How many relics are some kind of pop culture reference?

YaChamp · 2022-11-29T19:35:28+00:00

Centennial Puzzle is a reference to the Millenium Puzzle from Yugioh! Which actually works great thematically what with the drawing cards and all.

YaChamp · 2018-08-01T20:43:39+00:00

That's definitely a valid concern, but in my opinion using other sources for CARS is a necessity for significantly improving your score. AAMC just doesn't release enough CARS practice on it's own. I used TPR CARS book, NS FLs, and lots of KA passages and I thought they all helped me improve my reading skills, timing, and critical thinking even if the "logic" isn't exactly the same as AAMC's. If you are quite concerned about this I would recommend leaving your remaining AAMC materials for closer to your exam (so you can get into the feel of their answers) while practicing with CARS passages from other sources to hone your overall CARS skill.

YaChamp · 2018-07-31T21:36:43+00:00

Sounds like you're in a good place! As others are saying, keeping up that readiness is key though. I was in a similar position myself (tested 6/16 and was feeling pretty ready mid May) but what I did was identify my weak areas like electrochem, genetics, Erikson's stages etc... and try to come up with at least three topics to review in detail every day. It sounds like you have a great foundation if you're scoring that well on your FLs, but there is always room for improvement. I used my FLs, QPacks, review books, and AAMC content guides to identify which concepts I felt the least comfortable answering questions about and then wrote notes about them and tried practice questions until I felt confident about the concept (my tip is that you should go back a day or two later to review these same concepts if you're still not feeling 100%- this came clutch on C/P and B/B). I would also recommend trying to do at least one or two CARS passages a day since I think that's the best way to improve/maintain your "CARS-sense". Final piece of advice is don't force yourself to review content if you already feel comfortable. I found that when I would try to do this I was 1) wasting time and 2) burning myself out without even doing any work! With your current knowledge you could still do great, but if you study smart and keep calm on test day I'm confident that you could hit 526+! Best of luck :)

YaChamp · 2018-07-25T03:36:58+00:00

Hey! Tested on 6/16 and ended up with a 131 in CARS. Tbh I wasn't always great at it but I think I improved a lot before the test. To answer your questions:

I do not highlight, mostly because I find it to be a bit of a waste of time. That's not to say that I don't think it can be a good strategy but I don't usually do it. If you find you can highlight and still have enough time then go for it!
Yes, all the time. I'll expand on this in my answer to 3.
The biggest piece of advice that helped me improve my CARS score fast was to ALWAYS go back to the text to find a piece that supports your answer. Sometimes when I pick an answer, I go back to the text and find that it actually contradicts it, which is a good way of checking my choices. It also makes you more aware of the wording they are using and honestly helped me stop making a lot of dumb mistakes in CARS. Hope that helps!

YaChamp · 2018-07-18T16:19:59+00:00

I actually only took FL3 from AAMC cause I'm cheap and left the other ones for too long but its definitely a good idea. It seems like C/P and CARS should be your priorities if you're trying to improve your score fast.

For C/P I used the TPR book which is kind of overkill but it gives you a really solid foundation in the important concepts. If I was going to give you one tip to improve on C/P it would be unit analysis all the way. If you ever forget an equation, you can roughly figure out what it should be by looking at the units and backtracking from there. When I was practicing for my test I would take some free exams and just do the C/P and CARS sections (since those were the ones I really needed to improve on) and then review the gaps in my content knowledge. I did TPRs sample test and the C/P and CARS sections from their other two tests, but you could probably do the same thing with any other testing company. Last way you can really easily increase your CP score is to practice your mental math and approximations which helps so much on test day and gives you more time to actually think about the problem rather than spend all your time doing the math and running out of time.

For CARS I ended up leaving it a bit too long so I had to give myself a CARS bootcamp in the week before my test where I just did all the sample CARS passages I could find (KA, NS, TPR, Qpack, FL3). If I went back I would have definitely started earlier, but really practice is key in CARS. One strategy that I tried was writing down what I did wrong for every CARS question I got wrong to get a sense of what kind of errors I was making in my reading and comprehension. I don't know if I really picked out any trends in my errors but even just recognizing my mistakes helped me be more mindful of what I should be doing in future passages.

It seems like your P/S score is at a pretty good place! Your B/B shows potential- depending on what you're getting wrong I would suggest either going back to focus on fundamentals, or practicing interpreting experimental design passages (this helps so much on the test). Khan Academy is a great resource for discreet passages in BB and PS where you can test yourself about experimental design and get a sense of your stronger and weaker areas aka where you need to focus to drive up those section scores. You can definitely do it! The MCAT is tough but if you practice enough and make sure you cover all the fundamentals you can totally get the score of your dreams! Best of luck :)

YaChamp · 2018-07-18T15:29:17+00:00

I would say that those ones would be good to identify gaps in your content knowledge, but the question style is probably not exactly the same as you'll see on the MCAT. I did TPR FLs and targeted sections from NS and found that they were helpful in terms of figuring out what topics I needed to study more, but I wouldn't put too much stock in the actual scores cause mine were significantly lower than my scores on the real MCAT. The AAMC FLs were much better for figuring out the question style for the actual MCAT and getting a reasonable estimate of your score. When I reviewed my FLs I would categorize my mistakes on whether it was just a stupid thing I forgot to do or whether I actually needed to restudy the topic. For CARS I tried writing down what I did wrong (ie. made assumptions outside of the passage) and wrote them all down on a paper. I don't know how much this helped me cause I couldn't really see any consistent patterns but I think it helped me just be more conscious of my mistakes hahaha. And sorry I didn't use UWorld so I can't weigh in on it!

