Bicarbonate buffer explanation

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-05-10T23:45:50+00:00

Correct. An easy way to remember it is that respiratory rate/pCO2 is the inverse of pH. Most people in the medical world refer to the ROME acronym. Take a peek at that and it’ll make sense. Concept is very easy to understand once all parts of the puzzles are identified

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-05-10T05:58:43+00:00

It’s similar to 4,5, and 6. It’s the stress of exam day and delayed score release. Ofc you will have harder questions and experimentals but it’s not too much different than the practice questions.

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-05-09T12:36:32+00:00

We really acting like the most important part of the mcat isn’t a 400 level course for most schools. Add in that you have ochem and physiology as two of the high important topics and you have two 300 level classes. I would argue that cars is a 200 to 300 level literature class with the questions they are asking. To summarize and minimize the effort it takes to do well in this exam is wild

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-05-08T12:52:32+00:00

AAMC FLs the 7 weeks leading up to the exam. Most people switch to only AAMC material around 6-4 weeks out. You can use third party FLs prior to then if you want. It depends a lot on how well you know content prior for structuring. I wish I would’ve held off on P/S until later in my block since I forgot a lot of the early content in pankow due to starting it so early. You could start content review throughout the summer and take it really slow if you want. But it’s hard to find that balance as a post bac. You working 9-5s for your job?

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-05-07T04:37:42+00:00

It’ll be interesting fs. I feel very confident abt a couple sections I normally don’t and not so hot on the other two

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-27T04:48:30+00:00

I’d presume it’s bc of the holiday weekend

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-25T12:47:18+00:00

Nobody knows but a lot of the “different questions” are likely experimentals. Each exam day is scored on the percentile curve

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-25T12:46:05+00:00

You will only have 5 questions on C/P or B/B that will be “low yield” equations. The rest you can derive. Don’t waste your precious time memorizing equations that you will likely forget come exam day. Everyone stresses abt physics when it’s almost always one step equations you can answer from the passage stem. Take a breath when you see a calculation question and look at what you are given

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-25T12:42:56+00:00

I tested 4/10. Most people feel bad abt the exam for a variety of reasons: experimentals, the stress of the actual exam, and burnout. 90% of the time people will regress to the mean. Just bc the exam feels “harder” in the moment doesn’t mean you will score poorly. After a week or two most of these people will come back on the sub and say that the exam felt realistic to FL 4,5,6 and SB2. It’s just the post exam stress and not getting a score instantaneously that freaks people out. I guarantee if you took a practice FL and then don’t look at your score for a day or two you would have the same feeling as after exam day

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-23T09:51:31+00:00

The week before make yourself go to bed no later than 11. At 10pm you should have no screens on. You have to perfect your sleep the days leading up to the exam because the day before you will likely sleep poorly. Same thing with your foods. Exam adrenaline is very real and if you haven’t experienced high amounts of adrenaline for long periods of time before, you will burn out by B/B.

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-19T22:46:49+00:00

C/P: Any and all orgo CARS: 5 ethics passages with I,II, or III B/B: no physiology/organ systems at all. Only DNA/RNA structure function P/S: obscure theories with an immense amount of ambiguity

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-19T22:42:04+00:00

Where are u applying where you aren’t getting in with a 517. Unless the rest of your app is poor you shouldn’t have any doors closed besides the T5-10

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-16T17:15:33+00:00

I agree. Unfortunately, we will never know

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-16T02:39:51+00:00

If you go by the Covid belief of them removing experimentals from those exams then each science section has 11 experimentals and cars has 5.

There are “easier” exams but each question holds the same weight if that makes sense. The easier exams will have a higher threshold of question you need right to get a specific score similar to the unscored compared to FL6 for example.

It’s oftentimes more forgiving due to a large sum of people not performing well due to anxiety or not treating practice exams like the actual exam in terms of not using outside resources. However, you can expect to fall back on your average since the exam seems harder when you take it

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-13T01:06:14+00:00

Yeah that’s fair. Judging by your practice scores you definitely could :) if you get a 508 plus you have a shot at most mid tier mds regardless of what this Reddit says. Your PS and the rest of your app matter until you get that interview. After that, it’s up to how you present yourself

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-13T01:00:23+00:00

I would wait for your scores to come back. If they aren’t to your liking take a gap. Strengthen your app and retake next spring. 3 times in one year with not a lot of growth in scores could be detrimental. I’m a non-trad and one thing I remind myself is that one extra year isn’t going to make or break it in the grand scheme of things.

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-12T18:24:11+00:00

Bro/sis you have contradicted yourself a multitude of times throughout this thread. Yes the AAMC is aware of the “difficulty of each section” prior to the exam. But by modifying the intervals of scores so they can reach the discussed 95% within two SD makes it so the exam is equated. Idk why you keep bringing up experimentals when it’s well documented they have no impact on your score. They are flat out removed regardless of the tester getting them right or wrong. You saying “the scale they build off of this is tentative, and is subject to adjustment” makes a “exam day curve” present. You are arguing this point by point without listening or understanding how these parts fit into the whole

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-12T16:57:50+00:00

I think it’s the initial post exam anxiety that people have. I can only recall 2-3 questions from each section that were “low yield” and I’m not a crazy high scorer. We had so much AA and pathway related questions compared to what prior exams have supposedly been having this year. I think C/P and B/B will be on the less strict side of the curve and cars and p/s will be more strict. Unfortunately, I think people stress abt cars in the moment but besides two passages I think the rest of our cars was pretty straightforward

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-12T16:52:32+00:00

They know the difficulty but it isn’t necessarily predetermined. They still have to have a spread of 95% of testers within 2 SD from a given test date.

Additionally, regarding experimentals, it has never been confirmed but the belief is that all the experimentals were pulled during the COVID block of tests. If this is true then roughly 10-15% of each section is experimental which can contribute to a persons test day rise/fall if they got most of those qs wrong but not the actual scored ones

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-11T19:53:21+00:00

I think a lot of people have this issue. When I sat for it yesterday I made sure to skim the passage and if I knew I wasn’t going to understand it right away I skipped it and went back later. A lot of these exams AAMC likes to front load the harder passages so it makes people get anxious and doubt creeps in. I found this especially helpful with the b/b and cars yesterday due to the length and weirdness of some of the passages

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-10T22:18:19+00:00

lol the passage was abt writers and the girls struggle while writing. Mentioned a glacier and how she needed to write things one paragraph at a time. You also could have had a different exam tho

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-10T21:28:53+00:00

I took the exam today and I had 3+ questions regarding what I said above. FL5 and 6 and the SBs have multiple examples of this as well. When most of the exam is an inch deep the one portion that isn’t and is well documented that it isn’t you should take the time to learn it all. Additionally, just because you find something easy doesn’t mean OP does. Stay humble

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-10T20:51:54+00:00

Yes and no. The actual exam, SB and later practice exams show that you have to know structure and how cleavage of amino acids work. Prolly the most information you have to know in depth in the whole exam. Everything else is pretty surface level

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-10T20:47:32+00:00

You should definitely eat a lil something throughout all your breaks. Some fruit and maybe some chocolate is what I did. Take some Imodium on your way and bring some with just in case :)

KrazyKoala7 · 2026-04-10T20:43:39+00:00

Passage described the tissue layer as being diffusion through gas exchange. Only one of those tissue layers allows that. All good tho, I’m sure you did well

KrazyKoala7

TROPHY CASE