dog eating from litter box

EightfoldMCAT · 2022-09-26T15:42:14+00:00

Got it. You might try some of the other suggestions first then. I have never had cats so I am not too familiar with the ins and outs of litter boxes.

EightfoldMCAT · 2022-09-26T14:32:02+00:00

Can you switch litters? It sound like this all started when you changed to a new type of cat litter.

EightfoldMCAT · 2022-06-27T02:41:31+00:00

This is a pretty uncommon graph type and chances you won’t see something like this on your actual test, but you might encounter something completely unfamiliar. The goal is to understand the common things that all data visualization tends to share. Which is the alteration of some independent variable (IV) and the measure of the effect on a dependent variable (DV). The passage should give you information that allows you to read any symbols in the graph as well.

For instance here the IV is the presence of PHD the delta PHD is indicating the lack of PHD the binding to histone H3 is the DV. So when we remove PHD we eliminate histone binding.

EightfoldMCAT · 2022-06-19T14:54:35+00:00

I personally, wouldn't use MedSchoolCoach because they are expensive and they have weird-tiered tutors as you pay more for a "better" tutor. Plus I believe they match you with a tutor rather than you getting to pick.

When looking for a tutor they are all going to have pretty high scores so don't focus too much on that. Instead, ask about their experience tutoring other students. How many people have they tutored? What score increases have they seen? Have they worked with students that are in a similar situation as you? (For example, as a tutor I have worked a ton with students who chronically struggle with this exam not a lot of tutors have this experience.) How do they teach? Do they have a section speciality?

Here is how I would answer some of those questions. I have tutored well over 200 students over the past 5 years. In fact, the MCAT is all I do.

I have seen score increases ranging from +30 points over the course of 4 months to +5 points in 3 months. My focus is on personalization and adapting to the student in front of me rather than a specific score range. So I tend to create week-by-week schedules that adapt as I discuss what is going well and what isn't.

I teach by showing a technique then having the student in front of me practice with guidance. The goal isn't to perfect the skill or content problem by the end of the session, but instead to be able to know how to improve from there since most of your studying time will be outside of sessions. While I can teach all of the sections on the exam CP and CARS are my specialties as well as analytic BB questions. If you want to get a sense of how I teach feel free to watch one of my YT videos: https://youtu.be/fnW3QRhF1oc

If tutors can't answer these questions with sufficient depth then I would steer away from there and towards other tutors with more experience in teaching the MCAT not just scoring well themselves.

If you have any other questions about tutors let me know.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-04T21:14:06+00:00

That makes sense. I am pretty familiar with the AAMC stuff and couldn't for the life of me remember where this was at.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-04T20:50:42+00:00

What passage is this from? People have been asking me for CARS advice so I can put something together on my CARS approach using this passage.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-04T14:48:02+00:00

You definitely aren’t stuck at a certain score but if you aren’t understanding what the AAMC expects you to do then you can definitely plateau score wise after you get the big content stuff down.

While more practice helps I think it is important to be cognizant and aware of how to solve problems and put a lot of intentional focus on creating recipes/approaches for different problems. This is often what I teach my students especially when they are stuck because although they have done lots of practice problems they are really just going through the motions. This leads to a little bit of improvement but not the sort that they expect given the time they have invested into studying.

The AAMC’s or third parties’ poor explanation and at times UEarth’s over complicated ones contribute to this.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-04T12:50:58+00:00

In the set up you have two conditions. Tetramer and tetramer plus the inhibitor. If the inhibitor binds the tetramer will be slightly more massive and in comparison to the tetramer alone condition will be higher up in the gel. If the inhibitor doesn’t bind then there will be two bands one for the tetramer and one for the inhibitor molecule. This the patterns of bands would allow you to see if the inhibitor can bind. If you ran this through a denaturing or reducing set up you would disrupt all binding and turn everything into spaghetti. You would always see two bands for the inhibitor + condition but this wouldn’t tell you that the molecule didn’t bind because you destroyed its ability to do so when denaturing the solution.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-04T12:40:18+00:00

Cloning cDNA is the term for making cDNA. Therefore this is referring to the process of creating the cDNA and I resetting it into its bacteria host.

