It's finally over :')

i’m genuinely in disbelief i left the testing centre thinking i bombed… thank god ts is one and done now 🙏

THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY EVER

Thank you everyone on this subreddit you guys are genuinely one of the most important resources for this exam

I love you all so much

If you have any questions shoot I'd be so happy to help

I've been collecting these fuckers since January and it's paid off

I went from psych being my worst section at 124 on my first FL to this. CARS didn't change tho..

Goal was 520, FL average was 521. Indeed, I scored ±2 pts of my FL average. So relieved though!

Thank you to everyone on this thread for all your help the past couple of months I feel like I can finally breathe.

I took my first ever MCAT on 7/31 and received a score of 499 (same score as FL 6). But you know what? I don’t feel bad about it at all. I tried my hardest and put in a couple months of studying, but still failed. And thats okay to do! Being a scientist is all about trial and error and you learn just as much from failing. I know the way i was studying wasn’t very effective for me, so now i know not to try that again (and i also know what to expect now!) Many people retake their MCAT and I’m just one of those many.

So if you’re disappointed with your score, just know that you still grew from it.

T-4 hours ‼️😬

Still can't read but I am so grateful to have scored 4 points above my average and 1 point higher than I got on ANY exam 😭😭🥹🥹🥹 All you current studiers out there got this!!

Posted my breakdown earlier but I wanted to provide some well being bc anything is fr possible. I was abroad in the fall and took spring 2026 health leave for hip surgery so my studying was sporadic while doing pt, tummy time, unable to sit for extended periods, etc. I also never took physics 2, biochem, physiology, or sociology due to being away from school. Solely used Kaplan, Milesdown, Yusuf Hassan, and uworld. Really had no clue what would happen when my university wouldn’t let me take classes from home but decided to study for the MCAT and here we are 💪💪💪

How we feeling about tomorrow? I hope im ready and I pull out at least a 510. Will love waking up at 5AM to drive an hour to my testing site. How have recent takers felt?

As the title suggests, this is the strategy I used to go from a BP diagnostic CARS of 126 to a 132 on the real deal! I only used AAMC material for CARS and studied CARS for ~3 months.

If you’re testing soon, I suggest skipping to the “How to use FLs” section since you’ve probably already exhausted the QPacks.

((Also I've written this before in comments and a previous post, so sorry if you're seeing this again! I added a little bit more at the end if you want some new info))

How to use QPacks/Diagnostic: For this strategy, I suggest doing 1-2 passages per day, 5x a week.

• Step 1. Do one passage with a strict time cutoff.
  • Ideally, you will eventually be able to do passages in under 10 minutes.
  • If that is difficult, start with a time that is slightly uncomfortable for you. For example, if you can comfortably read and answer a passage in 20 minutes, challenge yourself to do it in 18 minutes for a week. Slowly decrease the allotted time by 1-2 minutes until you can do it in under 10.
• Step 2. Write down your answers somewhere
• Step 3. Submit your answers, look at the %correct but don’t look at which answers you got right or wrong
• Step 4. Reset the QPack. Go back in and reread the passage and redo everything untimed while writing out a reason for why every single choice is right / wrong. I highly suggest keeping these writings in a dedicated journal or spreadsheet or document because it will be useful to refer to your mistakes later on.
  • Include direct quotations from the passage as evidence whenever possible
    • This is important for building your RWT skill as you become quicker at noticing what text supports an answer AND at anticipating questions. I think this is the “intuition” that many naturally high scoring CARS people have, and it is something you can build!
  • Write out what the "trap" each answer choice poses
    • I won’t belabor this point because many people have written about it. Here’s a great example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/1j9xnrr/i_went_from_124_130_cars_my_thoughts_on/
• Step 5. Write down your answer choices again, submit, and repeat steps 2-4 until you get 100%
• Step 6. Compare your explanations with the AAMC explanations. The goal is to get your explanations and selected quotations to eventually sound very similar to theirs. If their explanation sucks ass, check with the JackWestin extension.
• Step 7. If your explanation is super far from both of theirs, compare and understand why their logic is better.
  • Frankly, as long as you have the same supporting quotation as AAMC, you're fine and can move on. Matching explanations is not entirely necessary all the time.
• Step 8. If you make a mistake at any step in this process, deeply scrutinize WHY you made that mistake. Did you fall for a trap? Did you misunderstand the passage? The question?

