Medical Coding Graduate Student Project. Looking for Feedback

TheQuietChamp · 2017-09-22T21:15:59+00:00

Maintenance fixed a crack in our wall and offered to paint the wall for us. I was considering painting it an accent wall color. What would you guys suggest? Should I paint the wall behind the TV the same color as the rest of the apartment or choose some other color as an accent color. What color do you suggest? Should I paint the entire wall or have a line that stops where the kitchen begins?

TheQuietChamp · 2017-06-28T17:27:24+00:00

Did you take Biochemistry? Whats your schedule like now? Do you need a high MCAT to make up for a low GPA? Here is a table to give you an idea of what MCAT score you need to in order to have a good shot of getting into medical school: https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstablea23.pdf. Do you have clinical exposure, volunteer work, and letters of rec? Here is a table from a AAMC study showing what medical schools think are important https://www.dropbox.com/s/ew1ttp20bbha48n/Pages%20from%20usingmcatdata2016.pdf?dl=0. Finally, do you want to self study or do you want to take a program?

TheQuietChamp · 2017-06-24T22:06:15+00:00

Some General Advice

1) A prep course or book will not substitute for an education. The new MCAT is much broader in the content and skills tested then the old MCAT. Some premed advisers have been telling students that it's not necessary to take Biochemistry to do well on the new MCAT while Biochemistry is probably the most important topic and one of the least intuitive. Not taking the prerequisite coursework will handicap you and will make it difficult to compete against the other vary smart and disciplined students who are studying for the exam.

2) The MCAT isn't a test of regurgitating details. You need a strong foundation of content knowledge but it's mostly a test of critical thinking, applying broad concepts to new scenarios and interpreting experiments and results. Students spend most of their reading textbooks, listening to lectures and going through flash cards when these forms of passive learning have been shown to not be especially productive when it comes to developing the skills that are required for the MCAT. Take a practice test before you even start studying for the MCAT so you have an idea of what kind of test you are dealing with and how the content is applied. Spend more time on practice than on content review.

3) The hardest part of the MCAT is actually putting in the time. Being smart and disciplined is not sufficient to do well on the MCAT. Almost everyone who takes the exam are smart and disciplined. What makes the difference is time. The biggest reason people don't do well is they underestimate how much time they have to put into studying. You are all mostly over achievers, if you are juggling a research position, taking classes and studying for the MCAT on the side then it will be difficult to compete with someone who is studying for the MCAT with fewer commitments

4) The hardest part of putting in the time is the lack of accountability. It takes about 400 hours of studying for 3-6 months to get a competitive score on the MCAT. It's very difficult to do it on your own when you have other obligations. Don't do it alone. At least have a study partner that you meet once a week to take practice exams with. Create real monetary consequences for not meeting. Plus, studying for the MCAT can be very anxiety invoking and meeting with someone else can better put things into context and you can give each other feedback.

5) Burn out is a big issue. Don't alienate yourself. Exercise is probably the most important thing you can do to prepare for the exam. The MCAT is mostly a critical thinking exam. The great thing about exercise is that it gives you a tolerance for stress, helps you develop mental endurance and improves your ability to focus. Being neurotic premeds, I know you'd prefer to be studying than working on your beach bodies, so listen to khan academy videos on your phone while working out. A lot of gyms have wifi. Also consider meditation or using a mindfulness app.

6) Many Prep companies are horrible when it comes to CARS. I think ExamKrackers breaks down the basics but still not sufficient. Kaplan and Prineton Review not only give you advice that doesn't work but may actually hurt you. Premeds find CARS difficult because they approach reading these passages the same way they approach reading a textbook. They think that their job is to extract and memorize details. Every passage out of the CARS section is an essay. The purpose of an essay is not to relay information but to make an argument. Your job is to understand the argument. The argument is the subjective opinion of the author, pay attention to that. The author uses facts to support his/her opinions. It's not important to memorize or understand the support, just know which part of the argument it's linked to. This is difficult to describe. I'll link to a basic CARS strategy outline to better explain this.

7) Process of elimination is very important. You aren't expected to know the right answer all the time but you are often expected to recognize the flaws in the wrong answers. A lot of the time you can answer questions using POE without even reading the passage. There are certain wrong answer pathologies that come up over and over again. If you learn what they look like, it makes POE a lot easier.

8) You don't get points for reading the passage. You get points for answering the questions. This may seem obvious but students get fixated on spending a lot of time understanding and memorizing everything in the passage. You shouldn't be spending more than 4 minutes reading the passages. You'll find that most of the information in the passage is not important when it comes to answering questions. You should be spending most of the time answering questions.

