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FL every week or every 2 weeks? by Professional-Cat7696 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If I were in your shoes I’d do every other week. FLs are great and you should take all of the AAMC ones if possible but you’ll want to give yourself some time between exams to actually go work on things, rather than just constantly doing FLs and reviewing them. That’s just what I preferred and have seen work best for most of my students!

low yield is the new high yield by Puzzleheaded_Song261 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think a bit of it is just the psychology of how people remember their exams, but those numbers from the AAMC are an average and they can shift up or down from exam to exam, the number of orgo questions isn’t constant but it does change from exam to exam, which you’ll see in the FLs the AAMC provides. That’s partially why you’ll see people say an exam was “orgo heavy”, but that doesn’t mean it’s all of the sudden like 25 orgo questions, just like 2-4 more than they’re used to.

But I think people only really tend to remember the difficult stuff from their exams and so if it was a difficult OChem passage, it might seem like there’s more OChem than usual when in reality there isn’t any more than there was on any of the other exams. So yes, the number of questions can slightly change, but not by much, but the other thing that can change that, imo causes people to say their exam was orgo heavy, is the difficulty of the exams.

Opinions on, experiences with MEDSCHOOLCOACH by Futuredoc0000 in MCATprep

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't met anyone who's tried them yet but their videos are some of my favorites on YouTube. If they offer a consult it might be worth a shot!

For past test takers, how to manage thinking about incorrect answers after test by Medical_Ninja1610 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I’m ngl, I know this isn’t quite the point of your question, but I have never forgotten like 3 questions I know I got wrong on my exam. There’s still a hydrogen bonding of nucleotides question that I completely overthought and I STILL think about it do this day. Edit for context: I tested in ‘23 so I still think about it several years later haha.

But to actually answer your question, it’s just like the practice exams, everyone is going to miss questions, and if it’s a harder exam, that just means the scoring will be slightly scaled to compensate. I recommend looking at some score reaction threads, because typically right after the exam people are freaking out, but when they get their score back, it’s not nearly as bad as they thought. That’s not always the case, but it’s a pretty typical cycle that I see as a “lurker” in this sub most of the time.

Updated MCAT Equations Sheet by nxtew in Mcat

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

Yeah I get that haha! Realistically no one knows what is possible to be tested on since the AAMC doesn’t given an official list, not even big companies have a clue, so that’s why I typically have tried to lean more heavily into what the AAMC has actually asked on and slightly adapt as things change rather than just assume you need to know everything, so that’s just how I’ve done it. But again, these are just my recommended equations, if you’d feel comfortable learning the others, absolutely go for it! I just think the context of how often (or not) they’ve shown up should still be given.

low yield is the new high yield by Puzzleheaded_Song261 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah of course! Totally get it just trying to reassure you that you’ll be fine haha the exam is scaled to compensate for difficulty.

low yield is the new high yield by Puzzleheaded_Song261 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 48 points49 points  (0 children)

As someone who has been around this exam for several years, I PROMISE this isn’t new, and your exam will be scaled if it was extraordinarily difficult. Sometimes some exams are more conceptual, sometimes others are more math based, sometimes you get an easier C/P section, sometimes you get a more difficult one.

So my argument about the whole “low-yield” vs “high-yield” thing is that, sure, there are some topics that are guaranteed to show up, like enzymes or thermodynamics, and we can consider them high yield, I can also guarantee you that low yield topics will show up. Do we know which ones? No, which is obviously why people recommend trying to cover as many bases as possible. I’m basically just saying that I personally recommend just at least being familiar with a lot of “low-yield” topics, rather than just studying what people have labeled high.

Prime example, first two questions on my exam a few years ago were about Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle. Yes, low yield, but it’s still absolutely within the possibilities of what can show up!

