DAY BEFORE THE TEST. You shouldn't look at the quick-sheets, google some last minute topics, or even think about the test. Keep busy doing something else. I recommend exercise.
2) Don't panic on the way to the test panicking about topics you don't know. No one knows everything. Chances are the topic you chose to panic about the morning of the exam won't even show up. Do everything you can to brush your helpless thoughts away and stay calm. Confidence is key! Maybe even power pose
3) Sleep. Obvious, but important. Make sure you get a full night's sleep the night before the exam. To ensure this you should start setting your alarm early at least a week before the test.
4) Pack a lunch and snacks and force yourself to eat before and during the test. Everyone is stressed on test day and wants to skip breakfast and/or lunch. Don't do it. You will need all the energy you can get.
5) Make fun plans for after the test. You will need something to look forward to! Of course, you will probably need a cat nap, but after that meet up with some friends and celebrate.

So, unfortunately, I don't have any magical or even novel tips. However, these simply things worked for me. My advice in a word: CONFIDENCE.

As far as the January test, I thought it was very challenging, with the exception of an easy CARS section. I thought chem/phys was long and very calculation heavy. I wish I had learned more tricks for quick calculation and would surely do so if I planned on retaking.

 

[SUP360]

Can anyone on this thread please give actual tips ON test day?
What to pack, bring?
What to wear?
How to handle transitions between sections?

I know everyone is different but if you picked up any good tips, please share?!
Also I tried searching for a good past thread on this but didn't find one, but please link to one if there is one.

 

[H_Scheck]

Can anyone on this thread please give actual tips ON test day?
What to pack, bring?
What to wear?
How to handle transitions between sections?

I know everyone is different but if you picked up any good tips, please share?!
Also I tried searching for a good past thread on this but didn't find one, but please link to one if there is one.

Don't wear clothes with a lot of pockets because some testing centers check all of your pockets every time you leave.

 

[SUP360]

Don't wear clothes with a lot of pockets because some testing centers check all of your pockets every time you leave.

That's good, thanks. I wanted to wear a hoody, so I can put up my hood over my head. Is that allowed?

 

[H_Scheck]

No. at least not at my testing center. No front pocket either. Bring 2 IDs just in case-- you can never be too cautious. Some of the things I did were unnecessary but it is all about making it as comfortable as possible.

 

[SUP360]

I actually just read the 44 pages of MCAT essentials, and found out that you can't wear jewelry, hoods, or even take your shoes off! I always tak my shoes off and cross my legs...
Also I watched the pro metric video, and they showed the wand and fingerprinting procedure. That's a lot of trouble for a ten minute break! Anyway thanks for replying!

 

[mc1214]

I actually just read the 44 pages of MCAT essentials, and found out that you can't wear jewelry, hoods, or even take your shoes off! I always tak my shoes off and cross my legs...
Also I watched the pro metric video, and they showed the wand and fingerprinting procedure. That's a lot of trouble for a ten minute break! Anyway thanks for replying!

Yeah but it seemed like it was pretty quick for me. I seemed to be going at a different pace than everyone else, so there was never congestion whenever I needed to go back in. Just give yourself an extra minute or two to check back in and you'll be fine.

BUT it is pretty intensive. I started doing full lengths in the exact outfit I planned to wear to testing center in order to get adjusted the day of.


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[H_Scheck]

Yeah but it seemed like it was pretty quick for me. I seemed to be going at a different pace than everyone else, so there was never congestion whenever I needed to go back in. Just give yourself an extra minute or two to check back in and you'll be fine.

BUT it is pretty intensive. I started doing full lengths in the exact outfit I planned to wear to testing center in order to get adjusted the day of.


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Haha me too! I wore the same outfit the last FL the week before that I wore on test day!