5 Most Critical Factors That Determine Your MDCAT Score

5 Most Critical Factors That Determine Your MDCAT Score

There are a lot of things that go into your MDCAT Preparation; How you study, what you study, how you practice, how much you practice, from where do you practice, how strong your concepts are, and perhaps "millions" of other things. However, in this blog, we aim to come up with 5 MOST CRITICAL things you must have a vigilant eye on while preparing. Taking care of these things will not only help you prepare in the right direction but also help boost your confidence on the MDCAT Exam Day. 

1. Biology score: Biology is the MOST extensive portion of MDCAT. With 88 multiple choice questions, this part of the test is most important for determining your score. Not just that, if you have learned your textbook well enough; most of the questions in this portion are merely textbook lines so it’s comparatively easier to score in this portion. Try to get maximum questions correct in this portion because the questions are mostly very easy. For example:

Q. In humans, the closed sac which surrounds the heart is called (2016 MDCAT)

A. Endocardium

B. Myocardium

C. Pericardium

D. Epicardium

2. Your FSc preparation: If you have worked hard enough during your FSc days, MDCAT is going to be very easy for you. You must have heard a lot of times that your textbooks should be your priority for MDCAT preparation, which is true. So, if you've been a good student during FSc, it should not be tough for you to score well in MDCAT.

3. Your grip on calculations: Since calculator is not allowed in MDCAT and physics portion of the test has alot of numericals based multiple choice questions, so its extremely important that you have a grip on basic calculations. If you aren't good with calculations, it's likely that you are going to lose alot of marks in these numerical based questions. So right in the beginning, start working on your calulcations and STOP using calculator.

Calculations like following should be on your fingertips:

A.      sine (sin) , cosine(cos) and tangent (tan) functions

B.      Converting decimals into 'raised to the power' type numbers. 

Eg

0.00008 × 1/10000

= 8× 10^-5 × 1/10⁴

= 8× 10^-5 × 10^-4

= 8 × 10^-9

C.  Simple multiplication and divisions like  10 × 0.5 = 5

Or 10/0.5 = 20 (anything multiplied by 0.5 becomes half and anything divided by 0.5 becomes double)

D. Calculations like 

Q. 10^-5.5 × 10^-4.5

= 10 (-5.5) + (-4.5)

= 10^-10    

AND  

Q. 10^-5.5 ÷  10^-4.5

= 10^{(-5.5) - (-4.5)}

= 10^-1

4. Time management: The way you calm your nerves on the exam day and manage time effectively during the test, plays an extremely important role in your MDCAT score.

A. Do not spend more than 1 minute on a single question, right at the start of the exam. There are and there always be such questions in every exam that you can not just solve in the expected amount of time. You should be able to identify these questions and let go of them instead of spending 2,3 minutes to solve them. Instead, you can solve like 4,5 other questions in the same amount of time which are a bit easier and save such complicated questions 'FOR THE END'.

B. Try to solve the easy questions that you know confirm answer of, in less than 40 seconds and try to save time for the more difficult and time-consuming questions.

5. Elimination of options: Instead of viewing at all the answers to a question as possible options, take a look at them with an extremely critical eye. Try to find reasons to cross out answers that don’t make sense. This is a big help, especially in the English portion where the options are very lengthy and instead of reading all the options separately, it is better to compare all the options word by word and eliminating the wrong ones. For example:

Q. (MDCAT 2016)

A. With the bright light, still in her eyes, she moved quick out of the door.

B. With the bright light, still in her eyes, she moved quick out to the door.

C. With the bright light, still in her eyes, she moved quickly out to the door.

D. With the bright light, still in her eyes, she moved quickly out of the door.

Here, instead of reading all the options separately, by giving an overall look to the options, you’ll see that all the options are the same till ‘With the bright light, still in her eyes, she moved’, the difference is either in ‘quickly/quick’ or ‘out of/out to’. In this way you’ll be able to solve such type of questions in very little time.

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