Terrible Practice Exam CARS score?

[bme94]

Hi,

My MCAT is scheduled for the 22nd. Last week I took the official practice exam #1 by the AAMC, and received a 126/122/128/130. I was truly disappointed and frustrated with my CARS score. I was doing SO well on the questions packs from the AAMC, but the CARS section on this exam was SO HARD.

I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to go in and take the exam, get a REALLY bad CARS score, and be screened out of every school I apply to. On the other hand, I'm afraid that if I push my exam back to August 5th, my application is going to be super late. Please help! Is it better to apply late with a better score or apply earlier with a worse score?

I'm applying to both DO and MD

cGPA 3.71
sGPa ~ 3.6

Applying next cycle is not an option for me. I'm already taking a year off. Thanks.

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[dontforgetxx]

I don't think you should judge your entire CARS score by one practice test. Do more practice exams before freaking out.

 

[Dolly96]

Hi,

My MCAT is scheduled for the 22nd. Last week I took the official practice exam #1 by the AAMC, and received a 126/122/128/130. I was truly disappointed and frustrated with my CARS score. I was doing SO well on the questions packs from the AAMC, but the CARS section on this exam was SO HARD.

I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to go in and take the exam, get a REALLY bad CARS score, and be screened out of every school I apply to. On the other hand, I'm afraid that if I push my exam back to August 5th, my application is going to be super late. Please help! Is it better to apply late with a better score or apply earlier with a worse score?

I'm applying to both DO and MD

cGPA 3.71
sGPa ~ 3.6

Applying next cycle is not an option for me. I'm already taking a year off. Thanks.

I, too, got a 122 in cars on the aamc test today. Did you decide what to do yet? I don't remember the last time I scored below a 125 on cars.

 

[bme94]

I, too, got a 122 in cars on the aamc test today. Did you decide what to do yet? I don't remember the last time I scored below a 125 on cars.

Honestly, I really wasn't getting any advice regarding my situation...so I decided to push it back. Looks like we're in the same boat here :/

 

[Dolly96]

Honestly, I really wasn't getting any advice regarding my situation...so I decided to push it back. Looks like we're in the same boat here :/

I don't think I can push mine back I took the MCAT last september and already used up a now show as an attempt and I think that's 3 attempts in 1 year :'(

 

[bme94]

I don't think I can push mine back I took the MCAT last september and already used up a now show as an attempt and I think that's 3 attempts in 1 year :'(

Wow, actually, so did I. This will be my second attempt. Were the rest of your AAMC section scores okay?

 

[artist27]

Honestly, I really wasn't getting any advice regarding my situation...so I decided to push it back. Looks like we're in the same boat here :/

If you've been doing fairly well on previous cars sections, it might be worth taking anyways. Maybe the scored cars was particularly difficult for you for some reason? I find that once I encounter a difficult passage, it sets me up for frustration during the entire section and I can no longer think straight and end up doing poorly overall. If you think this score was a fluke, your other sections look fairly decent and maybe giving the actual mcat a go isn't a terrible idea

 

[Dolly96]

Wow, actually, so did I. This will be my second attempt. Were the rest of your AAMC section scores okay?

I think my aamc unsored was about a 74.5% but that was taken over a month ago and I've studied a lot more since then. Bio qpacks were done pretty recently with 77% on bio pack 1 and 81% on bio pack 2. Cars q packs were 70% and 73%.

 

[bme94]

If you've been doing fairly well on previous cars sections, it might be worth taking anyways. Maybe the scored cars was particularly difficult for you for some reason? I find that once I encounter a difficult passage, it sets me up for frustration during the entire section and I can no longer think straight and end up doing poorly overall. If you think this score was a fluke, your other sections look fairly decent and maybe giving the actual mcat a go isn't a terrible idea

I was doing really well on the AAMC question packs for CARS. Those were pretty easy for me. This practice exam had questions and passages that were so much harder...