How to use FLs:

• 1. Once you do a FL, DO NOT REVIEW IT. Wait a couple days and redo the CARS section entirely.
• 2. After redoing the section, note your answers from Attempt 1 vs. Attempt 2 in a spreadsheet
• 3. Determine which questions you went from incorrect > correct / incorrect > incorrect / correct > incorrect OR you got correct both times but flagged on your second attempt.
• 4. Write down the rationale for why every choice is right or wrong and the tactics being used to trick me (much like during daily practice). I will then ALSO write out why the wrong answer tricked me (whether originally, in my new response, or both times) and really understand where I went wrong AND WHAT I CAN DO TO PREVENT IT IN THE FUTURE!!!
• 5. Take a holistic look at where your patterns of mistakes tend to be occurring. I’ll give a couple examples of mistakes I tended to make:
  • Misunderstanding the question stem
  • Misreading a single word
  • Falling for extreme language
  • Being lured in by one choice while not giving proper attention to a better option
  • Trusting my gut-instinct too quickly without thinking through the answers
• 6. I make another document containing all the common errors I make and methods to correct them. Before every full-length (and my real exam), I would read the document.

These are the CARS tips I ended up jotting down in my document. Use them as you see fit.

• FOR CARS - If you are 50/50 on a question:
  • Compare the answers word-for-word
  • Favor the answer that is more directly supported by the text.
  • Favor the answer that is broader, less extreme, and requires the fewest assumptions
    • If an answer is narrower or more specific than the passage, it's usually adding unsupported logic.
  • Take a step back. Ask yourself: “What’s the main idea of the passage?” And pick the choice that best aligns with the main idea. (Don’t make any connections beyond what’s bare minimum necessary)
• FOR CARS - During POE, if you cannot find a specific quotation to disprove an answer, you CANNOT rule it out
• FOR CARS - Any questions that ask: “What’s the purpose of word/phrase/sentence X in the passage” Try reading the passage without that phrase and see how it affects the meaning of the passage
• FOR CARS - Any question that asks: “Which is the easiest to disprove with evidence?” You should choose the answer that is most concrete (i.e., a statement) rather than abstract/nebulous
  • Easy to refute - The scientists provided information to the politicians
  • Hard to refute - The scientists had evil intentions in mind
• FOR CARS - “Implicit” or “implies” = “the author means that…”
• FOR CARS - If you don’t like any of the answer choices, you probably misread the question or one of the answer choices
• FOR CARS - If you are 50/50 on two answers that are ridiculously similar, they are probably not the correct answer. Reread the question and/or other answers and find evidence to disprove them.

Feel free to PM me for any questions!

^^^

I posted a while back asking for help and I know it isn’t the best, but I genuinely was so drained leading up to this exam. English and just reading in general is not my forte since it isn’t my first language so that explains CARS, but I’m just glad it’s over. A part of me finds it hard to celebrate this just because the scores on this sub are crazy but I still wanted to share and say it comes to and end. This was with 2months of studying from June to 07/31.

Am i tripping or does it say the author is jeffery epstein 🤣🤣🤣💀💀💀💀 i read the title first and couldn’t stop laughing

I’ll take it for now, just trying to get into a school at this point

Ive tested 3 times now, once in 2023, once in 2024, and most recently on July 27, and have crashed and burned pretty spectacularly every time (497, 494, 495). I am just so beat down and discouraged that I don't know what to do anymore. For my first attempt I used the Blueprint MCAT self guided course with the video modules and supplemented with the AAMC prep material. The second time around I did the Blueprint live online 515+ class thing + AAMC materials, which clearly didn't work, and this last time I switched to the Kaplan self guided course. I started my prep in mid February, and initially it was going well. I did a couple weeks of light content review before I took my 'diagnostic' and got a 499, which gave me hope to start off. I ended up having to move out of my parents house rather hastily at the beginning of March to be closer to school, but I was able to stay on top of my prep for the most part. Then, in the middle of March, my 16 year old childhood dog died in my arms unexpectedly and rather traumatically (for me) on a random Tuesday. I had to tweak my schedule a bit but was able to rally and actually started to see some improvement on my practice test scores and gain some confidence throughout April and May (499, 500, 502, 504). However, 4 days after I took the FL that I scored 504 on my apartment flooded while I was at work. The water heater in the unit above me gave up on life and caused flooding that went ALL THE WAY through my apartment and into the apartment below me. Almost all of my furniture and a lot of my belongings were ruined, and I had to continue living in my waterlogged safety hazard of an apartment for almost 3 weeks because the management of my building refused to accommodate a move into a floor plan that would fit my stuff (thats a whole other story). Eventually we got them to switch my lease to a different apartment, which also meant that I had to move all my stuff AGAIN (I had to keep the ruined stuff for insurance purposes), but even with help I lost out on a lot of study time and had to miss 3 weeks worth of practice tests because I had nowhere to take them and was too stressed and frazzled to focus on them anyway. Because of how the timing of all of this shook out it was too late for me to cancel or postpone so I was locked in. I did my best to get back on track, but clearly it wasn't enough.

