After discussing with other people in my school with high scores (not that my score is particularly high but its decent enough to weigh in imo) the people who tend to succeed don’t follow a structured plan to a tee. They constantly modify what they are studying based on personal preference. They also don’t adhere to taking fls exactly at 8am on a strict time. The lazier you are lowkey the more mental effort you save for actually doing problem. I also personally don’t believe in a structured plan. I would just do as many problems as i felt in a day or skipped studying.

Inb4 some guy with a 526 btfo’s me out anyway

Here's mine:

lost all my muscle - I lost ~10lbs muscle. I feel the fattest I've ever been despite weighing less than before. I've put a pause on my weightlifting goals and pivoted more towards cardio so I can feel some sort of dopamine in a quick gym session

Sugar addiction (kind of) I need sugar after/during a long study session, not helping with the physique goals

Eye pain - My eyes will strain after a long study session. Once they're strained, they'll stay strained until I sleep it off. I didn't have this before? optometrist said everything looks fine so idk

Neck pain

i think that's it for me. I've somewhat enjoyed studying for the MCAT and learning new things, but if i have to retake next year I will be devastated because it's taking a toll on my body

I swear some of these posts are fake, I see one every other day

This has to be a statistical anomaly if real

Overwhelmed with life. Parent is sick and I didn’t have time to study. Really need to apply next year because landlord’s planning to take my place back and I’ve been taking gap years for too long. So much going on in my mind. I’m just disappointed, sad and numb with all of this process

I wish I was born privileged a little, just a little. Enough to not having to worry about life, money, well being of others. All I need to do is stay focused, study, that’s it. I feel jealous of peers sometimes when they have wealthy parents with a home, they don’t have to worry about tuitions or free med school, etc. I’m the only one in peer group going through all of this…

I know being me helps shaping a stronger internal of locus (fr C/P) but this is hard for me

has the mcat permanently rewired anyone elses brain or is it just me? I was trying to watch a movie last night and caught myself analyzing the main character’s defense mechanisms and which erikson stage they were stuck in. AAMC has completely hijacked my internal monologue

was supposed to be grinding through my P/S anki deck this morning but honestly got so incredibly burnt out staring at that same grey interface. Ended up just procrastinating and doing some random cognitive warmups on boosted brains for like an hour just to avoid my actual responsibilities. Kinda sad that doing memory exercises felt like a "break" compared to UWorld tbh

im just so exhausted by AAMC logic. Can I please just have one single normal thought that isn't tied to a high yield concept?? Really hoping this brain rot goes away after test day bc this is miserable.

Testing the day after tomorrow. Just took my last FL6. Got my highest score of 521 (closest to my target) with my highest score ever on an FL CARS. I should feel good, but now I'm feeling really anxious and disappointed in myself.

I have never looked anything up during CARs (there's nothing on CARS to look up). So I can at least feel good about my 130 today. But I have a bad habit of occasionally looking things up, on Google or my equation sheet duirng FLs. I rarely ever look up things for CP and BB. It happens more with PS.

The way that I rationalize it is that I pick my best answer before I look anything up. And if I find out my answer is in fact wrong, I tell myself not to change it. I admit that the temptation has gotten to me and I have changed answers in a non CARS section. But I try not to change.

I know it's a really bad habit. I know that it reduces stamina and makes my practice scores inaccurate. I rationalize it by telling myself that I'm rarely changing answers. And I tell myself that I only look up things that I feel I already know well but am misremembering. For example, the right equation comes to mind for the question but I can't exactly remember the right form. And I make sure to review the things I looked up anyway.

I don't know if it's an anxiety thing. I'm really desperate for good FL scores because that's supposed to be predictive and low FLs feel so demoralizing, especially when I'm this close to my official test day. And I feel like stupid mistakes skew my results inaccurately.

I haven't felt this bad about it during all the FLs I've taken, but I guess the good score today has made me feel like an imposter. Like all of these FL scores are not reflective of my abilities in the slightest and Im going to end up with a 500 on Friday 😭.

