u/Much_Treacle_5726

Thank you all so much for the comments and support on my last post!! Sorry this took a while to actually get out, but reflecting on the last few months properly took some time and I wanted to do it justice instead of rushing it.

I took the MCAT for the first time last year and studied for about four months, from May to August, and ended up scoring a 502. Looking back, I think a huge part of that score was just how new and different the exam felt to me. I'd genuinely never taken anything like it, and it took me a long time just to adjust to the style of the questions before I could even start improving. This time around I gave myself a full six months and studied through the school year, since I already had that first big hump of "figuring out the exam" behind me. I also changed a lot about how I actually studied. Here's everything, broken down by topic.

Overall Timeline & Strategy

My first attempt a lot of that time went into just adjusting to the format itself rather than actually building content mastery. The second time, I stretched it to six months and started during the school year, doing light content review for about a month and a half while I still had exams and classes going on, then moved into UGlobe pretty quickly after that.

The biggest thing I changed, and honestly the thing I'd recommend to almost anyone, is that partway through I switched to the AnKing deck (organized by Kaplan chapter) along with the Pankow deck for Psych/Soc. My day-to-day rhythm became: do a few chapters (2-3) of Anki, and if I didn't feel solid on the material, go back to Kaplan or YouTube for a quick refresher before doing the corresponding UGlobe questions for those same chapters. There's actually a Reddit post out there mapping Kaplan chapters to UGlobe subsections that made this way easier to organize.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/1bu15ji/uglobe_topics_mapped_with_kaplan_202324_chapters/?share_id=YKn5Y0wSgZ190p8_4iPkF&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

I stuck with this system for a long time and it really moved the needle, especially once I started doing UGlobe timed and untutored — that's when my score really started jumping.

By the end of April I'd finished the entire AnKing deck, with my test date in July, and I was doing around 60 UGlobe questions a day the whole time, all while still being in school. May + June was basically full lock-in mode: I didn't take a single day off. It was genuinely hard, but I knew I didn't want to push my test date back. About a month out I did ease off slightly, studying half days so I could still see my boyfriend in the evening.

Starting in early May I also began doing full-length exams every single Saturday, no skips AT ALL. The score you get on an earlier 3rd party full length matters way less than what you learn from doing it: you build stamina, figure out your timing, and dial in things like caffeine and food. I used , Blueprint, and 2 UGLobe for full lengths (UGlobe was fine but not my favourite), then AAMC ones in the final stretch, scheduled backwards from test day. TBH I found UGlobe noticeably better than AAMC material overall. AAMC honestly felt like it made me worse at everything except CARS.

Chem/Phys — my weakest section, by far

If you're someone who struggles with chemistry and physics, I relate hard. This was my worst section last year, and honestly a lot of it came down to anxiety more than actual content gaps. I never scored below a 122 on any full length, but on my real exam last year I got a 122, which I'm pretty sure was nerves more than anything else.

For me it came down to two things: strengthening the actual content, and learning how to stay calm and confident with process of elimination when I genuinely didn't know an answer. I finished UGlobe for Orgo and Physics, and I made it a habit to turn every incorrect UGlobe question into an Anki card. I also redid all my incorrects during the second last week. If there was a topic I didn't get, I'd do a real deep dive — sometimes spending an entire evening on just one thing, like optics or a single tricky concept in circuits.

A few concrete habits that helped a lot:

• I kept a physical notebook and worked through tricky practice problems by hand, then reviewed those pages regularly
• Full-length review became a massive priority!!! I used to think I was reviewing thoroughly, but I wasn't. I set aside a full day just to review Chem/Phys from one full length, going question by question: did I get it right, did I actually know how to solve it, or did I guess?
• I leaned on AI constantly! I liked Gemini a lot! Screenshotting the passage and question, asking for a deep explanation, then following up with harder "what if" versions of the same concept to push my understanding further (though heads up, after a long back-and-forth it starts to hallucinate, so starting a fresh chat helps)
• For math-heavy questions, I got fast at recognizing when I didn't need to do a full unit conversion: if all the answer choices share the same units, you usually just need to work with the raw numbers. Try to look at answer choices before u start calculations to see what you need to focus on, getting the units right or the actual number right.
• I kept a running list of concepts I didn't know well and dedicated evenings to grinding through them one at a time
• For passages, I tried the "skip the passage, just answer from the questions" method and it made me noticeably worse. Instead I'd skim quickly and highlight anything I recognized, like IR spectroscopy or a converging lens, since you start noticing patterns with enough practice

On timing, the biggest thing is just deciding in advance how long you'll spend per passage and question type, flagging anything you're unsure of, and leaving room to come back at the end. But honestly the single biggest factor for this section was mental: regulating your breathing and anxiety matters more than people give it credit for. Remember that guessing randomly gives you a 25% shot, and eliminating even two wrong answers bumps that to 50%. You are not going to know everything, and that's completely fine.

CARS

Last year I really just leaned on the fact that I'm good at English without any strategy and it did not help very much so this time I tried to built one and got a 129.

Being alert matters a lot here! Go in caffeinated and focused, because zoning out during CARS is a real risk if you're prone to it. Timing-wise, I noticed that finishing the section with 15-20 minutes to spare was actually a bad sign, since it usually meant I wasn't locking in my answers properly. What worked much better was reviewing flagged questions from a passage immediately, within the time allotted for that passage, rather than saving everything for one big review at the end — that way I almost never had to come back to old flags. So 10 mins for passage, if I finished in 5-7 minutes I would at least stay till 9 minutes and review my flags and I would not really go back to them after that unless I really did not know what was going on.

