No Timers for the MCAT???

[Guest driedcaribou]

I wrote the MCAT in April but I've heard from people at other test centers that timers were not allowed for the MCAT???

 

"www.aamc.org/students/mca...htm#timers

 

Are timers allowed for the MCAT?

Due to advancing technology and the wide spread availability of digital image capturing equipment, no timers are allowed for the MCAT, except wristwatches (and we prefer analog watches).

"

 

 

That was the biggest BS I've ever read.

 

I was allowed to use a timer on my MCAT as long as it was silent.... is there anything future MCAT writers can do about this?

[Guest UWOMED2005]

How about using the clocks in the rooms the MCAT is written in? My experience was the MCAT was written in standard University classrooms, which tend to have clocks.

[Guest sally2001]

hey driedcaribou,

no timers were allowed at my testing center. it was sort of weird. there was a clock on the wall, and we were allowed to take off our watches but nothing else on the table. i guess they want to make it standardized so no one has the special advantage of reading a digital display in 0.1s whereas looking at an analog watch would take 0.5s to mentally determine where the little hand and big hand are pointing. haha, sounds so ludicrous but what can you do.

[Guest peachy]

I totally get the thing about preferring analog watches and not allowing timers. How can the person invigilating figure out if some digital timer is actually storing information for you to cheat off of? When I invigilate for tests at school I absolutely hate it when people bring in all these fancy timers and things.... And I'm certain that some of them are using them to cheat.

[Guest Ollie]

When I wrote in April, the only timers we were allowed to use were watches, and they had to be on your wrist (we were not even allowed to put them on the desk). This was very annoying to me, as the strap was broken on my digital watch, so I didn't even get to use it. I just went by the clock in the room. It messed me up a bit at first, but I was fine after the first section. I don't have a problem with requiring wristwatches, but what bugs me is that they did not make it clear before that they had to be on your wrist (otherwise I would have got the strap fixed!)

[Guest artef]

Some people had very fancy timers with them, ones that flipped open with numerous buttons and different beeps. I didn't bother with one and didn't really look at my (analog) watch much. Instead I just went as fast as I thought I could without making mistakes. I had an idea of how fast to go from the practice tests.

 

The interesting thing is that we got an extra 2.5 minutes in verbal for no apparent reason (I think the proctor forgot to check her watch or something). So where the people with all the timers were speeding up to the point they were making mistakes on IX as to finish on time - according to what they were saying in the hall anyways before Physical. On the other hand, I had no idea how 'little' time I had left and actually finished right on "pencils down" without rushing.

[Guest driedcaribou]

When I wrote in April my examiners didn't seem to enforce the timer rule (I wrote at the UBC location).

 

 

I just find that a timer helps me pace myself during the test. Sometimes I tend to spend too long on one question because I just want to know the answer.

 

I'm just stubborn.