For the future MCATIANs -Fighting your fears by Unsa Athar

When I was youngster of 8^th class, I was not sure which field I really wanted to choose. In our school, only sciences are taught. In 9^th class also, we had no choice between biology and mathematics. We only had biology to study to. Aur jab bachpan mn pocha jata tha k bdey ho k kia bno gai, my answer always was ‘DOCTOR’ even though I had never thought about it.  Scoring good grades has this one short coming, you are expected to become a doctor or an engineerL. After acquiring good marks in Matric, and getting a bit time to think straight, I brooded over it and came to know that Yes, Medicine was my field! So my first advices for all those students of matriculation out there is to think, discuss and decide where they really want to go. Go through proper career counseling after Matriculation. Even If you are in pre-medical right now, take out time to discuss yourself with someone who is already in medicine and make sure you are ready to be a part of that field and your heart feels one with medicine. This year, KEMU arranged an Undergraduate Open Day whose purpose was to introduce students interested in medicine to the challenges faced by a person in this field. Do attend such a seminar. It helps you make your goals clearJ.

Now let’s take a step further. If you are dead sure that Medicine is what you want to waste your life for (just kidding :-P ), start preparing for it right now. The first step toward the preparation is fighting your fears. The students who are serious in studies mostly have a big burden on their mind. Tensions, Depressions, Anxiety, admission ho paey ga ya nahi… L

Our people have a really bad habit of telling tales and creating myths about nearly everything. The Myths about MCAT that I heard were MCAT mein jaan bhooj k fail kr detey hain, MCAT bohaaaaaaat mushkil hota hai, achey achey reh jatey hain, bs docotoru k bachey ho patey hain etc.

But all of them were just myths. It’s just your serious behaviour, sheer hard work and sincere prayers that will make you pass through your MCAT. Nothing else shall contribute.

According to this triangle even if you don’t have a good luck, prayers and hard work can compensate and do wonders J . So now no more complains like yawwr meri to kismet hi khrab hai..!!

So now a word on how to get you prepared for the test during the two years of FSc. The thing you must have repeatedly heard that MCAT comes from the books is ONE HUNDRED AND ONE PERCENT TRUE. The MCQs are from the books of Intermediate Part I and II, but with a bit different wording. The concept is the same you studied in FSc., but it has been rotated and bent in such a way as to mislead you to the wrong answer. So while you are preparing for your FSc. exams, read the book thoroughly, make concepts clear, make MCQs by yourself from the lines and formulae present in book, read the tidbits carefully. Learn information present in book. Do buy some MCQ handbooks like that of Ilmi, Azeem etc and try solving them. This will do you two goods, FSc. preparation and MCAT preparation. Underline important points in the book, scribble extra info told by the teachers in the margins. Especially for the biology section, make sure you have gone through each and every line of the book during the two years. I think two years are enough to do that. If you have prepared for FSc. in such a way, you won’t have much problem in revising things after the board exams. Even if you feel you were unable to revise things properly before the MCAT but you have studied well in FSc., things will come in your mind automatically when you will be solving a MCQ during the entrance test. That’s what happened with me! During the MCAT, things came flowing in my conscious mind from the sub-conscious one by seeing the related MCQs.

 

BIOLOGY PORTION: In this year’s MCAT and mostly all the MCATs, lines from the books are simply taken and MCQs are made from them. For the topic of immunity, UHS made even MCQs like the one stated below:

The Skin and Mucous membrane are …… barriers.

a)     Mechanical  c) Chemical

b)    Physical      d) None of these

This information has been taken from such a line that appears to be unimportant as compared to the whole topic. So be very specific that you have gone through every line of the book during your FSc.

CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS PORTION: I heard that last year’s MCAT had simple book lines for even these portions, but this year there were conceptual questions. Figures of compounds were present in chemistry portion asking for probable products and functional groups etc. Hey, hey, hey, don’t freak out! Those figures were not from Mars! They were simple concepts of reactions present in the very book of chemistry which you memorize like parrots for the board exams. So keep making your concepts clear by asking questions from your teachers if you do not understand something even if you have to appear as a chipku to other students. My friend and I used to ask questions and went to teachers often to clear concepts that kept irritating our minds. And hence we got a name ‘Remoras’ by our fellows because we were always seen surrounding teachers like remoras surround Sharks!(how rude though :P). But When MCAT’s official result came, She and I scored 1049 and 1046 respectively! So our remorapan did not go wasted. (For lahori students: Try to get your hands on the MCQ Notes given by Sir Iqbal Nazir of Physics and Sir Zahid Mehmood of Chemistry from Punjab College and try out solving them. If you practise those MCQs, the MCAT ones will become easier for you. No offence to students who cannot get them L )

