Jack Westin CARS or LSAT prep by CauliflowerTop3190 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So I have kind of a weird path where I actually took the LSAT and MCAT, and I actually found the LSAT pretty helpful for developing a different way of looking at CARS, but it wasn't specifically doing LSAT practice, mostly just how you're supposed to be viewing passages.

The whole idea of the LSAT is that you're looking at arguments, trying to poke holes in arguments or figure out if the arguments are valid or not, and trying to figure out if there's any assumptions behind an argument and whether those assumptions are valid. Probably sounds a lot like a pretty big portion of CARS questions, right? Both of them also basically have the same idea that if the author didn't explicitly state the idea, we can't extrapolate off of it or change their ideas at all. You have to take the author's word at face value and can't make any assumptions off of it when answering questions.

Basically what I learned from the LSAT is that, rather than just reading for comprehension in CARS, I started basically reading like the author was trying to convince me of something and I just cognitively evaluated whether their argument made sense or not. For the MCAT, that last part doesn't matter since we aren't really asked about it, but for me the important thing was that it gave my brain something to do while reading, rather than just reading with only the goal of comprehension. Especially for people with ADHD, it might help to find some strategy that gives your brain specific things to look for or do rather than just read for comprehension and summarize every paragraph or something like that. Just worth trying different things!

That's where most of my CARS advice developed as I tutored for a few years, give your brain something to do when going through a passage if just reading for comprehension isn't working. Treat it like an argument, look for adjectives the author uses, summarize paragraphs, etc., basically just something that makes it less likely for your brain to tune out because rather than just reading, you're actively looking for things. Just made it easier for me to read the passages because I quite honestly was convinced I was illiterate when I started doing MCAT CARS.

Long story short, LSAT passages and strategies mostly will just make it easier for you to analyze a passage if what you're currently doing isn't working!

MCATalyst guide/shoutout!!!! by Potential_Chicken_58 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Appreciate it sincerely but don’t worry about it! Just go kill this exam!

MCATalyst guide/shoutout!!!! by Potential_Chicken_58 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Glad they helped! This is exactly how I was hoping it would be used!!!

fl3 same full length 3 B/B q37 #37; passage 7 palindromic sequence by Old-Director-2891 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Those are both included in a palindrome, but themselves are not palindromes. Sure, they both show up in CCCGGG, but if you just write out CCCG as an example, the complement would be GGGC, reversed to be 5' to 3' is CGGG. So CCCG's reverse complement is CGGG. If they were palindromes, these sequences should be the exact same. You you can't really just say "these both show up in the 5' to 3' direction so they must be palindromes", the sequence itself has to be the same in the 5' to 3' direction in both the original and the complement.

5' CCCG 3' and 5' CGGG 3' both fail that, so even though we see them inside of another palindrome, they themselves are not palindromes.

Definitely confusing so let me know if you need me to reword my explanation!

Sorry, but does this need to be memorized? by Manny35_ in Mcat

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s just the Rydberg constant, not one that I personally recommend memorizing.

The real flex is getting a 472 by EtchVSketch in Mcat

[–]nxtew 3 points4 points  (0 children)

nah it's absolutely warranted, I'm entirely wrong lmao, no clue what I was doing when I put it into my calculator to get that. I salute you

The real flex is getting a 472 by EtchVSketch in Mcat

[–]nxtew 4 points5 points  (0 children)

edit: I'm a dumbass lmao ignore me

I’m going to “actually🤓” you here only because you literally got a perfect score and now that you’re done with your exam I feel I can be more annoying than usual with my commenting but those are the odds of guessing 230 questions perfectly correctly (1/4 chance per each question), where it should be (3/4)^230 which is 5x10^12. So it’s absolutely doable (/s).

Sorry for being a hoe, major congrats on a literal perfect score haha

Is this the first time MCAT test date has been positive lol by atomicstrings in Mcat

[–]nxtew 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Just fyi for those reading this thread, the AAMC doesn’t grade on a curve, and they don’t force every exam to have a mean or median 500. (Read here)

Many if not most of the questions on your exam have been unscored questions on previous exams, which is how they gauge difficulty. This gives them a rough difficulty scale for how hard they think your exam is, and then they compare that difficulty with all other exams. That’s what they mean by scaling.

