Jump to content
Premed 101 Forums

4th MCAT retake


Recommended Posts

Hello everyone,

I'm having severe trouble in getting even a passing score on Mcat. First time i wrote in 2017 I took the Kaplan prep course (cost around 2k) and in the end recieved a score of 495. The next year in the summer of 2018 i wrote again, this time without a course and only self study. I recieved a score of 493. This year after self studying all summer, i again recieved a similar score.

When looking back at the percent correct in each section during my practice exams, i seem to be getting around 50-60% however this translates to a much lower percentile on the actual mcat. 

 

So now, I'm willing to write the mcat again in the summer of 2020, I was hoping if any of you had any sort of strategy i could implement, extra resources to be recommended, and whether or not i should take another prep course in order to improve my score. 

 

Thanks in advance :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Rollerssb said:

Hello everyone,

I'm having severe trouble in getting even a passing score on Mcat. First time i wrote in 2017 I took the Kaplan prep course (cost around 2k) and in the end recieved a score of 495. The next year in the summer of 2018 i wrote again, this time without a course and only self study. I recieved a score of 493. This year after self studying all summer, i again recieved a similar score.

When looking back at the percent correct in each section during my practice exams, i seem to be getting around 50-60% however this translates to a much lower percentile on the actual mcat. 

 

So now, I'm willing to write the mcat again in the summer of 2020, I was hoping if any of you had any sort of strategy i could implement, extra resources to be recommended, and whether or not i should take another prep course in order to improve my score. 

 

Thanks in advance :)

Are you reviewing your practice exams afterwards? How?

Here’s what I would recommend (as someone trained in education). Before you even start studying, do a practice exam (or question bank) and then carefully go through every question and assess - why did you get it right or wrong? This might take you a couple days. For every question you only guessed right or got wrong, you need to figure out what the reason was. Did you not know anything about the subject matter? Or did you have a misconception about the material? Or did you misread the question or make a dumb mistake?

As you do this, make a list of topics you need to study / review. And make a list of and mistakes you seem to find yourself making again and again. 

Then, review those topics before you write the next practice exam. And make sure you’ve reviewed enough to know why you got each question wrong - this is particularly true for CARS, which you can’t really study topics for but you can think about where you went wrong. Before each practice exam, review your list of common mistakes you make and try to be aware of them. 

The first few times you might need to study for a month between practice exams to review every topic you got wrong. But over time, stuff should start to stick and you’ll be able to narrow your review to more specific topics. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, frenchpress said:

Are you reviewing your practice exams afterwards? How?

Here’s what I would recommend (as someone trained in education). Before you even start studying, do a practice exam (or question bank) and then carefully go through every question and assess - why did you get it right or wrong? This might take you a couple days. For every question you only guessed right or got wrong, you need to figure out what the reason was. Did you not know anything about the subject matter? Or did you have a misconception about the material? Or did you misread the question or make a dumb mistake?

As you do this, make a list of topics you need to study / review. And make a list of and mistakes you seem to find yourself making again and again. 

Then, review those topics before you write the next practice exam. And make sure you’ve reviewed enough to know why you got each question wrong - this is particularly true for CARS, which you can’t really study topics for but you can think about where you went wrong. Before each practice exam, review your list of common mistakes you make and try to be aware of them. 

The first few times you might need to study for a month between practice exams to review every topic you got wrong. But over time, stuff should start to stick and you’ll be able to narrow your review to more specific topics. 

 

Thank you for the advice. I have done something similar to this during my studying days but I feel like i focused a lot more on studying the material rather than the exams. I do think i know the material quite thoroughly (at least enough to break 500) but maybe it's more of the test strategy itself where my problem lies? I don't know for sure yet but I will try what you recommended, this way I'll only be studying what I'm weak in rather than everything at once. 

 

Thanks again :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Rollerssb said:

Thank you for the advice. I have done something similar to this during my studying days but I feel like i focused a lot more on studying the material rather than the exams. I do think i know the material quite thoroughly (at least enough to break 500) but maybe it's more of the test strategy itself where my problem lies? I don't know for sure yet but I will try what you recommended, this way I'll only be studying what I'm weak in rather than everything at once. 

 

Thanks again :)

I mean no offence, but you clearly don’t know the material well enough to apply it to problem solving if you’re consistently scoring below 500 and getting only 50-60% on practice exams. You won’t improve by just going over and over the material. You’ve got to practice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, frenchpress said:

I mean no offence, but you clearly don’t know the material well enough to apply it to problem solving if you’re consistently scoring below 500 and getting only 50-60% on practice exams. You won’t improve by just going over and over the material. You’ve got to practice.

None taken at all don't worry, but yes you're right i should implement in more practice. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...