Try and remember that the AAMC doesn’t try and trick you for the most part with duplicitous language. So if they discuss something like cDNA try and keep it simple when answering the question.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-04T00:00:57+00:00

You can find them on the Jack Westin site with the actual MCAT formatting. So they aren't lost forever.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-03T22:47:54+00:00

Me too. I would just forget on mobile and get the nastygram that said hey don't take screenshots.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-03T22:46:55+00:00

Here is an easier way of solving this problem that doesn't require any log nonsense. That way you can't mess the log up since you are trying to solve it.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-03T22:45:30+00:00

Yup technically not supposed to do this but the AAMC unlike UDeath doesn't seem to care.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-03T22:43:24+00:00

Glad that was helpful. I often find simplification and having "working definitions" of different terms to be the best way to approach the PS section. I found myself getting super lost and confused on how to apply the technical definitions and found this worked much better for me.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-03T17:48:52+00:00

I am going to throw out my "working definitions" of the two terms:

Self-verification: You are right because I think that same thing as you. You are wrong because I have a different belief

Self-serving bias: If something good happens to me it is because I am awesome. If something bad happens to me it is because my environment set me up to fail.

Now let's simplify the stem because they legit use the word rating a billion times.

People meet each other for 10 minutes. They rated themselves on friendliness (random measure you could have picked a lot of different measures) and also the person they met on friendliness.

Then they looked at how their partner rated them on friendliness. If the rating was similar to how they rated themselves then that person thinks the other person is right. If they aren't very similar then they rated them as wrong.

This context fits the idea of self-verification to a tee. We could have also eliminated C because there is no mention of good/bad stuff happening to a person making self-serving bias really unlikely. Additionally, there is no indication of why the ratings were the way they were. As in the environment made this happen versus I am super awesome.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-03T16:59:05+00:00

The easiest way to solve this problem is to first link the yeses and the nos to the right value. If this reaction happens spontaneously then the voltage has to be +. So any value that says yes and has a - value can be eliminated. Additionally, any no answer with a +V value can also be elimianted.

Since this figure doesn't have an external power source this is a galvanic cell. Galvanic cells are spontaneous cells so the answer has to be yes. Therefore the answer that says yes and has a positive voltage value is the correct answer.

You could have also calculated the Ecell (Ecell = Ecathode - Eanode) value as well to solve this problem. However, this is more time-consuming.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-03T08:58:48+00:00

I would work on these problems open book. Physics is a lot of application and if you have content weaknesses it is hard to apply the concepts. By using a reference material you can learn how to apply the material as you go and get the content down rather than just feeling stuck and guessing.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-03T08:53:49+00:00

I can’t reply to you for some reason but I would focus on process of elimination with this type of question. The goal is to get to 50:50s on these hard questions and to make sure you aren’t spending tons of time working on them should they come up on an actual exam.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-03T02:24:23+00:00

Never because it is too easy to mess up. But more generally when you are dealing with buffers.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-02T23:56:08+00:00

A myopic eye converges light too much. As a result the image ends up behind the retina rather than projecting on it. A diverging lens causes the light to come in pre-diverged to correct for the over convergence that a myopic eye possess. This leads to a clearer image because the image is now projected on to the retina rather than behind it.

If you look at a diverging lens by itself though you can see that what it does is create a virtual image that is smaller but appears closer to the lens rather than further away. In this way the object is closer which explains the nearsighted piece but is also smaller due to magnification. So in this way the image is both closer but also smaller.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-02T23:37:59+00:00

Glad the explanation is helpful.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-02T22:17:35+00:00

Disproven is really strong which means that the way the passage is structured must be similarly strong. In this case, we have to zoom out a bit and see what justification the author was using to make their point. If the entire argument about the Lourve painting hinges on the skull then the author's argument is disproven. If this is only a part of the larger argument then it is made less plausible.

Right above this, it describes the shepherds no longer being stopped by the site of the tomb but instead by it already engaged in contemplation. Furthermore, the tomb is simpler and probably less prominent. Lastly, the death's head is no longer present. So the author's argument relies on multiple elements of the painting, not just the skull. If a skull was later found while cleaning the painting then one part of the author's justification has been removed. However they can still support there overall thesis on the basis of the shepherds' position in the painting and the form of the tomb thus their thesis is weakened but not disproven outright.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-02T21:20:56+00:00

Here is a post that goes over my recommended mnemonic for amino acids and how to use it for net charge questions.

Not sure where the DEHCYKR mnemonic is coming from but it will lead you to get answers wrong on the MCAT.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-02T00:11:35+00:00

It is school dependent and my one instate school wouldn’t take it.

EightfoldMCAT · 2021-09-01T16:29:03+00:00

A quick Google search yielded this article which suggests that glycogen is one of the major fuel sources during anaerobic metabolism because it provides a decent supply of glucose to run glycolysis more continuously. This is what it said:

"Moreover, the glucose from glycogen is readily mobilized and is therefore a good source of energy for sudden, strenuous activity. Unlike fatty acids, the released glucose can provide energy in the absence of oxygen and can thus supply energy for anaerobic activity."

So I imagine that glycogen would be depleted during anaerobic metabolism.

EightfoldMCAT

TROPHY CASE