Preparing for the MCAT is difficult on an emotional level as much as it is on a purely intellectual level. Just as with the rest of the med school application process, my moods oscillate between courageous optimism ( “This isn’t that bad, you’ll get into a bunch of schools” ) and abject despair ( “You’re an idiot and a complete failure, you’ll never get to med school ). Unlike when I study for tests, I seem to have to throw the book away after a while and force myself to do something else, lest I cast myself from the nearest window.
After all, our apartment is only on the second floor, so I’d most likely survive the fall and spend the next several months nursing broken bones—a lousy condition in which to take a standardized test.