Low First MCAT Practice Exam Score? Why Not To Be Discouraged!

February 2, 2024

minute read

We can still remember the emotions right before taking our first MCAT practice exam. You might be feeling (or have felt) the same way...

On the one hand, you’re excited because you’re ready to put your knowledge to the test! 😃

On the other, you might be nervous because this test determines your starting point and how long and how hard of a journey you might have in front of you… 😬

The unfortunate truth is that
the first MCAT practice test is usually a rude awakening.

You might hear
the MCAT is hard, but you don’t really understand that until you take your first practice exam

Until you actually experience the MCAT for yourself!

It happened to nearly all of us and it happens to almost every student we personally tutor…

Your first practice test score is lower than you expected and you can’t help but feel extremely discouraged 😔

The same thing happened with Mehul Nimpal, one of your mentors here at MCAT Mastery. His first practice test score was 10 points lower than he expected! 

He told himself he didn’t know enough. He thought it was his fault. 

Yet by test day he ended up
scoring a 524 (100th percentile) on the MCAT!

In this video, he explains from his own personal experience how he got his mindset back on track, and why you should NEVER let your first MCAT practice test get you down.

In fact, he expands on how you can use your first practice test to your advantage in
boosting your MCAT score!

More...

First MCAT Practice Exam: How Much Does It Matter?

The most important part of MCAT prep is writing practice exams and doing practice questions. Don’t overthink it! If you get a low score, don’t get discouraged. Instead, try to understand why you may have gotten a lower score.

When you write your first MCAT practice exam, that is really important! If you take a full-length exam in only 2 weeks or 1 month into content review, you most probably won’t do as well as you want to do on the exam. 

You may need to go back and finish the content review before writing another practice test. 

If your first MCAT practice test was a third party exam, remember that they likely purposely deflate their scores. A score you get on a third-party practice test is likely actually lower than the actual score you would have gotten based on your abilities.

Even if you do poorly on an AAMC practice test, remember that the whole point of practice tests is to improve!

If you do poorly on your first practice test, let that motivate you to improve.

Do a thorough review of your practice exam. Look at all of the answer choices, even the ones you understood!

Sometimes the reason you do poorly on a practice test is just because you were having a bad day!

Your Next MCAT Practice Score Increase Depends on Two Factors

Also remember that whether you’re on your first practice test or your fifth, or you’re retaking the actual MCAT, remember that the increase in your next score will depend on two factors…

1. Did you strategically identify the lessons and weaknesses from your previous attempts? 

2. Did you identify the right approach to improve on them? 

It’s not easy to do either of those, which is why we created these self-paced strategy courses and offer one-on-one tutoring...

So we can fast-track you to your
MCAT score goal, and as a result, to your med-school dream 🥼

You got this,

The MedLife Mastery Team
Your MCAT Success Mentors

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Your MCAT Success Mentors

About the Author

We're a team of future doctors passionate about giving back and mentoring other future doctors! All mentors on the team are top MCAT scorers and we all are committed to seeing you succeed in achieving your physician dreams ???? To help you achieve your goal MCAT score, we take turns hosting these Live MCAT Courses and are also available for 1:1 private tutoring!

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