I'm sitting at the coffeehouse gorging on a blueberry lemon cheesecake bar with my sugared up coffee derivative. Nothing soothes failure like gorging on sugar. For those to don't know, I rarely get sugared up coffee these days. Normally it's black for me. The occasion you ask? Today I the first practice test. Result? Not too good.
Coming into this I knew that not everything was going to be smooth sailing. It felt like being battered against the waves of question after question until it felt numb and my brain eventually shut off. It took me about 4 hours to finish the thing. Despite the near traumatizing experience, I did learn some things.
Background information:
The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) consists of four main sections,
Physical Sciences - Chemistry and Physics problems from the first year of each class. 52 questions. 70 min.
Verbal Reasoning - Read some stuff and answer questions about it. 40 questions. 60 min.
Writing Sample - 2 questions, 30 minutes each, write some stuff. Go.
Biological Sciences - Organic chemistry and Biology. 52 questions. 70 min.
Things I've learned today:
-I work fast, I finish with about 10-15 minutes left in each section. Slowing down and thinking about the question will help.
-Should bring some fruit or almonds to keep up energy. Need to find some food source that can deliver me quick energy.
-Coffee helps but in small amounts. A sip every break should do the trick; enough to keep me alert but not too much to give me the jitters.
-Work on test taking stamina. Fatigue started setting in at about 2 hours so I need to work on that.
Results:
I'm one for full disclosure. I think it forces one to improve and it shows progress (and that is why there are semi-anonymous blogs). Unfortunately there was a Non disclosure agreement at the beginning of the test that I didn't quite read so I'm afraid to post any of my detailed scores but I'll give you the jist.
Overall correct: 58%
Physical Sciences: 62%
Verbal Reasoning: 57%
Biological Sciences: 56%
I would rank around the 25 percentile and definitely need improvement. I need a hard goal to meet. 25 percentile is low, I need to do as well or better than most of my class so my new goal is to get into the 75 percentile.
Quite honestly, the numbers scare the hell out of me. I know it shouldn't, I know enough about statistics. I don't know the percentage I have to get right in order to get into that 75 percentile range. For all I know, it could be getting 10 more correct in each section to boost me up there. The raw scores kind of scare me as well. Could show that I do slightly better than eliminating two possibilities and guessing randomly. Analyzing the scores in depth won't help me at this point. I need to go back and see what I got wrong and why I got them wrong.
I have a baseline, now it's time to show improvement.
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So another thing I thought about: The people who contribute to the percentile scores also could have used other materials while taking the test. Don't get too discouraged!
ReplyDeleteGood test taking foods: Peanut butter n jelly sandwich for quick sugar energy, and protein, and Gatorade for hydration and electrolytes. I'm not a fan of coffee during a test because hydration is key to mental stamina (in my experience). Hope that helps!
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