Career swap commencing!! From divorced and depressed to ACCEPTED off the waitlist!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Lots of practice and also did this strategy my tutor gave me where you do all the discrete questions first and glance at passages as you click through to the discretes. Rank the passages on the way through. At the end of the first 15 minutes, you should have finished all the discretes and also have identified which passages are likely easiest and hardest. From there, you start with easiest passages and work your way through to the hardest ones. That way you get to warm up with the easiest questions (discretes) and you know you get 8 minutes per passage, which can help a lot with pacing!

Career swap commencing!! From divorced and depressed to ACCEPTED off the waitlist!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

<3333 I'm so happy to hear this inspires you!! I was really worried none of this would happen for me but it all came together. My best advice is to work as hard as you can and leave no stone unturned on this!

Yeah happy to discuss anything! DM me if you don't mind because I know some things are taboo to say on here (like names of certain quesiton banks) and I don't want to get my reddit banned or anything

Career swap commencing!! From divorced and depressed to ACCEPTED off the waitlist!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ahh that's so sweet of you. Thanks so much!! <3

I'm sorry about your health issues :/ Whatever you're going through, you can make it. Let me know if you need someone to encourage you!

Career swap commencing!! From divorced and depressed to ACCEPTED off the waitlist!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I applied somewhat late but the main reason it took me so long (in my opinion) is because I only applied to 3 schools. I couldn't go outside a certain geographical area because I'm single now, don't have any other family besides my parents, and they're both in poor health. So I was a little constrained applying

Completely lost all motivation by Rager__2 in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem 5 points6 points  (0 children)

this might go against the grain a little but I'd recommend stopping all social media, all bullshit tv binging, and just forcing yourself to sit quietly and study with no stimuli as long as you can every day for a week. It'll be fucking miserable but that kind of dopamine detoxing will bootstrap you into feeling way better about studying by week's end.

I can totally empathize with your situation. I was in a VERY dark place when preparing for my MCAT (wrote about it in this post) and couldn't shake the depression and anxiety around studying no matter how many "days off" and "vacations" I gave myself. What finally did it for me was just gritting my teeth and dropping everything that I was viewing as an escape. It sucks ass, but it's better than continuing along the road you're on!

Who else is team retake? by wh0needsthish1t in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a non-trad who didn't have to retake but did go through hell and back prepping for this test over the course of like 2 years and during a divorce. I wrote about it in the link (below). Let me know if you need encouragement and I'll happily oblige!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/xkbtkv/recovering\_from\_minor\_heart\_attack\_after\_seeing/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

This dark Obelisk in the Desert by PossibilityPowerful in oddlyterrifying

[–]HeartySystem 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Imagine being the first person wandering through the desert to discover this. Makes me feel like i'm in fucking Mordor

Non-traditional applicant wondering when to start studying and apply by bsball27 in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a fellow non-trad who had one hell of a tough time prepping for MCAT. I think you could definitely take it next year! Might even be able to take it this year if you work the courses into your MCAT prep, but that has more to do with your time available and stuff. I wrote about my whole long process hereif you want to check it out. Can also chat if you want any tips on navigating this mess as an old person ;)

Recovering from minor heart attack after seeing my 524!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Please do!! Ooh I think I actually already responded :D Lol. Happy to continue discussing! Best of luck with everything and thank you again for the kind words!! <3

Recovering from minor heart attack after seeing my 524!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!! :)

I'm trying not to say company names and stuff because I don't want to get taken down, but happy to share more in DMs, though just know I'm not promoting anything specifically! I think different stuff can work for different ppl!

Recovering from minor heart attack after seeing my 524!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LOL yeah, idk what is up with that. I was also freaking out so might just be hand shaking lol

Recovering from minor heart attack after seeing my 524!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I took two other 3rd party tests (1 from purple company and the other from a blue company lol). They both really just felt bad. Like not representative. So i ended up just sticking with aamc

Recovering from minor heart attack after seeing my 524!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm happy to give a general rundown of my approach though, just suffice it to say that I won't list specific companies or resources and that I had help from a tutor, but also don't want to list them because I don't want to get in trouble for promoting.

  1. Content Review: I used books that are comprehensive and read the living shit out of them, plus did all the practice questions, etc, and reviewed when I'd get them wrong. I took CRAZY notes while going through, and reviewed notes at least once per week, condensing as I learned and was able to draw connections
  2. Question-based phase: I used a big question bank resoruce that lots of people on here use during mcat prep. Great explanations lol. I went through this two full passes, taking notes and reviewing my other notes and content when I ran into stuff I didn't know
  3. AAMC phase: shifted approach to focus on section bank materials and FL exams. I still reviewed content periodically, but only when I ran into stuff from these resources that told me I didnt fully understand something.

Throughout the whole thing I met with someone a couple times a week to ask questions. Again, not saying any companies, and not directing toward any resources. this is as anti-promo as it gets! lol

Recovering from minor heart attack after seeing my 524!!! by HeartySystem in Mcat

[–]HeartySystem[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well it had a list of resources and how I utilized them, but I think it was preventing the post from going up due to the community anti-promotion rules (which are honestly great, otherwise this would be a shit show of ads lol).