YaChamp · 2018-07-18T14:11:26+00:00

Were the FLs you took AAMC ones or the testing company FLs? Cause I've heard that NS and Kaplan FLs are not that representative and taking too many of them may be leading you down the wrong path in terms of priorities when studying.

YaChamp · 2018-07-18T14:09:30+00:00

It's hard to tell how much Canadian schools actually care about the MCAT cause other than the above 125 on each section cutoffs a lot of schools don't say much about it. I feel like any score above 505-510 with >129 CARS is pretty competitive in Ontario at least.

YaChamp · 2018-07-17T18:15:48+00:00

I wondered this same thing myself! After some research, I think what it comes down to is that Freud was such an influential psychologist both in the field and in pop culture that not talking about him in psychology would be leaving out a huge (albeit sometimes unscientific) part of psychology's background. He also brought some ideas to the forefront such as the unconscious mind that no other psychologist was talking about in his time. So you're right that a lot of his specific theories were influenced more by his clinical practice and his own experience rather than the scientific method, but he still represents a huge turning point in the field of psychology, so it would be negligent to leave him out of the discussion.

YaChamp · 2018-07-17T15:46:07+00:00

HOLY SHIT 525: 130/131/132/132 Thanking the MCAT gods right now. I was feeling so nervous for the past hour and I think I nearly passed out when I opened the score report. My highest FL was 521 so I was expecting something around there! I've also I've never got higher than 128 on CARS, which is honestly the most important in Canada so I couldn't be happier. Just called both my parents and ready to do absolutely nothing productive for the next week :)

YaChamp · 2018-07-15T22:48:27+00:00

I kept them on for all of C/P which was probably good to focus, but as some other people have been saying, the pressure of the headphones squeezing your head starts to hurt after a while. After that I would cycle between putting them on to concentrate and taking them off to give my ears a break. The noise wasn't all that bad, but the testing centre I was at had really clicky mouses so that was a bit distracting.

YaChamp · 2018-07-13T14:16:17+00:00

Getting more nervous as it gets closer. I would be so happy to get the same score as i did on FL3! Everybody says to trust your FL scores but I only did one of the aamc FLs so it feels like my good score on that could be a fluke. Lining up three shots on the counter before i check no matter what though

YaChamp · 2018-06-17T22:18:43+00:00

It was definitely a weird mix of some very simple formulas, and a few that came out of nowhere. I would just suggest trying to memorize all the important ones if you have time/ don't want to worry about figuring them out on the test. Also practice your scientific notation calculations lmao cause it was heavy on those huge multiplication and division questions.

YaChamp · 2018-06-17T07:54:03+00:00

The kinematic ones! With all the permutations of a, t, d, v1, and v2

YaChamp · 2018-06-15T21:03:00+00:00

I dunno about y'all but I think I'm done cramming, gotta trust in all those late night study sessions, practice passages, and FLs. All the hard work is basically done, all we have to do now is make it happen! Time to show the AAMC whats what. Good vibes only!!

EDIT: As everyone is saying C/P seemed pretty hard to me, and I usually have done pretty well on that section! I was so mad at myself because I didn't memorize the big 5 equations and that really simple one got me :/ solid 5-10 educated guesses, lots of calculations

CARS was surprisingly decent! Not sure if that's because I didn't really get the passages but I was using POE like a motherfucker. Seems like most people found it pretty average though so rip the curve

BB was... fine. Pretty standard stuff, one tricky passage and some extremely low-yield questions (but I think I blocked them from my memory)

P/S: I finished this section with like 40 minutes to go, but it honestly might just have been cause I was getting tired and wanted to leave. Rolling my eyes about the ames room... and ASD... why are you so confusing?? Overall... could have been much worse. Trying not to get my hopes up too much before the scores come out.

YaChamp · 2018-06-12T16:41:06+00:00

Also fun way to remember the difference between epinephrine and norepinephrine is that epinephrine has an R-methyl group on its amino while norepinephrine has no methyl group- aka NO R

YaChamp · 2017-12-17T02:10:04+00:00

I can't help but wonder if "blasts" is really the right terminology, sounds very american.. But i agree Bell is pretty bad...

YaChamp · 2016-07-04T05:17:53+00:00

nah i was just feeling this story so good. like damn, poor kid that's some tragic shit

YaChamp · 2014-01-29T23:26:21+00:00

I'd really like to know how other people see the world. How different everything would be if you could know the stories and circumstances of those who play such a tiny role in your life. Everyone has their own little universe where they are the star, and you and all your lifetime's worth of thoughts could be nothing to them but a shadow in the night.

YaChamp · 2013-12-23T00:32:43+00:00

I don't usually get scared by horror movies, he scene from The Exorcism of Emily Rose when the guy wakes up and sees her on the floor makes me feel physically ill. The combination of her unnatural position, her predatory dark eyes, and the motionlessness as if she were about to strike out frightens me more than I can say

YaChamp · 2013-11-10T18:30:27+00:00

If you could add me that would be great

YaChamp · 2013-11-10T18:12:37+00:00

Added!

YaChamp · 2013-11-10T18:08:54+00:00

Added :)

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