While reading, I'd mentally summarize each paragraph's main idea as I went and kept asking myself what the overall theme or argument was. Anytime the author stated an opinion directly (using "I," for example), I'd highlight it, since those tend to get tested. I also found it useful to try answering the question in my head before even looking at the options — if I could do that, it usually meant I'd actually understood the passage. When comparing answer choices, I'd lean toward the one supported across most or all of the paragraphs rather than one that's only strongly backed in a single paragraph, since that's usually the real theme.

One small tip: read the passage title!! Sometimes it spells out the theme for you.

For review, I'd screenshot anything I disagreed with and talk it through with Gemini, explaining my reasoning and having it walk me through the "correct" logic. CARS is a section where you can talk yourself into almost any answer if you're not careful, so staying objective and rooting every answer in actual passage evidence is key. And obviously, read the question stems carefully and answer exactly what's being asked, word for word.

My daily CARS routine was 3-4 ExamCracker passages first thing (I found these the hardest, so I did them fresh), followed by 2-3 AAMC CARS passages, ramping up volume as I got closer to test day. I preferred EC to Jack Westin overall, found it a bit harder and more useful for building the skill.

Bio/Biochem

I don't have as much to say here since this was consistently my strongest section, usually scoring 128-130 on full lengths. Anki was everything for this one. I tried to finish my deck almost every day, and anything I didn't fully understand went on a running list that I'd sit down and work through in a dedicated evening. I actually drew out things like the citric acid cycle and major metabolic pathways on my giant whiteboard, and I'd draw them from memory every couple of days, especially structures in the final week.

A lot of this section really comes down to figure and passage analysis: being able to sketch out a pathway roughly, understand what's affecting what, and always ground your conclusions in what the figure or graph is actually showing rather than what you assume. One thing that really helped was watching YouTube videos of people walking through AAMC full-length passages and explaining their thought process: it genuinely changed how I approached passages afterward, almost like I adopted their way of thinking.

I also recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcNbOTAQCG8&feature=youtu.be

My biggest issue was fatigue. My mind would start drifting, I'd get hungry, think about my plans for later, all signs my energy was dipping partway through Bio. That's actually a big part of why doing so many full lengths mattered so much, because it forced me to figure out my nutrition and energy strategy (more on that below).

Psych/Soc

This is the section that's easy to neglect and forget about, and I feel it's becoming more sociology-heavy on recent exams. I'd recommend the Pankow deck for this one specifically, and I used AAMC material almost exclusively here rather than UGlobe.

The single biggest thing that helped me: after every full length, for any question where I didn't recognize even one of the four answer choices, I'd make an Anki card for every option in that question, not just the correct one. It was tedious and I ended up with a huge number of cards, but it closed a lot of small knowledge gaps fast. That way I knew every concept AAMC tested over 6 exams. This is such an awesome vid for the Erikson stages that I will never forget: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/ihfkpz/best_way_to_memorize_eriksons_stages_and_also_the/

This was usually my fastest section by far. I'd finish in about 40 minutes and still have time to review it twice. And if you're comfortable with graph and figure analysis from Bio, you'll likely find a lot of that transfers here too.

Full-Length Nutrition & Energy Strategy

This ended up mattering more than I expected, especially for keeping my energy up through Bio. Through trial and error across several full lengths, I landed on: no caffeine right before Chem/Phys, since the adrenaline alone was usually enough; caffeine, chocolate, and a bit of Red Bull before CARS; a lunch heavy in carbs with a bit of protein to stay full through the afternoon; and more caffeine again before Psych/Soc. I also carb-loaded pretty heavily the night before test day, similar to marathon prep, and genuinely felt like it helped my performance. The main thing is not to guess at this on test day: use your full lengths to actually figure out what works for your body!!! Once you have done 9 full lengths, why should the actual day scare you?

General Mental Game

If there's one thing I'd tell anyone starting this process, it's that full-length review is probably the single highest-leverage thing you can do, and most people (myself included, last year) don't spend nearly enough time on it. A few other things that stuck with me:

• Build your own system for flagging and triaging tough questions, and actually stick to it on test day
• You will never know everything, and that's fine. staying calm and using solid process of elimination matters just as much as raw content knowledge
• Keep a running list of concepts you consistently miss
• Full lengths aren't really about the score you get on them . They're about stamina, timing, and figuring out your personal routine
• Regulate your anxiety and TRUST YOUR FLS no matter how horrible you think you did. I got 1 point higher than my fl average

If anyone wants more personalized help going forward feel free to reach out if that's something you're interested in! Doing this exam twice was so hard for me mentally and i had so many days where i would cry and just give myself a silly task like practice unit conversions or do anki. It is so hard and I promise on everything there is truly no universe where I thought I would get this score. I am religious and prayed so much and just had faith that I gave it my all and what was meant to happen would happen. There are only so many things we can control in our lives, and sometimes the universe plans things we do not plan for, but that are meant for us. I remember being filled with anxiety the morning of my exam and then clocking that this is just an exam, and this is not life or death, and life will go on after this, and what matters is that i am healthy and with people i love. stay strong and have a strong support system and remember this is tough for everyone. Again if anyone needs any support let me know and I will try my best to help.

Retaking this exam was the most difficult thing I have ever done. Tested in October last year and retook the test in July. I am so ecstatic to be done, and would love to give any advice to people who are struggling (btw got a 122 CP last time)

[deleted]

hi! is someone able to walk me through this question, perhaps with a diagram, because im struggling with questions like these. im not sure how to derive the answer.