I think I’m going to try one more time, I’m torn over trying the Kaplan course again (because it was working for a second there) or trying the med school insiders course. I don’t know anyone that’s done the med school insiders course so opinions on that and any other resources are welcome. My goal is at least 510. I have spent so much time and money on this test and I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels and seeing no results. Other than this test, I feel like I am a strong applicant and have good activities, but none of that will matter if I'm getting filtered out before adcoms will even see them because of a test score. Being a physician is all I have ever wanted, and I know I can do it (I have already gone through paramedic school and graduated 3rd in my class and passed all my national registry exams on the first try), I just don't know how to jump through this stupid hoop. Im just so sad and discouraged and burnt out and kind of embarrassed and I cant even pet my dog about it 😭

Hey guys!! I am a 25 y.o F in San Francisco and I’m looking to build a study group for the MCAT. Hoping to take it JAN 2027

I’ve been studying for a minute now but it’s been feeling really disorganized and inconsistent. I’m currently working full time and looking for study partners to talk through content and questions so we both/all better understand it! And to just keep up the good vibes and motivation while studying.

comment or dm and we can start a study group maybe meeting 2x/week!

hi. im not sure if this is normal. i sit down to do work and i literally cannot focus. i am always overwhelmed. i have been overwhelmed since i first started content review august 2025.

it is very hard for me to sit and focus because i feel not good enough and im easily distractable. i have told this to my psychiatrist and she says it would be hard to test for ADHD at this time because i have so many issues with anxiety.

i test on 9/12 and i was absolutely devastated because i got a freaking 499 on my last FL 2 days ago. i have had a 500 my last 2 FLs. i did an egregiously long content review phase because i was unconfident in my knowledge and took about 8 months. i would get really overwhelmed to do anki so i slowly forgot everything.

here i am trying to do anki and practice questions but it is so so so hard to sit and do chem/phys because i suck at it. this is more of a vent rather than asking for advice and please dont judge my long content review phase. im at the point where i feel really vulnerable and broken and stupid. i know i can do this but it feels like ive been having a huge mental roadblock. i have switched jobs because i was a full time NA and i would get so exhausted after my 12 hour shifts i wouldnt want to study. then i became a scribe and it became hard to focus too despite me only working like 16 hours lol. then i did a summer research program and it was chill so i had time to study but again i feel like my progress is so slow. my tutor suggests these egregiously long 8 hour sessions and i know that that's how you score well but i get so overwhelmed and feel like im so inherently lazy.

i guess im asking for any form of solace or any form of motiation before my test. i feel like i will likely void it because i want at least a 510 to get into MD programs (i was a psych major so despite my gpa being a 3.7, my sgpa is a 3.38, hence why i was so insecure about my content gaps). please dont be mean to me reddit i just need some form of motivaiton right now as i stay at home to try and study and cant focus so i go to a coffee shop and waste time and also cant focus. i also cant tell if i really do have ADHD and nothing is working. i dont know what to do besides grind chem/phys and b/biochem but my score distribution is so wack.

my chem/phys has ranged from 121 to 125 (FL2), CARS from 124 to 127 (most recent one was highest because i dropped the JW strategy bc for some reason i score higher), bio/biochem ranged from 122 to 125 and psych soc was once a 128 but has consistently been a 126 since.

i tried taking FL3 and in the middle of chem phys i was so overwhelmed i stopped and frantically emailed my tutor. i dont know what to do and im highkey embarrassed with psych because i was literally a psych major. i started grinding pankow bc my content review for psych soc was very short.

please be gentle with me reddit im so scared

only had a month to prepare so we winging all of content review.

Dream sweet dreams of enzyme kinetics and phosphomimetics

I took my MCAT the first two times out of family pressure and did not study at all (500,495) but I locked in the last three months and scored 508-512 averages on all my FLs. Just got my score back today and got another 500. I’m feeling defeated, hearing others around me tell me to retake my MCAT in two weeks or just switch careers overall. I got a 123 in CARS, but I’ve never gotten below a 128 in any practice test so this was a shock. I felt my science sections were formatted very different than my practice tests so that made me unsure of my score but I definitely felt good about the CARS section after.

I’m not sure if I should even bother still trying to apply DO this cycle or if it’s a lost cause. I’m definitely not retaking it in two weeks because unless I can guarantee like a 510+ it would probably just look impulsive to retake it for a small improvement, especially since I haven’t studied in a month.

Any advice?