Okay Adoc2be, I’m going to bite:) I would love some additional info on the V vs. S Km, 1/Km & 1/Vmax graphs. I am hoping you have a better way of keeping everything strait! I will be looking for your videos on YouTube. Will they be under Adoc2be?
Thank you for doing this!
Tallulah Philange do you feel it is necessary to know the mechanisms for protease catalysis or mechanisms in general? Or is it just better to understand where the rate determining steps are? If there was one area of Biochem that you could have studied more what would it have been? I really appreciate your feedback thanks!
Hi Maui - I will be filming the videos this weekend and posting. Will post a separate thread for them.
Ad2b
Preliminary percentile ranges went out today for April test takers. I’m pleased to know I will never have to face that beast again! I hope you did well, Tallulah, and anyone else lurking who took it.
Congratulations! That must feel awesome. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for sure yet until the scores come out. I’m pretty disappointed, I don’t feel as though my percentiles reflect all of the work I put into this test. CARS and psych turned out fine, but the sciences, not so much.
@meg2999 wrote:
Preliminary percentile ranges went out today for April test takers. I’m pleased to know I will never have to face that beast again! I hope you did well, Tallulah, and anyone else lurking who took it.
Hey OPMer’s,
Just curious…what was hard on the psych/soc aspect? I am a social scientist, so I am crazy curious about what on earth they did. Lots of DSM IV or V? Did they throw Gestalt theory on there (as they had threatened to do?) Developmental theory? Psychobiology?
Very curious…
Thanks!!
@MauiMom wrote:
Tallulah Philange do you feel it is necessary to know the mechanisms for protease catalysis or mechanisms in general? Or is it just better to understand where the rate determining steps are? If there was one area of Biochem that you could have studied more what would it have been? I really appreciate your feedback thanks!
Sorry, I missed this before. I wish I had paid more attention to the steps of glycolysis (know what’s reversible and what’s not, familiarity with the enzymes involved, though not necessarily memorizing them) and to oxidative phosphorylation. I don’t remember a lot about mechanisms, but in some BC/orgo combos, there were questions like which molecule would form if so and so reacted, so it helps to be familiar with mechanisms in that sense.
Thanks! I’m a bit frustrated at the materials available for this new exam compared to the past. I have been using the AAMC outline to focus my studying however I am still unsure about the PS section. Many people are stating that physics was basically non existent however no one mentioned if gen chem was staying the same. Urrghh! I am mainly focusing on biochem/soc/psych. I hope this works out. Again thank you for taking time to provide some much needed guidance:)
@MauiMom wrote:
Thanks! I’m a bit frustrated at the materials available for this new exam compared to the past. I have been using the AAMC outline to focus my studying however I am still unsure about the PS section. Many people are stating that physics was basically non existent however no one mentioned if gen chem was staying the same. Urrghh! I am mainly focusing on biochem/soc/psych. I hope this works out. Again thank you for taking time to provide some much needed guidance:)
There was a lot more gen chem than I anticipated on my version. I had a lot of questions about electrolytic cells.
One thing I noticed, and I’m not sure if this is new or what, is that my exam picked a few topics and just hammered them from several angles. I had 3 passages that involved myelin sheaths, asking about different aspects of them. I had at least five questions on electrolytic cells, three on one particular lab technique, etc. A friend say she had a half-dozen questions on isoelectric points.
It was odd. If you’re solid on a point your test focuses on, great. But if not, it’s trouble. And there’s no way to know. There’s no reason the test writers need to do that! They have 11 courses to choose from, for goodness sake.
Hey all just wondering if any one took the April test and the AAMC practice test and how they compared as far as difficulty.
@wardxxjr wrote:
Hey all just wondering if any one took the April test and the AAMC practice test and how they compared as far as difficulty.
I’ll answer this. I think the two best test prep materials available are the AAMC practice test and the AAMC’s Guide to the MCAT2015 question pack (it is like $10 or something for 120 questions - totally worth it). I did the AAMC practice test the first week of January, studied for a month or so, then started taking the Kaplan and Princeton review practice tests for the new exam, 7 in total. Then 2 weeks before the April MCAT I took the AAMC one again (because I didn’t remember anything) and my score improved a lot. I took a lot of notes on my wrong answers and then did the question packs provided by AAMC (kind of meh… a lot of “old material”, but still helpful if you want to pound practice questions for relatively cheap). Then I did the guide questions. Both were slightly easier than then actual MCAT, but not drastically. I’d say the AAMC material is easier than the real test and the Kaplan/PR exams are harder than the real test.
The day of the MCAT I swear I had at least 2 passages that were nearly identical to topics covered in the official AAMC material, just from a slightly different angle. So I was familiar with the concepts already, which was a huge help.
I also did the Q Bank from MPrep (I recommend, it is cheap and, again, good for pounding out practice questions). I did not find Kaplan’s 7 book series that my mom gave me helpful at all - the material was essentially what you’ll find on Wikipedia. Use Kaplan and PR for the practice exams, not material. Stick to the MCAT Syllabus, official AAMC material, and Khan.
It feels like there isn’t a lot of material out there, but I did very well (in my own eyes) with what is available and I’m confident that others can too. It’s all about scheduling and figuring out how YOU study best.
@meg2999 wrote:
@wardxxjr wrote:Hey all just wondering if any one took the April test and the AAMC practice test and how they compared as far as difficulty.
I’ll answer this. I think the two best test prep materials available are the AAMC practice test and the AAMC’s Guide to the MCAT2015 question pack (it is like $10 or something for 120 questions - totally worth it). I did the AAMC practice test the first week of January, studied for a month or so, then started taking the Kaplan and Princeton review practice tests for the new exam, 7 in total. Then 2 weeks before the April MCAT I took the AAMC one again (because I didn’t remember anything) and my score improved a lot. I took a lot of notes on my wrong answers and then did the question packs provided by AAMC (kind of meh… a lot of “old material”, but still helpful if you want to pound practice questions for relatively cheap). Then I did the guide questions. Both were slightly easier than then actual MCAT, but not drastically. I’d say the AAMC material is easier than the real test and the Kaplan/PR exams are harder than the real test.
The day of the MCAT I swear I had at least 2 passages that were nearly identical to topics covered in the official AAMC material, just from a slightly different angle. So I was familiar with the concepts already, which was a huge help.
I also did the Q Bank from MPrep (I recommend, it is cheap and, again, good for pounding out practice questions). I did not find Kaplan’s 7 book series that my mom gave me helpful at all - the material was essentially what you’ll find on Wikipedia. Use Kaplan and PR for the practice exams, not material. Stick to the MCAT Syllabus, official AAMC material, and Khan.
It feels like there isn’t a lot of material out there, but I did very well (in my own eyes) with what is available and I’m confident that others can too. It’s all about scheduling and figuring out how YOU study best.
Hi, meg2999,
I know this is an older post from this year, however, thank you for your frank review on the study materials. I am starting my study prep as soon as the semester ends, aiming for an April 1, 2016 test date. It is sounding like the Kaplan courses aren’t as good as they are cracked up to be. A classmate of mine gave me the old Kaplan books and I think I’ll use them as reference material, but focus on the Khan Academy videos. I looked at the MPrep site and it looks pretty interesting. The Q Bank sounds like the ticket.
Thank you again!