Well, my cursory chemistry review is continuing on pace - I'm a bit over half through. I remember everything I'm reviewing, although there are a few types of problems I won't be able to do without some more in depth studying than I'm giving them at the moment. That doesn't worry me too much though; I was able to do them in school, and am quite sure I'll be able to do them again with a more in depth review after I finish this cursory sweep.
The chemistry section is somewhat naturally more given towards problems and equations than the general biology section was. I'm not sure how this will play out in the actual MCAT questions on chemistry yet (will they somehow be broadly generalized and passage based, as in biology, or will the passages involve the need to have more equations memorized). While I'm not worried about it, I am interested to find out - it could have a big impact on Physics, where I'm not half as confident in my ability to review and remember things that I never fully understood in the first place.
If the chemistry questions are largely broad-based though, then it's very likely the physics ones will be as well. And that would be good news.
As far as other studying stuff goes, I looked around the Kaplan site a bit and they have a few packages. The one I'm leaning towards costs a somewhat painful $1900 dollars to sign up for (although there's a $250 rebate of sorts). I'm pretty positive I'll be signing up for that in a few days nonetheless though, once I get my checks to post at the bank. Given the test design, this seems too helpful to not take given the opportunity.
I've still had no luck getting anyone from AU's premed office to reply to me, despite leaving a voice mail and e-mails. Fun. So I went and e-mailed my old undergraduate premed office at Vanderbilt with a few questions today. Hopefully they'll get back to me next week sometime - they've been good in the past. I'm going to wait on that before registering for the MCAT, although that needs to get done really soon too.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
First Practice Test (Segment)
So I finally took a practice segment for Biology. I didn't do great, but I did ok. Or I would have apart from one set of 7 questions that I bombed. Had I gotten those though, I'd be happy (enough) to move on. So what I'll do now is review DNA/RNA again (since those 7 questions came from that area) today and tomorrow. The other few questions I got wrong were, for the most part, things I either should have got right or could have with a bit more review. But the review neccesary to cover every complete set of possible questions like that is time consuming enough it could go on for months, which doesn't work. Getting 2 or 3 more questions right by spending another month on Biology doesn't make sense when I can spend that month on Chemistry and get an extra 10 right (or however many). At any rate I'll start working on Chemistry on the 13th now, almost on schedule, and will keep looking over my Biology notes periodically.
The biggest thing I got out of this though was that it's not a science test. At all. I know I posted that earlier from reading it and being told that, but since I hadn't taken any practice segments I didn't really know what the test was like.
Of ~40 questions maybe only 8 or 10 required "know this" knowledge. The rest was largely stuff you could get from passages if you had an idea what was being talked about. So most of the questions I got wrong (apart from that section on DNA) ended up being things I could probably get right just by taking a hundred practice tests - a lot like the LSAT. A lot of the stuff I spent the last few months looking at was talked about (Lutenizing Hormones and Follicle Stimulating Hormones, for example), but it was looked at in the context of a passage and not as a "LH is created in the a) anterior pituitary, b) thymus, c) pineal gland, or d) hypothalamus". You didn't (really) have to know what LH did either, you just had to have a hang of the basic concept.
This steers me a lot towards buying Kaplans online program. Or at least looking at it closely in the next few days. It also steers me in the direction of rushing through my traditional studying in favor of spamming practice exams once I've got a very rough hang of the basics.
I'll try doing Chemistry fast in ~2 weeks, and we'll see how that goes. If it works just as well as having spent ~2 months on Biology I'll be very happy, because time's a commodity here.
The biggest thing I got out of this though was that it's not a science test. At all. I know I posted that earlier from reading it and being told that, but since I hadn't taken any practice segments I didn't really know what the test was like.
Of ~40 questions maybe only 8 or 10 required "know this" knowledge. The rest was largely stuff you could get from passages if you had an idea what was being talked about. So most of the questions I got wrong (apart from that section on DNA) ended up being things I could probably get right just by taking a hundred practice tests - a lot like the LSAT. A lot of the stuff I spent the last few months looking at was talked about (Lutenizing Hormones and Follicle Stimulating Hormones, for example), but it was looked at in the context of a passage and not as a "LH is created in the a) anterior pituitary, b) thymus, c) pineal gland, or d) hypothalamus". You didn't (really) have to know what LH did either, you just had to have a hang of the basic concept.
