Should I bother?

[#Cevapi]

I'm at U of Windsor. I've been following the SN2ed study plan from student doctor network, which was supposed to take me 3 months but I've stretched it to almost 4 months. So yes I've studied a ridiculous amount of hours. What I've realized is that I could've studied for 10 years if I wanted to and I still would've gotten a 23. So many questions are not about previous knowledge but rather about interpreting experiments and understanding the passage. I had no idea it was like that until this month when I tried my first test.

[FrenchToast]

I'm at U of Windsor. I've been following the SN2ed study plan from student doctor network, which was supposed to take me 3 months but I've stretched it to almost 4 months. So yes I've studied a ridiculous amount of hours. What I've realized is that I could've studied for 10 years if I wanted to and I still would've gotten a 23. So many questions are not about previous knowledge but rather about interpreting experiments and understanding the passage. I had no idea it was like that until this month when I tried my first test.

 

My humblest of advice: Be confident and know that all the information you need is right there in front of you. Just use your logic/reasoning skills to figure out what makes sense. It may even help you to do some practice reading some scientific literature, just to get used to the style. But remember that you have all the tools you need. You can do it!

[#Cevapi]

LOL. I appreciate that. Solid laugh. You're right, they aren't trying to trick you (on the most part at least). We will see how it goes though.

[AshPreMed]

I completely agree with FrenchToast. Nobody is stupid, especially by the time you reach university and are acing it as you have been. You may just be very anxious about the exam and consequently not thinking about the material itself. Just remember that YOU GOT THIS. There are people with far lower GPAs than you that get high marks. Be calm (especially in verbal) and you'll see your score shoot up. You can always kill it somewhere down the road, and discouraging yourself like that is only adding fuel to the fire, it's counter-intuitive. Also, PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. Studying is barely useful without practicing it.

[#Cevapi]

Thanks Ash. My problem is not that I don't understand the concepts. It's my reasoning skills. And the entire MCAT is a test of those skills specifically, which I have never had to use so critically like required on the MCAT. Practice is definitely the only way to improve.

[medhopeful64]

Thanks Ash. My problem is not that I don't understand the concepts. It's my reasoning skills. And the entire MCAT is a test of those skills specifically, which I have never had to use so critically like required on the MCAT. Practice is definitely the only way to improve.

 

Cevapi, have you been doing practice problems? I had a similar problem when I wrote the MCAT the first time - I basically just did content review for like 3.5 months because I was being way too thorough, taking notes and all. I did not do very many practice problems, and my mark was in the same range as yours is now - low 20s. The next time around, I added in much more practice problems and my marks in the science sections improved significantly. Also, don't be too hard on yourself at this point, just try to keep confident and realize that over 50% of what you study will not even show up on the exam.

 

Best of luck on test day!

[#Cevapi]

Cevapi, have you been doing practice problems? I had a similar problem when I wrote the MCAT the first time - I basically just did content review for like 3.5 months because I was being way too thorough, taking notes and all. I did not do very many practice problems, and my mark was in the same range as yours is now - low 20s. The next time around, I added in much more practice problems and my marks in the science sections improved significantly. Also, don't be too hard on yourself at this point, just try to keep confident and realize that over 50% of what you study will not even show up on the exam.

 

Best of luck on test day!

 

Yes I've being content review but with practice passages almost everyday also. Except I did not do a full length practice test until this month so I think that might've been a mistake. I honestly don't know where I went wrong. And yes I've realized that recently, that it's not about your knowledge and instead about your ability to extract information from passages. I feel like the only way to improve would just to dedicate 3-4 months to just doing practice.