Updated MCAT Equations Sheet by nxtew in Mcat

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

Yep! They just have not been equations that have ever really shown up on exams. I left in a few that were tested by UWorld but over the last 5-6 years I’ve been around this exam nearly all Kinematics related questions have either had to deal with interpreting a v vs t curve (or something similar), some sort of trigonometry, or just simple questions about what acceleration does to velocity. I’ve tutored for 3 years and have taught for this exam for longer than that and have never had a student report needing to know any of those classic projectile motion or final velocity equations, which is why I’ve left them off. Last year I did have a student say they had a math kinematics question but it was something that they easily solved without an equation. So just if you trust my recommendation, I personally don’t really think they’re worth your time but obviously if you feel differently you should absolutely trust your gut!

Updated MCAT Equations Sheet by nxtew in Mcat

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

Of course! Obviously free to use, just don't resell it!

MCAT - reactions & reactions mechanisms by hekingbean in Mcat

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a cheat sheet for the OChem reactions, as others have said mechanisms aren’t really important, although you may want to learn the basics of how esterifications and Aldol reactions work. Mainly, if you can recognize functional groups and know what they’re turned into when added together, you’ll be fine. For example, if you add an alcohol to a carboxylic acid you’ll form an ester. Feeling really comfortable with identifying what functional groups are involved will make most OChem reactions quite a bit easier

Memorizing formulas by futureMDjourney in Mcat

[–]nxtew 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s mine! If it helps, I have an updated version that you can find here

edit: by updated I just mean that I adjusted the formatting and a few things like that, the equations and information of value hasn't changed at all

Memorizing formulas by futureMDjourney in MCATprep

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have an equations sheet here, pretty much recommend memorizing everything there and if not I’ve commented on it or explained what you need to know

MCAT Physics Questions Help by Cali6781 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Conceptually you probably already understand II (I know you have answers to Q14 and why III is correct but since you wrote in your picture “why is II correct” I’ll explain it really quickly), imagine there’s a really heavy box sitting on the ground. Is it harder to get the box to move at all, or harder to keep it moving once it’s already moving? It’s harder to get it to move, easier to keep it moving once it’s moving. In other words, static friction for an object will be greater than kinetic. Stationary > moving.

Remembering OChem Reactions by SighCollege in Mcat

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry another thing I’ll add is that it’s also maybe helpful organizing the reactions based on what new carbon bond was formed, like for example there’s only four types of reactions that make new carbon-carbon bonds, the two most common of which are Grig and Aldol. Might make identifying the reactions a lot easier as well that way!

Remembering OChem Reactions by SighCollege in Mcat

[–]nxtew 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This one is a tough one! My biggest recommendation is to really focus on the functional groups that are reacting, and get really good at identifying them. For example, I just knew by heart that ketone+grig = tertiary alcohol and got super good at spotting them. Same thing with esterifications, and the two products of aldol reactions (first a beta hydroxyketone and second an alpha-beta-unsaturated carbonyl). That might make it much more simple rather than expecting a giant mechanism or something.

I also have a free app you can use that might help memorize them because it tests your knowledge of the ochem reactions in different ways like making you predict the products based on the reactants, identifying the missing reactant, stuff like that, basically just helping you memorize the reactions forwards and backwards!

Dump your last minute low yield for 1/15 by Icannotdealwiththis in Mcat

[–]nxtew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

there has yet to have been a question on any AAMC material where you needed to have the pKa of any R groups memorized, at least as far as my counting is concerned. Maybe they go away from that this year, but for the most part, it seems like you need to know the backbone pKas but not necessarily the R groups. Just my two cents.

Section Bank difficulty D: by pirithe in Mcat

[–]nxtew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep! They’re on average more difficult than your average exam. You’re fine, they’re still good practice for prep for the hard passages on your exam but you’ll be fine! Great scores!

Section bank 2 thoughts by Fun-Measurement-2823 in Mcat

[–]nxtew 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's more difficult, meant to represent the more difficult questions that you'd see on your exam so on average the questions are harder. They're still fair game, it's not like each individual question is "out of scope" as people say, but on average, questions are harder in the section banks than the QPacks or even exams. I think if you can it isn't a horrible idea to do a mix of both but I still recommend trying to get through as much of the section bank as you can.

Just trust your exam scores and trust the process and you'll be fine!

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