<p>so sorry if this has already been asked, it has a billion times on SDN but shuffling through all that just leaves me dazed and confused</p>
<p>on SDN they're saying that the aamc tests that they give you aren't representative of the real thing, in that the ps and bs sections are harder. but will your score fall in the same range or should you deduct a couple of points from those sections to get at a more realistic score?</p>
<p>I heard from DS when he exited the test room that BS on his real test is harder than AAMC test 10, PS is about the same. He thought he did not do well on the real as compared to his practice AAMC tests at that time. Many on sdn also complained that BS on 5/27/2010 mcat is hard.</p>
<p>I still do not know his individual scores. – “don’t tell, don’t ask” (at least try hard not to ask), in this family.</p>
<p>I felt like crap after my real MCAT. 3 hours of sleep the night before, being on medication (prednisone), and a caffeine overdose a few hours before certainly didn’t help. The test felt much harder than my practice exams: during one part in PS, I had trouble breathing, and I had trouble concentrating in both BS and V. But I ended up scoring around my AAMC average. I think they do a good job of curving it, so your exam score often ends up being ±2 points from your AAMC average.</p>
<p>I’ve heard the last four are the most realistic. I only did #8, 9, and 10. I got the exact same score on the real exam as I did #10, although the breakdown was different.</p>
<p>How did the test feel much harder? Like were the question more specific or the passages more convoluted?</p>
<p>You’d think the real exam would feel harder than practice exams - there’s the stress of it actually counting this time. Any varying difficulty in tests is going to be accounted for by the curve, anyway - I thought my PS was easier than on my practice exams, VR about the same, and BS harder.</p>
<p>I learned from SDN that both the passages and the questions on the real test are much longer on the 5/27/10 test. DS also felt like crap immediately after the test; he thought he might get low 30s. He said he ran out of energy to concentrate while doing his last section (Is it usually the BS section?) He also did not have a good sleep the night before the test, likely due to the pressure.</p>
<p>BTW, DS once said he often lost appetite after a big test like final. Does this happen to you or he is more nervous than most students? (He did not lose appetite after his MCAT, so we thought it might be not that bad, even though he said he did worse than his practice tests.)</p>
<p>mcat2, did your son take a prep course, and if so, was it online or classroom setting? Congrats on his great Lizzy score!</p>
<p>D’s practice tests scores in the last few weeks of prep. were very consistent, fluctuating about 2 points. She was taking both Kaplan and aamc, and as suggested, her real score was 2 points below her best practice score. So, it seems that practice was close enough to the real thing. One thing happened for the better during real test. Usually, her practice section scores were uneven, sometime with big difference. She managed to get very even sections scores in real test, which is beneficial.</p>
<p>ga2012mom, He took Kaplan in a class room setting a year ago, but did not take the test right after the prep course, giving him much pain this year. (Did Steeler do somthing like this also, if I remember it correctly?) Since the beginning of this year, I think he has only relied on Kaplan’s course materials for review. (He probably did not have time for anything else anyway - as the research project seems to have taken most of his time this year.) He took almost all prereqs classes at least two years ago – not an optimal sequence at all. Do not do this (i.e., take mcat so late) if you are a hardcore premed :)</p>
<p>Thanks mcat2, my D wants to do the Kaplan online course. They say it is the exact same material, and you have access for 5 months. Classroom times conflicts with her sport, so this may be her only option.</p>