Saturday I took the first of five full length practice MCATs administered by Kaplan during their course. I thought I'd done badly. I was surprised to find out I scored 9 on each section for a total of 27. That is 2 higher than the diagnostic. This is heartening, especially since the critical thinking/testing strategy instructor has said that typically the 1st full length score will actually be lower than the diagnostic, for many students. We spent an hour last night reviewing 3 physical science passages. Then the critical thinking instructor took over and she lectured on test taking strategies for an hour then we talked about the essays we wrote on Saturday. After reading 6 sample essays we passed our own essays to other students and we graded them. I got 5's for the 1st essay and a four for the second one. I did not give out such good scores.

Yesterday was also the first day of physics. The professor told us that if there was any other way we could possibly take it on the regular schedule, we should. Only repeaters and geniuses should take the summer course. He opined that it would be the toughest course we would take, ever. I don't think so. If I hadn't been to boot camp I would say that ochem was the toughest course I have ever taken. Second semester physics in 5 weeks? I say, Bring it on!!

The other day I was up at the local medical school for a Kaplan MCAT course and noticed there were several life sciences books on a table outside the (closed) bookstore. One of them, Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry and its study guide had been there since the last time I went to class up there. So the next morning I called the bookstore and asked about them, then went and picked them up. I got the biochem books, a cell biology book, a genetics book and something about microbiology. For free!! I promised my wife I would think about throwing them out once we got set to move....right!!

I am slowly making headway against the backlog of busy work on the Kaplan homework checklist. It isn't useless busy work. I call it busy work because it's keeping me too busy. I have even given up my daily running to try and catch up. And physics starts next week. Good times!!