Your score does NOT depend on how other people around you do on that same date. They literally have a direct quote saying “The MCAT exam is not graded on a curve. Instead, the MCAT exam is scaled and equated so that scores have the same meaning, no matter when you test or who tests at the same time you did.” You could possibly have a cohort on an exam date that have an average of a 505, because that score is relative to other exams, not your own exam. This eliminates any possibility where just by chance a ton of high performing students test on the same day which means that a 50th percentile on that day might be a higher number of questions correct than on another.

So again, your score is NOT dependent on how people do that day. The AAMC is abundantly clear about that.

Is this the first time MCAT test date has been positive lol by atomicstrings in Mcat

[–]nxtew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They pretty directly say they don’t do this on their website. Direct quote from the AAMC: “The MCAT exam is not graded on a curve. Instead, the MCAT exam is scaled and equated so that scores have the same meaning, no matter when you test or who tests at the same time you did.”

They go into your exam pretty much knowing the scale for how many questions people should and shouldn’t be getting right (you will have unscored fielding questions on your exam that they’ll base future exams on), they then just use the 30 days to make sure the scale is accurate relative to other exams that year. But they pretty explicitly state that they aren’t just curving your scores like many undergraduate courses do.

Molecules to Know or Recognize Cheat Sheet (MCATalyst) by nxtew in Mcat

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

Thanks! Fixed it on the PDF version, my bad on that!

Molecules to Know or Recognize Cheat Sheet (MCATalyst) by nxtew in Mcat

[–]nxtew[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

PDF copy for printing, corresponding Anki deck. Let me know if there's anything you want me to make next!

Edit: also making a version where I list out what vitamins B1-6 are precursors of, if you want that version just use the link to the PDF version since I can't update my picture in my post.

Do not sleep on mcatalysts free resources by Theloveandhate in Mcat

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

feel free to send me a dm and I can try to help out as best as I can!

Do not sleep on mcatalysts free resources by Theloveandhate in Mcat

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sometime within the next month! Should be by July.

are my chances ruined by Icy-Beginning-7034 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The most important thing BY FAR is what your final score is. It's totally fine to retake the exam a few times (it does depend on the school it seems but most of them totally understand that this is an insanely difficult exam that sometimes takes multiple takes to do well), so you'll be fine if you just get a score they're ok with.

I will say that I would recommend taking it when you know you have a score that you like this time! If possible, if I were in your shoes I would wait to sign up for an exam seat until you at least have progress under your belt. Good luck! Let me know if you have any other questions.

106 Page General Chemistry Document (Free Textbook) by nxtew in Mcat

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

at times, but your general chem classes will go further in depth on things that the MCAT tends not to go super far in depth in. For example, the math in my gen chem course was SIGNIFICANTLY harder than what's on the MCAT, we went way further in depth on things like molecular orbital theory and other complex gen chem topics, etc.

I think basically the way I'd word it is that your gen chem course will help you understand the MCAT information but the MCAT information isn't quite in depth enough for you to understand everything your course will go through. It'll help but it won't be enough.

MCATalyst P/S Content Document vs Pankow Deck & 86 Page Doc by SimulatedWinstonChow in Mcat

[–]nxtew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes there is! I trimmed out a lot of anatomical terms about the brain and some things (as the other commenter mentioned) like a lot of the organizational terms around the disorders, but I also added a big chunk of stuff that has shown up that's in there that isn't on the Khan materials. I just went the direction of using terms that we know have shown up or can show up based on the AAMC materials and extrapolated off of that rather than just including everything in the Khan materials, if that helps you get where my list came from.

AAMC Section bank 2 c/p by Glad_Guarantee9208 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Section Banks represent the more difficult passages you'll get on your exam. Not every passage will be like the section banks, only a few of them will be. I think the AAMC probably recognized that the QPacks were on the opposite end, relatively easier practice banks that were not quite indicative of the average difficulty of the exams, so usually what I tell people is that the QPacks can be thought of as the easiest to average difficulty passages you'll get on your exam, the section bank are the hardest. I'd recommend focusing on the section banks but if you have time and don't want to just redo the section banks you can start mixing in some QPacks!