hkmedic Posted September 5, 2009 Report Share Posted September 5, 2009 Hello all, just wondering how everyone felt about today's MCAT... Even as a microbiology major, I found BS quite difficult... It wasn't so much the passages themselves, but the questions - lots of conceptual questions. PS and VR were "OK"... I think... but not sure. Overall, I'm not sure what to expect out of this exam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yeeha Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 Hello all, just wondering how everyone felt about today's MCAT... Even as a microbiology major, I found BS quite difficult... It wasn't so much the passages themselves, but the questions - lots of conceptual questions. PS and VR were "OK"... I think... but not sure. Overall, I'm not sure what to expect out of this exam. Same here. Holy organic on BS.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conan88 Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 i did really poorly on the Sept 4th mcat at 8am (in Buffalo, however). I feel really bad about myself since I've dedicated many hours to this exam and have practically given up on my body image (it was my fault) and my social life... PS was especially difficult for me because there were a lot of questions on magnetism and electricity, both of which I was not adequately prepared for... In the end, since I skipped a lot of questions, I didn't have time to even randomly input guesses on my earlier questions (stupid mistakes) finally, i actually blanked out on the writing sample and only answered part of the prompt... this was my first mcat, and i'll probably be writing it again next year... =/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penguin1 Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 BS was BS. I found that section to be exceptionally difficult and was unsure of many of my answers. The bone passage was a killer and the associated questions were difficult. Even the questions that were not associated with a passage were long and hard. As a side note: what is more polar? A =O group or an -OH group? -OH is capable of hydrogen bonding, yes, but is the dipole moment in an =O group higher than that of the -OH group???? And is extraction with a base first and then an acid better than extraction with an acid first and then a base?? Did anyone put as one of their responses "Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution"? Any responses are helpful.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supafield Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 edit: this is what I found on a website Polarity Ranking of the Functional Groups: (most polar first) Amide > Acid > Alcohol > Ketone ~ Aldehyde > Amine > Ester > Ether > Alkane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supafield Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 That question is throwing me for a loop now... because while yes the O-H bond on it's own is more polar than C=O When considering those bonds in a molecule... the two bonds in the C-O-H of an alcohol oppose each other somewhat diminishing polarity? where the C=O bond is all in one direction... I'm confused. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BStill Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 The O-H is more polar than the C=O. The difference in En causes a greater dipole in the O-H bond and hence greater polarity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skp1187 Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 BS was BS. I found that section to be exceptionally difficult and was unsure of many of my answers. The bone passage was a killer and the associated questions were difficult. Even the questions that were not associated with a passage were long and hard. As a side note: what is more polar? A =O group or an -OH group? -OH is capable of hydrogen bonding, yes, but is the dipole moment in an =O group higher than that of the -OH group???? And is extraction with a base first and then an acid better than extraction with an acid first and then a base?? Did anyone put as one of their responses "Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution"? Any responses are helpful.. First step of extraction is to use a strong acid to protonate any weak bases (ie. NH3). Second step is to add a weak base to deprotonate any strong acids. Third step is to add strong base to deprotonate any weak acids Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yeeha Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 BS was BS. I found that section to be exceptionally difficult and was unsure of many of my answers. The bone passage was a killer and the associated questions were difficult. Even the questions that were not associated with a passage were long and hard. As a side note: what is more polar? A =O group or an -OH group? -OH is capable of hydrogen bonding, yes, but is the dipole moment in an =O group higher than that of the -OH group???? And is extraction with a base first and then an acid better than extraction with an acid first and then a base?? Did anyone put as one of their responses "Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution"? Any responses are helpful.. Bone passage?? there was a bone passage? I remember a passage about collagen, but I can't recall anything about bones... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supafield Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 Bone passage?? there was a bone passage? I remember a passage about collagen, but I can't recall anything about bones... Yikes, I know very little about collagen heading into Sept. 12th Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BStill Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 The passage explained all that you needed to know regarding collagen. It was more a passage about genetics and deciphering the information in the experiment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supafield Posted September 6, 2009 Report Share Posted September 6, 2009 The passage explained all that you needed to know regarding collagen. It was more a passage about genetics and deciphering the information in the experiment. That's a little more comforting... lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
takashi Posted September 8, 2009 Report Share Posted September 8, 2009 i wrote this session as well. I found the BS section to be really tough because of the amount of organic chem questions. Did we get like 2 or 3 organic chem passages? The PS section was also pretty hard imo, the magnetics stuff was particularly difficult. The verbal was on par with AAMC practice tests and the writing was ok. Overall I am not too pleased but I will have to wait and see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikitahickey Posted September 16, 2009 Report Share Posted September 16, 2009 hey everyone, I actually wrote my exam in the AM of sept 4th but from the responses I have read thus far I think the exams were very similar...I found the PS section pretty difficult as well...the writing and verbal reasoning sections were not too bad and BS was okay. How does everyone feel about the difficulty level of the PS section? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penguin1 Posted October 6, 2009 Report Share Posted October 6, 2009 How did everyone end up doing in bio? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hkmedic Posted October 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2009 BS dropped two points down to a 10. And I'm am a life sciences major... I think it was harder this time or more organic... But I improved in PS... I'm not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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