9 Facts They Don’t Tell You Which Kill Test Anxiety
1. 30, 60, 90 Rule
This is a rule I discovered from working through AAMC materials, and I would say the most powerful anxiety reducing rule there is for MCAT students. So you’ve probably had questions in test prep material which you got wrong, and after you read the answer, you thought, “I still have no idea what that means”. This is normal! There are quite a few of these in test prep material, I would argue about 3% of test prep company questions seem like this. Those questions have you going, “I have no idea how anyone could get this right”, and if that is the case, you could be spot on; nobody gets those right. The reason these questions exist in test prep materials is because they boast about having vast arrays of questions, but it also means they have some pretty poor questions. How is AAMC different? AAMC is a standardized exam, this means they need both validity and reliability. Specifically the reliability, the ability to have a repeatable test result, even with different versions, doesn’t allow questions like these. AAMC questions appear to fall into 3 categories: easy, medium, and hard. The easy ones 90% of people get them right, the medium ones 60% of people get them right, and the hard ones 30% of people get them right. This means that if you get a question wrong, you can trust that about 30% or more of people got that question right, and if you don’t understand it, that just means you don’t understand the topic or misread the question by mistake. This is good news because the questions you get on AAMC will be honest questions which are often (though not 100%) superbly written. So be confident that when you get a question on your test prep thinking, “WTF does that explanation or question even mean?”, rest easy knowing that AAMC will not likely have those questions. I recommend you see AAMCs question packs to find out for yourself and not just take my word for it, as I don’t represent AAMC..
2. Test Prep Company Materials Don’t Fully Represent the Exam
Have you taken a full length AAMC exam or done the question packs? If not, then you probably won’t know what I’m talking about. When you take full length exams from test prep companies you’ll notice a few things.
Now the score is lower part is described in another section, however let’s discuss number 2. The goal of a test prep company is to prepare you. This means there material is intentionally difficult (this is a good thing). It means they should cover every topic, but they also subsequently cover topics you will likely not see. It’s up to you to distinguish the things you should and shouldn’t learn from those test prep companies. So that plethora of fact-based questions you get on these test prep company exams can likely be limited to just the essentials, eliminating a significant number of low yield facts. Also relating to number 2, the passage length of test prep company passages tends to lean toward longer passages as compared to the MCAT and possibly more poorly written. This is not true of all companies of course, but this makes it more difficult than what you will experience on test day. I’m sure you’ve gone through some passages (specifically sciences) and some of the questions involve a formula you haven’t fully committed to memory. Now this is going to happen on the actual exam of course, however, there is something to keep in mind. The AAMC exam passages are often very well written (in my opinion, of course, and from what I’ve seen). This means they have a logical structure. In science passages, the logical structure often lends itself to stating the formulas which are related to the passage; as such, AAMC often provides the relevant formulas more often than do test prep companies. Not that you shouldn’t memorize and understand scientific formulas for the AAMC exam, but keep in mind memorizing the formulas may not be as important as it tends to be for test prep companies.
3. Your Test Prep Scores Will Always Be Lower
If you’ve taken an AAMC full length and a test prep company full length you’ve probably noticed a difference in score and difficulty. Now, if you don’t believe me I invite you to look at the link below:
-
Link to spreadsheet:
If Spreadsheet link doesn’t work: Link to Reddit
4. Your Stamina is Heightened on Test Day
Ever have difficulty falling sleep before an exam? Of course! Adrenalin is going full force, related to your level of importance you place on that exam. Obviously, the MCAT is more important than most of your other exams you’ve taken. This makes your adrenaline go, leading to heightened awareness (I prefer wakefulness though). You won’t know what I mean by taking only practice exams, it needs to be the real thing. When that adrenalin (specifically noradrenaline / norepinephrine) rushes your brain, it increases your level of attention leading to a hyper focused state that benefit your mindset on test day (usually) Now some people have issues staying awake for such long bouts of time, here are some tips I used. I dressed thin and short - shorts and a tank - because it would allow me to stay colder during the exam which protected me from falling asleep while reading. I also made sure I knew the best foods which worked for me. Personally, I found a pound of fish in the morning, and peas with pecans during the exam, tended to keep my energy up and avoiding a sugar crash. Additionally, I took 1/3rd of a 5 hour energy drink during my breaks and recommend it for most of my students because coffee or energy drinks are diuretics.
5. You Can Retain the Information Much Faster Than You Are
If you’re anything like the student’s I’ve had, then it’s likely that you have hit quite a few plateaus in your scores; this is because of reviewing your exam in the proper way and doing better at studying. I do have a 5 tips to save yourself 80% of your study time (comparatively of course of bad studier vs a good one), but I will hit it briefly here. You’re likely moving slow because you don’t know how to study, it should only take a day or two to retain 60% of what you’ve studied those 1-2 days. This was the number I was able to achieve with myself, and the students which performed best tended to hit this number as well. The thing which they all had in common was that they knew which study strategy worked best for them. This is easier said than done, but I recommend you checkout the 5 tips article. So the anxiety reducing fact here (for most but not all students) is that you can do much better at studying than you currently are.
6. The SDN Forums Lie
Yea it’s super irritating. Now, I’m not saying what they are saying isn’t true. But I will wholeheartedly say that SDN is a completely unreal representation of your competition. Some forum locations tend to be rather accurate, however ones revolving around the MCAT tend to be extremely biased towards people who willingly admit their scores because it’s good. You will notice the same thing in that spreadsheet I had added far above. Do not let these unreal representations of the exam stress you, SDN must be taken with a grain of salt, you can be in their position (but it takes work).
7. You’ve Already Done this 10 Times, This Time is No Different
You’ll fear doing the MCAT on test day, it’s inevitable, but don’t be blind to the fact that you’ve already done it multiple times. I know it sounds like, “Well duh, I’ve taken plenty of practice tests”, but think about it. You know what was going to happen every test, you know the time you were expecting to put in for the day, and hopefully you know how to maintain stamina throughout (upwards of 10 times should be your goal). You should have already figured out which food works best, which time you should go to sleep, which energy method works the best, and have expectations of the energy level you’ll feel during each section of the exam (at the beginning and end). Don’t let yourself believe that you’ve not experienced this countless times, because this will be almost exactly the same.
8. Here is How High You Can Probably Go In 3 Months
Ever wonder how high of a score you can achieve in the time you have before your MCAT? Well it’s always going to very, but from the over 100 students I’ve had I can give you an idea. The best student I ever had started off with a pretty low, but average, score on his first exam (a couple points higher than 490). He only had 3 months for his exam (typical) and so I told him all the tips and tricks I’m attempting to share with you now. He used some of his own, and with his drive and dedication he brought his score to just above 515. If you do the math, that’s about 20 points per month (pretty substantial!). So an average of almost 7 points a month. He was a dedicated student, and many other students got close to what he achieved. So if you’ve hit this plateau, this might be a good number to keep in mind if you do the study tips in the other article.
9. Every First Practice Test is The Worst Exam You’ll Ever See, and
This relates to the above, but let’s be more specific. Your first exam will SUCK! Horrible, pathetic, just quit now while you can you’ll never get into medical school... these are the thoughts that go through peoples head when they first receive their score. This is completely normal, so don’t worry! Your exams will go up, and to make sure they do I highly recommend reading the 5 study tips article, it will give you some key pointers to getting out of that plateau!