u/Qylov

Let me know! I’d be happy to join in!

Hi!

I finally did the thing and wrote the mcat today. After 114 days of studying and what felt like forever, both the mcat and my summer are over.

It was definitely a journey but throughout the process, I definitely thought to myself, “I really wish this was over tomorrow, I hate doing Anki, UWorld, FLs, etc.” In reality, I am now like 10 hours post test and it’s just such an odd feeling. It’s all I’ve thought about all day and it literally feels like a breakup. It’s like I had an intimate relationship with this test since it was literally my focus every day for 114 days. Now, putting down the cards and practice just feels weird.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Wsg pre medical canada, writing this post with a fully active sympathetic nervous system in the resistance phase of GAS.

Trying to see how many likes I can push this new account to

@deshielding

Hi!

I just finished my 5th full length. Here are my scores so far:

Unscored - 505 - 126 CARS

FL1 - 507 - 123 CARS

FL2 - 507 - 123 CARS

FL3 - 507 - 124 CARS

FL4 - 513 - 124 CARS

FL5 - 512 - 122 CARS

I have consistently improved in my science sections but my CARS is holding me down. Basically, my entire summer is a waste if I don’t get a 125 and I test on 08/20. So here’s my question - Do I write 2 MCAT exams back to back to hopefully get lucky with the CARS I’m given and get a 125? I really don’t care that I get a 130-132 in sciences because it doesn’t mean a fucking thing here. I only say 2 close together because I want to be able to never have to rewrite this and continue to meet the 125 cutoff in all sections for a few schools here.

Any input is appreciated!

Hi!

I just finished my 5th full length. Here are my scores so far:

Unscored - 505 - 126 CARS

FL1 - 507 - 123 CARS

FL2 - 507 - 123 CARS

FL3 - 507 - 124 CARS

FL4 - 513 - 124 CARS

FL5 - 512 - 122 CARS

I have consistently improved in my science sections but my CARS is holding me down. Basically, my entire summer is a waste if I don’t get a 125 and I test on 08/20. So here’s my question - Do I write 2 MCAT exams back to back to hopefully get lucky with the CARS I’m given and get a 125? I really don’t care that I get a 130-132 in sciences because it doesn’t mean a fucking thing here. I only say 2 close together because I want to be able to never have to rewrite this and continue to meet the 125 cutoff in all sections for a few schools here.

Any input is appreciated!

Hi!

I just finished my fourth AAMC FL and here are my scores so far on CARS and overall:

Unscored - 505 - 126 CARS

FL1 - 507 - 123 CARS

FL2 - 507 - 123 CARS

FL3 - 507 - 124 CARS

FL4 - 513 - 124 CARS

I have done probably 500+ practice passages, 3x or more per day, and I’ve tried passage mapping, highlighting, slowing down reading etc. I felt really good about the CARS today but clearly not the case as reflected in my score. I need a 125 to apply to some of the Canadian schools but I would of course love anything 128+ in the ideal world. I’ve done all of the AAMC Qpacks, CARS fundamental/guide one, and a ton of Jack Westin.

This section is pretty much the reason my score is being held back and why my MCAT and entire summer will potentially be useless and a waste of time unless I score a 125+. Does anyone have any advice on where to go? I test 08/20. Thank you!

Hi!

I am writing the Casper on the 10th of September. Is this date too late for the cutoff for OMSAS or oop schools?

Thanks!

Hi,

I’ve been doing cars practice daily for a few months now with AAMC and JW. I have pretty consistently achieved 2 wrong on some, and better and worse on others. I’ve done better on ones I didn’t understand and worse on those that I really did understand (likely a product of being lucky).

But my main question is this: what is the point in reviewing these questions? Every passage is fundamentally different in the story it is trying to tell. I have been reviewing science questions because the reviews are actually helpful, because a problem you get wrong could have a concept that may be tested again. I guess for CARS specifically, some could argue that the logic stays the same, but if you don’t understand the story to begin with, does it even matter? I feel like the entire section is a crap shoot for the most part (I’m looking at you, Picasso passage #1) - I’ve tried to look into ways to improve and I’ve been mapping out the passages (which seems to help) but I really feel like the only way to do well on it is to get lucky with the passages on the day and hope you understand them well enough to be able to apply the logic for the questions to them.

Any comments are appreciated! I mainly post this because I feel like reviewing is a waste of time, especially with how bad AAMC explanations can be. Might try putting them into AI to see what it says LOL

Hi!

I just wrote my second full length today. I started with a 501 BP diagnostic with a 126/126/124/125 split. I then did AAMC unscored and converted my score to a 505 with a 126/126/126/127 split. I just did BP FL1 and got a 505 again with a 128/123/126/128 split. I felt the cars were particularly hard to follow and not really in line with any of the AAMC stuff I’ve been doing. Would this suggest I have improved at all? I have heard BP is pretty deflated but I’m not sure. Any comments are appreciated 😊

Hi!

