I’m on a brief break from school so I hope y’all can bear with my numerous posts and potential redundancy! Have a question on AAMC practice tests:
#3 (the free one) is, of course, not exactly the most difficult. I’m taking a Kaplan course soon to prepare for my Spring 2013 MCAT, but I am not only relying on Kaplan as I have EK materials and want to use the AAMC tests, too. That being said, please offer me up the best recommendations for the paid tests from AAMC. I want a practice test that will make me cry, question my sanity, and therefore force me to redouble my efforts at MCAT prep! Thanks in advance for your suggestions MCAT veterans!
AAMC practice tests are included in Kaplan courses. You do not need to purchase the exams if you plan to take a Kaplan course. Also,test 11 is the newest, so many people feel it is the most relevant. I would start with test 4 as your first practice test, and save test 11 or 10 as your last practice about 2 weeks before your actual test. That being said, I do feel that the real MCAT is lot harder than all practice tests; however, my MCAT score ends up being the same as my practice test average. In any case, AAMC practice tests are still the best material to prepare for MCAT.
Great. For some reason I thought Kaplan wrote their own tests, but now I see on my syllabus that they use AAMC’s. Good! I actually was fortunate to have received a Kaplan On site course free so I honestly have not investigated the materials much yet. Lots of things I’m trying to get done on my break and it wasn’t one of the ones on my list. Thanks for mentioning it before I spent $35 on an AAMC test that I will soon have access to anyway. Thanks also for advice on which test to start with and which to end with. Helps a lot!
Kaplan does write their own tests, in addition to giving you all of the AAMC ones. The program includes 19 (IIRC) full length practice tests. I think I took 13 of them myself, and would recommend to take as many as you can find time for. There is no better way to learn pacing/timing, and that’s just as if not more important than knowing the material.
There seems to be a definite change in emphasis over time from the older tests to the new ones. Like said above, save 10 and 11 for last, as those will be more representative, but still not as hard as the real one IMHO.
AAMC-3 isn’t the easiest either. I found 3 to be in the middle as far as difficulty goes. It all depends on what is fresh in your mind when you take the test, what you have and haven’t studied, what your strengths are (bio vs phys) and of course, how hard the test is. I would strongly recommend you take AAMC-11 followed by AAMC-10 as your LAST practice tests (in that order!).
More great advice that I will certainly take! Thanks so much everyone.
#10 had a tough verbal section… I did better on the actual test.
I thought the last one (is it #11?) was the hardest overall, and the most like the real deal.
Also–AAMC actually has a new assessment tool that I thought was really, really cool…it barrages you with questions in each subject and evaluates your weaknesses. You can only go through it once, but then the analysis and questions/answers are available to you as often as you want.
I heard about that tool, but the link I got for it wasn’t correct or not working. That was on my list of things to find while on break. Thanks for the reminder, Carrie!
It seems the consensus is that #11 is the toughest so I’ll save that one for later. We’ll see how Kaplan’s course shakes out, too.
I took all the AAMC practice tests there are, the long ones on paper, the new ones, you name it. I prepared really hard and, not incidentally, I am blessed with a knack for standardized tests. By the end I was getting 13s and 14s on the science sections and even, on a few glorious occasions, a 15. (Verbal is another matter for me as a former humanities person; I did not review for verbal.)
The real test (2011) was harder by ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE. With extreme suffering I got 11s on both, and I want to emphasize that I’m not complaining. YMMV, but knock off a couple points from your practices when you’re predicting. Prepare the max. that you can and still expect to be slaughtered. I am not saying not to be confident; just go in knowing what’s up.
The purpose of offering hard numbers is not to say oh, I am so fantastic. My point is rather that I am an old hand at standardized tests; I often make a living tutoring them; I am not a complete neophyte in the sciences, either; and this was a worthy challenge even for this grizzled veteran.
(As a side note, I got 10s on AAMC #3 when I took it to practice before any prep, and a 13 on verbal both times. Think of the work hours sacrificed for another 2 points! My point here is that there may be something to this “aptitude” thing.)
My actual score on the MCAT was in the dead center of the range I was getting on the AAMC practice tests.
My scores ranged from 24-32 on practice tests. I received a 28. I’d like to have done better, but it is good enough for now.
I have TBR, Examcrackers and plan on using the AAMC practice tests.
Has anyone used all these resources and did quite well? Are all of these quite similar to the actual exam questions?
I want to be as prepared as possible! I’m looking at a possible September date (I’m one who like to take my time studying and really know my stuff).
Thanks!
I used EK and AAMC tests (also Khanacademy and text books). I felt like the EK AAMC combo got me really close to the real thing (especially EK’s verbal stuff). I can’t speak to TBR. My AAMC practice test average also ended up being my score but don’t read into that too much. While my average ended up being my score, I never really got the same distribution.
Yes, my meat and potatoes were EK and AAMC practices. If I had it to do over, I would have added the Kaplan full-length practices that seemed obscenely hard. This is because I found the real thing to be much, much harder than all AAMC tests (see my comment above).
Of very, very special note are the EK walkthroughs of AAMC 5R and 6R (R meaning the older, longer, written tests) on youtube. If you do not have access to the written tests, then I do recall that (e.g.) computer tests 5 and 6 are entirely included in 5R and 6R.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Examkrackers
I didn’t find the Kaplan written materials to be too helpful. 95% of my prep was with EK, with the occasional textbook lookup.
Anyone who would like a line on some other practice materials is welcome to PM me.
Edit: by Kaplan full-lengths I mean paper-based full-lengths from many moons ago. It may be that Kaplan now uses AAMC only, but that’s not what I mean by Kaplan practices.