This steers me a lot towards buying Kaplans online program. Or at least looking at it closely in the next few days. It also steers me in the direction of rushing through my traditional studying in favor of spamming practice exams once I've got a very rough hang of the basics.
I'll try doing Chemistry fast in ~2 weeks, and we'll see how that goes. If it works just as well as having spent ~2 months on Biology I'll be very happy, because time's a commodity here.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Updates
No posts since January 10th huh? Wow. It's been awhile. Part of that's probably due to a week long vacation I took where I went traveling. I was "almost" sick throughout. You could think of that as either good or bad, I guess. It broke out into a real cold once I got home (which I can only think of as bad...) Otherwise things have continued to be uneventful but busy.
I'm still waiting on a reply from the premed office concerning the maintenance and status of my file there. Technically it's only been two or three days, since I sent my e-mail on a Friday and they don't work weekends. To me though, it feels like it's been closer to a week. Which is frustrating. My current frame of mind is that I'm going to just put the application/file on second priority (although it's still, obviously, important). What I want to focus on is the MCAT. If I take it and score well, things will work themselves out with or without good support from the premed office. The worst case would be I have to postpone my admittance a bit. Conversely, if I don't get a good MCAT, it really doesn't matter if my file is in good order or not because I won't get in anywhere.
Speaking of the MCAT, my Biology reviewing is going well. It's almost finished, in fact. I aim to wrap that up by February 12th - taking a little biology section practice test from Kaplan. If I do reasonably well on that, I'll move along to Chemistry which I hope to complete reviewing by the end of February (not much time, but it's probably my strongest subject to make up for that). If I can stay on schedule with those two, things will be going fairly well.
I have to sign up (again...joy) for the MCAT. I'm hoping to hear back from the premed office first, but if I don't I'll just go ahead with that anyways towards the end of this week or the start of next week.
And lastly, regarding HIPAA and patient privacy, I simply haven't had the time to look into what I can and can't legally post. I still would like to check into that at some point, but I'm occupied enough with MCAT work, job work, and trying to sleep that it's not likely to happen soon. So I have two choices. I can either take this off the internet and turn it into a personal log which no one would ever see, or I can keep it up and just not include anything that could even remotely be construed as a violation. I'm sure no one is reading this but me anyways, so it probably doesn't matter, but I'll take the second choice for now. I enjoy having this up even if I am the only one who looks at it.
I'm still waiting on a reply from the premed office concerning the maintenance and status of my file there. Technically it's only been two or three days, since I sent my e-mail on a Friday and they don't work weekends. To me though, it feels like it's been closer to a week. Which is frustrating. My current frame of mind is that I'm going to just put the application/file on second priority (although it's still, obviously, important). What I want to focus on is the MCAT. If I take it and score well, things will work themselves out with or without good support from the premed office. The worst case would be I have to postpone my admittance a bit. Conversely, if I don't get a good MCAT, it really doesn't matter if my file is in good order or not because I won't get in anywhere.
Speaking of the MCAT, my Biology reviewing is going well. It's almost finished, in fact. I aim to wrap that up by February 12th - taking a little biology section practice test from Kaplan. If I do reasonably well on that, I'll move along to Chemistry which I hope to complete reviewing by the end of February (not much time, but it's probably my strongest subject to make up for that). If I can stay on schedule with those two, things will be going fairly well.
I have to sign up (again...joy) for the MCAT. I'm hoping to hear back from the premed office first, but if I don't I'll just go ahead with that anyways towards the end of this week or the start of next week.
And lastly, regarding HIPAA and patient privacy, I simply haven't had the time to look into what I can and can't legally post. I still would like to check into that at some point, but I'm occupied enough with MCAT work, job work, and trying to sleep that it's not likely to happen soon. So I have two choices. I can either take this off the internet and turn it into a personal log which no one would ever see, or I can keep it up and just not include anything that could even remotely be construed as a violation. I'm sure no one is reading this but me anyways, so it probably doesn't matter, but I'll take the second choice for now. I enjoy having this up even if I am the only one who looks at it.
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