Benchmark scores for your MCAT studies
Moderator
🚨Why is it important to have a benchmark score when building your study plan? A lot of students shy away from doing a practice test early in their studies. But here's a few important reasons why you should NOT procrastinate!
- Instead of feeling like you've got an infinite amount of content to review, your practice test can help you target specific areas. You've then changed your studies from vague and directionless to actionable items.
- It helps you plan out your timeline. Knowing your baseline score, and the goal score range for a few schools you'd like to apply to will help you better gauge how long you should be studying for (how many months, how many hours per week)
- The MCAT is a ridiculously long test. Beyond the required content, stamina and time management strategies are a big component of doing well, and there's no better way to know what it's like than simulating an actual MCAT.
- I never really understood why people said knowing content wasn't enough until I sat through my first practice test. Multiple times, I was in a situation where I knew the required facts or details, but I still struggled with answering the question. Application of content is not something you can study from books alone.
Use your benchmark to help you plan out your studies. It's the best tool you can use to make your studies more efficient. To help you out, check out our free full-length practice test below. It's got a cool new feature where some of the hardest passages and questions have a video explanation to help you with your review!
What are some of the takeaways you're generating from your most recent practice? I'll reply back with some suggestions!
Comments
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How much should your score increase from your baseline to your first kaplan full length?
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Hi Julia! We won't really have a metric for score increases, especially at the beginning of your studies. There's just so many different variables that go into a score. In fact, I've advised my students not to really pay attention to the first few FL scores, and while I'd love to see a score increase, that's more a bonus than a requirement. It's also not surprising to see score drops, and that doesn't mean you've regressed or you're doing it wrong.
All that to say, the goal of FLs is not really about assessment, but to help you start putting things together. The content you've been reviewing, the strategies you've been utilizing — all these take multiple opportunities to see what's working, and what needs adjustment. Spend time on the review, and generate those action steps. Repeated cycles of these FL —> review —> action steps is how you progress to your goal score.
What were some of the takeaways you noticed in your recent FL?
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