ENGLISH PORTION: English potion was aS treat this year, Sentence completion, correction of sentences, spot the error and vocab. were easy enough to be solved within 10-15minutes. You will learn most of the rules in Part II that will also be used in MCAT. In our test, some sentences were random i.e. not from the text and some were lines from the text too. The ones from the text are too easy to solve as FSc. students read, re-read and re-re-read the textual lines during the two years for translation, short questions and other such board questions. Some instances from the MCAT 2012 are stated below which will make you heave a sigh of relief ‘ye to muje atey hain’

Choose the best statement:

a)     Norma felt unreal as the voice informed her of the subway accident

b)    Norma felt unreal while the voice informed her the subway accident

c)     Norma felt unreal becauseS the voice informed her of the subway accident

d)    Norma felt unreal during the voice informed her of the subway accident

    

a)     All his life he longed for a tricycle.

b)    All his life he longed as a tricycle.

c)     All his life he longed with a tricycle.

d)    All his life he longed with a tricycle.

The extra hard work that you will have to do for the MCAT is the 872 UHS vocabulary. Start it the very next day.. ummm okay okay don’t scowl at me.. The very next week of your last board exam. Keep learning and revising them. Make sentences and pictures to memorize them. Try to use them in your everyday bolchaal. Our English teacher, Sir Nadeem Saleem, used to give us a topic to write on by using words from the vocab. Try this. It really helps!  A fortnight or so after MCAT, I remember well those words only that I used in such assignments.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS:

1.     Trust ALLAH always!

2.     Do not miss prayers because of study.

3.     Ask your parents, siblings and teachers to pray for you.

4.     Always ask Allah to do the best for you.

5.     Never let depression and anxiety affect your work.

6.     If you are tensed and have fears regarding things, discuss them with Allah or someone you know is true to you. Do not discuss them with each and every fellow. They will just advertise them.

7.     Keep away from people full of negative energy. If you feel that talking to X will make you more depressed, prevent talking to X!

8.     Do what your heart says. (If it says something good :P)

INSTRUCTIONS TO BE FOLLOWED A MONTH OR SO BEFORE MCAT:

1.     Practice filling the circles with a blue ball point. Some students do not get the marks they estimate because improperly filled circles are not read by the optical machine

2.     If your teachers deliver lectures on things out of the UHS syllabus, do listen to them and understand. But focus and learn only the UHS syllabus things.

3.     During a test session, if there are MCQs out of the UHS syllabus try solving them, attend the discussions and see how are they to be solved. But do not get depressed and make a fuss because of them. When you are in home studying, keep UHS syllabus in mind.

4.     If you feel that taking tests in the last week or last two weeks will help you, do take them. But if you feel you need to read the books in that time, stay at home and read the books.

5.     Do not get over confident if your scores are really good in such tests. Similarly, do not under estimate yourself or get tensed if your score is bad.

Here I am quoting the way three students spent their last three days before MCAT.

DAY 1

A: Taking a test, scoring in 800s, getting tensed

B: Taking a test, scoring in 900s, revising biology part 1

C: Taking no test, sitting in home tired of studying, revising UHS Vocab.

DAY 2

A: Studying all day and night to improve score. No test.

B: Revising biology Part 2. No test

C: Again UHS vocab. No test

DAY 3

A: No test. Studying the remaining things all day.

B: Revising UHS vocab. Taking a test.

C: UHS vocab again :P knowing she simply cannot touch books now.

Interestingly, I know A, B and C (C being me :D )and the all three of them scored 1000+ marks. Therefore it is proved that you should follow the way you are comfortable with instead of bothering what others have done and are doing.

6.     Read instructions given by UHS on the prospectus. Do attend the orientation seminar if possible.

7.     Make Sure you have given tests in the way the real MCAT will be conducted. It will help you cope with the pressure of examination hall if you have gone through it before. Try taking The Agha Khan and Nust test even if you have no preparation because it will make you familiar with the hall pressure.

And one thing more, PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB YOUR FELLOWS BY CALLING AND TEXTING THEM TRILLION TIMES BEACUASE THEY MIGHT BE BUSY. AND DO NOT HURT THEM BY SAYING RUDE THINGS IF THEY FAIL TO REPLY TO YOU. THEY MIGHT BE HAVING A TOUGH TIME JUST LIKE YOU. (*sniff sniff* personal experience L )

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THAT PARTICULAR MCAT DAY: This is it! You can do it. Trust Allah. Be confident. AND NO CHEATING! Asking others and telling others makes you confused, distracts you, makes you mark wrong answers and above all, kaam sei barkat uth jati hai L. I have seen people scoring much less than everyone expected of them because of asking and telling others that day.

And remember:

Naik neyat, sakht mehnat berha paar =)