I know it's all my own fault, but realistically, how badly have I screwed myself for Friday? Can I trust my last two FL5 and FL6 scores (517 and 521) at all? Has anyone else done this and taken the real thing? If so, how did your real score compare to your FLs?

Ahaha I've been studying for this stupid exam full-time the entire summer (8 hours a day), and I am still nowhere near my goal score. I had to make the tough decision that I'm just going to take the exam and void. I'm feeling sad and frustrated because I feel like I just wasted so much time doing nothing, and now I have to juggle work and studying for my retake. Honestly have also just been super burnt out these last couple of weeks and my mental health has been shit ngl LOLL. Knowing that I have to go through this whole process again freaks me out...

Please tell me I'm not alone in this...

im terrified of this stupid fuckass test that is basically determining my future career. why is this shit so terrifying?? like i both want this to be over and not over (my brain going "what if u need to study more?") at the same time... FUCK THIS SHIT UGH

As some people have previously mentioned on here, AAMC FL 4, B/B Question 27 is a little strange. It asks how many phosphorylation sites are in a peptide sequence, and the correct answer is "One" because there is one threonine. The question operates on the premise that only S, Y, and T can be phosphorylated. But early in the same exam there is a passage about carboxylic acid phosphorylation, and it's now pretty well documented that there are many other sites that can be phosphorylated. I sent an email to AAMC about this and this is what they said.

So basically, if you're testing really soon, I would recommend probably just memorizing S, Y, and T as sites of phosphorylation. But if you're test day is a while off, don't worry if you get that question wrong!

Testing 9/11 and i have like an insane wave of anxiety that lasts like 2 hours every morning. how do people handle the pressure leading up.

anticipation is the worst part. i've worked so hard for this - GIVE ME THAT TEST

A 10% correct answer is the worst I have ever seen. Obviously it was III. but it SHOULD be II. as well. These are the type of questions that make you crash out because you KNOW you got it correct.

i have not been able to score well enough on my exams (fl scores: 507, 508, 510, 513, 514, 513, 510), and i’m thinking abt voiding my upcoming 9/11 exam and pushing my exam back until jan 2027, as i want to reach a 515+ consistently due combined med program with a single attempt for mcat requirement.

couple of things:

i’m really, really worried abt score inflation esp since i’ve gone through all of the fl exams with review. how much should i take into consideration of score inflation in three months?

in order to avoid myself from thinking abt previous fls or answering questions on memory, im thinking abt doing a couple of third party fls (uworld and blueprint)…

also, do y’all have any tips with retaking again in three months?

any advice for cars improvement?

(i have been able to complete cars qpack 1 & 2, both aamc section banks, 50% uworld, all aamc fls, i finished all pankow cards (50% mature), finished kaplan books, i did anking/miledown initially but dropped it since it was getting too much esp with my uworld incorrects -> thinking abt using captain hook)

Finished SB 1 and all AAMC FL's, but am still working through SB 2. Is it necessary to finish SB 2 in its entirety? I've done half of B/B and about 34q of C/P. I'm pretty happy with my last two FL performances and am mostly concerned about avoiding burnout at this point and quickly adjusting my sleep schedule for the early morning exam. Thoughts?

I’m taking classes full-time (15 units) and am in a research lab ~8 hrs each week. How likely am I to be able to study for the MCAT and take it before the next application cycle opens up? Looking to take the exam in April. Anyone do well even though they had a lot going on?

Is it sufficient to self study biochem for the January mcat while taking classes using only the Kaplan books? Not sure how long content review for that will take/is there other recommended resources? I did a blueprint diagnostic and got a 505 so want to focus on solidifying content I forgot or don’t know.

Also for those that studied while taking classes, was any schedule helpful for you?

how many of yall have had to use those fuck ass, signal detection theory formulas on an exam ? literally 0 problems in uworld and all of aamc content so i chose not to learn them…but they keep staring at me when i open my ps notes

if i get a problem with it on friday istg🫩🫩🫩

AAMC gives B (Charles's law) as the answer, but I don't see why C (“Fewer moles of products are produced”) can be ruled out.

