first full length practice, what to expect

[Guest nbmom]

I am doing my first full length this saturday as part of TPR, I am worried that I will get a score that makes me want to give up and go home.

How do people usually do on their first full length, I am sure it varies, but how much can one really expect to improve from the first full length.

Has anyone taken a commercial course before, do they tell the class average so you don't feel like you totally suck?

 

So far the TPR seems great, struggling to keep up with the homework passages and pre reading as I have a little 8 mo old. The bio instructor is awesome, unfortunately the chem teacher isn't that great, she just kind of barrels through the material and doesn't really make it interesting. On the plus side I am not the oldest in my class:p , there is one other 25 yr old, and I am guessing one guy in his 30's.

Anyways I hope everyone's prep is going well. Just think a few months and we'll have this behind us...... well hopefully:\

[Guest piratefan]

nbmom,

 

Don't panic over your first practice test. I took TPR last summer -- if I learned anything from my first diagnostic, it was that the test is a) LONG and DOABLE (is that a word?)

 

Your scores will almost certainly be lower than what you are aiming for, but this will be due to unfamiliarity with the material, rather than your inability to succeed on the MCAT... if people often rocked their diagnostic, MCAT companies would have a MUCH harder time offering money-back guarantees

 

I'm not sure if it was advertised this year, but in the past, TPR has suggested that average student score improvement is about 10 points from the first diagnostic to the actual MCAT. This suggests that you could go from getting a 21 (say 7 in Phys sci, 5 in Verbal, and 9 in Bio, a fairly dismal overall score) to a 31 (10 PS, 10 V, 11BS, a very solid score that should be good enough for most Canadian unis). While this is not a guarantee, it does speak to the HUGE improvement that you can expect as your course progresses. Especially if you do all the homework.

 

Good luck on your mock test day -- bring snacks for breaks, a non-beeping timepiece, and have something rewarding in mind for the end of the ~8 hour day.

 

~pf

 

PS -- If your chem instructor seems to be going ridiculously quickly, it may be b/c she's newish at teaching and not sure which pace would be ideal. You could always send her an email/speak to her after class and see if there's any way that she could slow down.

[Guest nbmom]

your post made me feel better especially when i entered my test online cause i couldn't wait to find out what i got and i got

 

7p 7b 9v,

 

from what you said this seems like a reasonable starting point for my goal of 10p 10b 12v, especially since I don't have physics or ochem so there is a huge learning curve going on. It seems like there is a lot of answers that can be reasoned from the passages, hopefully its like that on the real thing. Little disappointed with bio but my brain was fried.

 

Anyways thanks for the reply, it was very helpful!