Saturday, September 10, 2011

MCAT Blues



This past May, I promised this to myself: I would review all the sciences, practice verbal reasoning passages, and take the MCAT in September. 2011 was going to be the year in which I would follow my dream.
If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans - Woody Allen
It all started well. My review began in mid-June. I found inspiration in a couple of my favorite bloggers who were in the same boat and found time to write about their experiences. July came and went. So did August. To my astonishment, my progress was excruciatingly slow. Spending the dog days of Summer studying for the MCAT would have been delightful if it had not been very time-consuming, especially to a non-traditional pre-med. I have been out of school in a very long time and I have forgotten how to study and manage time. I was mostly surprised to find out that I was only able to complete half of the questions in the allocated time. That would not have been surprising if it had just been for the verbal reasoning section. But that was the case for the physical and biological sections as well. After a long analysis, I could not convince myself that I was fully prepared and I did what I dreaded to do the most. I postponed.
Indeed it is better to postpone, lest either we complete too little by hurrying, or wander too long in completing it - Tertullian
I am already looking forward to 2012 hoping it will be a fruitful year!


Picture: Medical College Admission Test (MCAT)

4 comments:

  1. It's important to take practice questions under timed conditions, so it's good that you're doing that. I had a similar set of difficulties, but it was mostly because I was really weak on the biology content. I found that it was taking me ages to get through sections on physiology and biochemistry because I wasn't actually reviewing material - I was learning it for the first time.

    I decided to postpone the exam until next summer and am 100% sure that it was the right decision for me. I'm taking physiology and biochemistry this year and should hopefully have all the holes filled in between now and next summer when I start getting ready for the exam.

    Best of luck to you!

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  2. Hi Medschoolodyssey,

    I followed your blog very closely this summer. I found your MCAT posts very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience.

    I was hoping mastering the basics (i.e General biology, Organic Chemistry, College Physics and General Chemistry) will be enough for the MCAT. I can see how mastering higher level courses (i.e physiology, biochemistry, ...) can help in combating the time constraint. That is something to consider.

    By the way, I loved the idea of using USMLE review questions to study for your physiology exam.

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  3. 2012 WILL be a grand year for both of us :)

    MCAT be warned, we will conquer and divide, master it, and move our blogs to Medschool leaving, pre-med behind.

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  4. Hi Adoc2be,

    What a surprise! Thanks for visiting. Yes, we will have to conquer the beast called the MCAT.

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