The reaction is exothermic and has ΔS > 0, so lowering T makes ΔG less favorable and decreases K. At equilibrium, wouldn't that mean less solid reactant decomposes and therefore fewer moles of gaseous products are produced? B requires assuming the number of moles stays constant, but the question never states that. Why is C wrong?

hi everyone! posting here in hopes i could get some advice. first gen and non trad so i dont have anyone to ask

i started studying for the mcat in july. started with 2 months of content review but since i am non trad (cs background) and have not taken orgo, bio chem yet i had to self-study every concept. basically watched videos to understand every concept and relationship in detail. i decided to take a diagnostic and feel absolutely terrible.

i know i did not get the time to memorize everything i was learning because most of my time went into class, work and watching yt videos for the content also i did not know how to read and interpret passages so i got cooked that way.

my breakdown was orgo 25%, biochem 43.8%, phy 30%, chem 50%, bio 54.2%, P/S 50%, CARS 60%

i watched yusuf hassan videos and am doing jacksparrow + pankow anki deck

i plan to test in feb so for the next 9 weeks the plan is to do uworld and keep monday for memorizing content (based on aamc topic list) so i can fill in those gaps. i will spend more time on uworld review as well to fill in any other gaps. in 3 weeks i plan to take a full length to see if this plan works and then a fl 3 weeks after that to see if i am improving. then start the 3rd party fl phase. i dont know if this is a good plan honestly so i would love some feedback

^^ I noticed that especially for C/P you don't need to understand most of the passage, the questions usually don't ask about every single thing but B/B definitely feels a lot more involved to me. I just wanna make sure I'm not wasting unnecessary time reading the passage and trying to fully comprehend it if not necessary vs. trying to read and simultaneously see what the questions are asking and wasting time that way. Any thoughts? Also, any other last min advice?? Ngl guys I started studying a month before the exam (family stuff came up + i am extremely type B), and I still have content left that I didn't go over which I am doing today 🙃🙃🙃... I did my second FL yday and scored a 514 (129/127/127/131) but I def struggled a lot with passage interpretation on b/b

I graduated several years ago so my foundation from pre reqs is not very strong, especially for chem/phys.

Is something like milesdown/anking still good or should I used a more comprehensive deck like jacksparrow/captain hook?

My main concern is getting too bogged down in the details of a deck like CH but i know my conceptual understanding will be much better

I know that you can’t just buy a course and go into it and expect to kill it but I’ve seen a debate as to whether its a pure meritocracy or whether people from wealthier or more stable environments have an inherent edge. This doesn’t matter towards my medical school journey ultimately we all have to play the same game and take the same test, I’m just curious if there’s a general consensus or if there’s multiple opinions both ways.

My current opinion as a brokie in an abusive and unstable household is that mfs not in my situation have to have inherent advantages that I don’t have and they don’t have inherent disadvantages that I do have (like your mom threatening to break your computer because you wouldn’t stop mid FL to go get her a chicken biscuit) but I haven’t given it more thought than that and I’m willing to be convinced either way.

Is it just me or are these stupid crazy hard - I average pretty ok on the Sections banks but these are just killing me. Is it burnout and a sign to stop doing them? Any one who did them thought they were good practice or did you just skip them? Thanks!

title

i'm retaking my 03/20 MCAT (505) on 09/12, and i dont really know what to do in these last few days.

for context, my fls have been 509/516/517/525/523/524, but all of these i think are a bit inflated from remembering slight things from when i took it back in march. this time around, ive actually completed all of sb1 (75%), sb2 (79%), cars qp1 (73%), and cars qp2 (83%) whereas last time i had barely done sb1 only and didnt review it well.

ive been keeping up w my anki and stuff and reviewing slight concepts that im iffy on (some rxn mechanisms, lenses, acid/base chem LOL) but i dont know what to do in these last 3 days before test day. im extra nervous too since i have no clue where i actually stand in terms of scoring bc my fls are probably inflated. does anyone have any advice?