I’m testing on August 20th and I just took my first unscored aamc FL last week on Friday. I plan to take one every Friday up to my exam, so I was wondering what third party full length would be best to take since I do want to save my remaining 6 AAMC ones for the last 6 Fridays preferably. Thanks!

Did my first FL today! Ended up somehow doing better on psych than chemistry/physics even though I was literally half asleep and rushing through every passage.

I wanted to post this for laughs because I am a chemistry major and I’ve taken every type of chemistry from analytical, organic, inorganic, and physical (even up to quantum mechanics and statistical thermodynamics). I’ve also taken algebra based physics in high school and calculus based in university. To make matters worse, I’ve only done one psych course in my life 3 years ago.

This exam makes no sense LOL. I felt like the unscored chemistry section was having an identity crisis and was trying to be biology and biochemistry. Getting hit with the “how many moles of Cl- is in 0.1M of CaCl2” after doing what felt like endless biology passages was just insulting LOL 😂 🥀

Edit: I’m not even done PanKow yet… 🫠

Hi!

I am currently in the process of studying for the mcat and I’m curious if what I’ve done so far will net me any chances at an interview? I’m not entirely sure what schools prefer an I’ve really tried my best to get involved as much as I can in the community and clinic.

Undergraduate degree: Chemistry

3 year GPA: 3.98

Extracurriculars:

- Hospital volunteering: 150 ish hours (still earning over the summer right now) over 3 years

- Clinical jobs: family medicine front desk (resigned), now medical aide at a specialists office (5 years, ~1000 ish total hours)

- Shadowing: oncology (~50 hours over two years/summers)

- school related stuff: science club member, became an event planner, now a vice president in year 3

- community involvement:

Was on a board involved with leading planning of a fundraiser for regional science fair

Fundraising for dementia

Small role in a health outreach program (~20-30 hours). Involved setting up booths around events in community

- research:

I’ve done a bit of volunteering but no publications (~100 hours). I am currently in the process of doing a literature review with the oncologist I shadowed (may get published, not sure).

I am a male and I do not fall under any access pathways.

Title

Hi,

I’ve been working through the UWorld questions and I’ve become extremely frustrated with the no calculator math. I find I have to continually round up to arbitrary numbers to not take forever to do the calculations by hand. So much so I’ll round something like 40 and 90 to 50 and 100 just to quickly get through it while manually getting rid of powers of 10. Does anyone have any advice for this?

It’s quite annoying to be honest, not sure what the purpose of providing no calculator is because I can set up the equation no problem, the calculations just take time up. Is extreme rounding like this the way?

Hi!

I am about 500 cards deep into the deck and I’ve just started the drugs section. Has anyone found this deck to have some ridiculous cloze cards?

I feel like a lot of it is very strenuous recall for barely any benefit. Do any test takers feel like this was the case? I’ve had to make changes to some cards, where I’ve added queues, like “this drug does (3 things) {{c1::X}}” rather than “this drug does {{c1::X}}”. Otherwise I feel as though it’s nearly impossible to get through this deck with perfect recall lol

Hi!

I know this may be a stupid, but I decided to use the AnKing deck for sciences and the Pankow for P/S separately to try to space out my reviews and not review psych cards while doing science ones. It seems like some others did the same and ran into a similar issue I will discuss.

I know PanKow is integrated into AnKing, but I really liked the organization done by nCaveman since it was easier to follow with the 300 page doc. However, when I tried to import the deck after importing both AnKing and PanKow, I was unable to add the remaining 700 cards to the 1300 cards I had.

If you’ve run into this issue, here is the fix:

Delete the behavioural deck under “AnKing MCAT Deck” in browser.

Import the organized deck, it will add cards to your 1300 card PanKow

If you have spent time with the broken PanKow, no problem! What you can do is delete all sections you haven’t started, then important the organized deck. You will have to suspend the newly added parts you haven’t started yet. As a result, I actually gained 24 new cards buried in AnKing to the only deck I started (Sensory perception, where I learned 55 new cards last night).

Here is the link to the organized version (nCaveman): https://www.reddit.com/r/AnkiMCAT/comments/1bvjo1l/here_is_a_version_of_mr_pankows_deck_that_is/

I hope this can help people/clear up confusion if people are dealing with this issue as well!

Hi!

I just finished my first Kaplan chapter today and I am using the AnKing deck. I unsuspended the specific deck once I finished the chapter. My settings were 100 new cards and essentially unlimited reviews. Are these settings optimal for retention and avoiding burnout? I am new to Anki so I am not entirely sure.

I am hoping to cap out at around 3 chapters per day going forward, where I will be doing either 1 unfamiliar book with 1 psych section or 2 familiar book chapters with one psych section.

Are these settings ideal in the long run or should I look into changing them?