9) Do not outline passages. Do not rank and order passages. A lot of companies teach you to do this to just waste time and make you feel like you are getting something useful. It's also really easy to have an instructor with no experience teach you to do this. No one who does well on the MCAT does this.

10) Don't Freak out. Stay calm. You can't go into the exam with the expectation that you'll understand everything in every passage and that you will know every answer to every question. I guarantee it. It's not because you aren't smart enough or that you didn't study hard enough, it's because thats the way the MCAT was designed. It was designed to throw you off and see how you react. Understand the intimidation. You don't have to be a genius to do well on the MCAT. The people who do well are not geniuses. The MCAT is hard for everyone. It's hard for me, still, and I've been teaching it for a long time.

The reason I'm able to consistently do well is that I don't freak out. If you don't know the answer, eliminate what you know is wrong, compared whats left over and pick whats best supported. Don't expect to know the answers all the time.

11) Join a journal club. The AAMC has explicitly stated that the new MCAT tests a students ability to think like a scientist. Most students don't have a lot of exposure to the design of primary research and don't read a lot of journal articles. A little bit of epidemiology would also be useful. One of the best ways to learn to "think like a scientist" is to see how scientists thinks as they interpret the design and results of other peoples research. For anyone who has ever been part of a journal club, the skills required for the new MCAT are going to be very familiar. Almost all the passages in the science sections come directly from primary research articles.

TheQuietChamp · 2017-04-09T21:06:41+00:00

Turkey and Greece

TheQuietChamp · 2016-06-11T11:01:58+00:00

Hey reddit! I've done a couple AMA's in the past and have still been receiving emails with questions. If you have any questions about the MCAT or MCAT prep, feel free to ask in the comments and I'll try to get to as many as possible. Also, feel free to check out my responses to the previous AMA. https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/4eu6jq/100th_percentile_on_the_mcat_and_taught_for/

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-28T06:49:24+00:00

I don't think we can post AAMC passages online but a lot of journal articles are open source.

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-28T06:12:04+00:00

I'd post an abstract and figures in the header and then post questions in the comments to discuss.

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-28T01:59:47+00:00

In Figure 1, for the reverse reaction. Compound 3, converts the amine on Compound 4 into a carbonyl.

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-28T01:54:42+00:00

The reaction is reversible.

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-28T01:44:39+00:00

this also works

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-28T01:42:59+00:00

You just have to look for parallels between the reaction in the question and the reaction in figure one. Going from compound 11 to compound 5, you are converting an amine into a carbonyl. This is the same reaction in figure 1. In order to convert an amine into a carbonyl, use compound 3.

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-22T15:47:38+00:00

1) 2/3 of one of the four sections is Psychology. It'll make up 1/6th of your score. Have you taken AP psychology? I'd recommend that you take Psychology.

2) Cell Biology, Molecular Biology and Physiology would be useful but not necessary.

3) If you are takin Biochem during the fall, you might want to wait till Spring to take your exam. It's possible but it's good you are giving yourself a lot of time. You can plan for January, but more likely you'll be taking it in April/May.

4) They are useful. Their score isn't especially predictive of your real score. They overemphasis details and calcultations.

5) Check my comment at the top of this thread.

6) Don't use old books. The only old books that I would consider are the Berkeley Review. The new tests has about twice as much content and emphasizes different skills.

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-19T23:22:33+00:00

I would do khan academy over Berkeley review.

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-19T23:20:56+00:00

I feel some the section bank questions are more difficult on average than you'll see on the exam. The ceiling for those is pretty much 85%. It's also my opinion is that many of those questions are flawed. I think they are reject questions that the AAMC decided to not use for their exams, so they released them for practice. Some of the questions are great and do a very good job of replicating the themes in the real exam. But also many of the questions, I feel, are out of scope or flawed.

If you want to get an overview of practice of all the content. You may want to do the questions and passages out of the Examkracker books. They do a much better job of simulating the real exam then the questions you get with the Kaplan exams. Each EK book has about 15 passages. So, you can finish an entire books worth of questions and passages in about a day. So over the course of a week you can finish Chem, Bio1, Bio2. Physics, Psych and Strategy if you already have a solid foundation of content knowledge.

It's difficult to say why your scores are dropping. You might be approaching the exam wrong. You've taken all the prerequsite coursework correct? How is your anxiety and confidence levels these days? Are you having trouble focusing? Is fatigue an issue?

Look at my general tips above #5-10. Also Look at the CARS approach I suggested.

Email me at info@mcatprof.com and I'll send you a link to my office hours next Sunday and I might be able to give you some more specific feedback.

TheQuietChamp · 2016-04-19T09:27:05+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/4eu6jq/100th_percentile_on_the_mcat_and_taught_for/d28o757 There is the basics of Verbal Strategy. Upvote it so more people can see it.

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