NS FL1 untimed?

Question

I just took NS FL1 and got a 509 126/127/128/128 but I took it untimed and timed myself using my phone. Here's the breakdown timing-wise C/P took 105 min (10 min over). CARS took 140 min (whopping 50 min over). B/B took 132 min (37 min over). P/S took 85 min (only one I finished on time). I'm sure my score would have been lower if I took it timed. My UWORLD percentages also take a huge hit when working on timing. Has anyone else made gains in the timing/efficiency department? Did I just waste a FL by taking it untimed?

Answer 1

My advice when it comes to taking practice tests, whether it be 3rd party of the practice AAMC ones is to do them under strict timing conditions even though you may feel like you take a huge hit while timed. The reason I say this is because the real test will be timed and they will not give you extra time (unless you have specific disability accommodations) to go back and finish questions that you didn't get to.

Time management is a huge reason why a lot of students struggle with the MCAT and I see that this is most prevalent with the CARS section. I personally was able to improve my CARS score when I was better able to manage my time between reading the passage and the question stem.

Previously, I spent 5-6 minutes reading the passage and 4-5 minutes answering the question stem, but I found myself not having enough time to sift through all of the answers, so when I spent 2.5-4 minutes reading the passage and gave myself at minimum 6-7 minutes to answer the questions (1 minute per question), I found myself improving in that section because I spent more time on the questions.

I would suggest doing small practice passages under strict testing timing conditions, reviewing the mistakes you are making, and keep doing more practice because when you do more practice, you will get faster and timing will be less of an issue.

I hope this helps and if you would like more help, feel free to reach out to me, and I would be happy to help!