Did Well in Some but Not in Other Sections

[Tetines of Paris]

Hey everyone!

I've been trying to figure something out for a while and I'm sort of stuck how to proceed.

I took the MCAT in September and did okay in Bio and CRA (over 70%). However, my Physics/Chem & Social Sciences were very low (below 50%). I had an older large MCAT review book (covered all science parts) and I used the AMCAS outline of what was gonna be covered. I also used textbooks from college.

The social sciences I think I simply didn't study enough. I remember as I was taking the test I didn't recognize some concepts/terms. So fine, I'll do Khan Academy videos & questions, and take another crack at my textbooks.

However, Physics/Chem, I'm not sure. I remember the questions did give me some WTF? moments, and I wasn't sure how to make the connections to what I had learned.

I'm gonna retake it. Whatever I did worked decently for Bio & CRA. Should I just do more practice questions for Physics/Chem? Should I get a practice book specifically for Physics/Chem? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!

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[NextStepTutor_3]

I would definitely get an MCAT prep book (or two) for physics and chem, specifically one that's geared for the new MCAT. Some of those older "all-in-one" prep books just aren't representative of the test, or they miss a lot of info. Plus, it's best to know exactly what to expect, and the new exam has a very distinct "feel" in comparison to the old one.

Studying with textbooks / the AAMC outline is risky too, mainly because you'll end up going into way more depth than is necessary. It's never bad to know too much, but if you practice physics using a college physics textbook, you'll get used to problems that are far more calculation-heavy and less reasoning-based than you should be practicing. Or you'll wind up memorizing large amounts of info that you don't need to know. And the outline (sadly) isn't as helpful as one would like, as there's no indication of which topics are higher-yield than others. Some topics on the outline (like "buffers" or "the common ion effect") could take days to understand thoroughly, while for others, knowing one sentence about them is sufficient for the MCAT. An up-to-date prep book will save you tons of time.

Finally, you never mentioned practice tests! No matter what, it's incredibly important to include these in your prep. They're how you can "bridge the gap" between the content you're learning, no matter the source, and the way it could be presented on the official test. I firmly believe that you could do 500 discrete practice questions for chem or physics and get less out of it than from carefully reviewing one C/P section of a good full-length test.

Good luck!

 

[PassEdge]

Usually, CARS is the toughest to improve and PS is one of the easier sections. I would review using EK if you're time strapped and TBR if you're not. Also get good at quantitative questions, and estimating the right answer (because you don't have a calculator on the real test).

 

[Tetines of Paris]

I would definitely get an MCAT prep book (or two) for physics and chem, specifically one that's geared for the new MCAT. Some of those older "all-in-one" prep books just aren't representative of the test, or they miss a lot of info. Plus, it's best to know exactly what to expect, and the new exam has a very distinct "feel" in comparison to the old one.

Studying with textbooks / the AAMC outline is risky too, mainly because you'll end up going into way more depth than is necessary. It's never bad to know too much, but if you practice physics using a college physics textbook, you'll get used to problems that are far more calculation-heavy and less reasoning-based than you should be practicing. Or you'll wind up memorizing large amounts of info that you don't need to know. And the outline (sadly) isn't as helpful as one would like, as there's no indication of which topics are higher-yield than others. Some topics on the outline (like "buffers" or "the common ion effect") could take days to understand thoroughly, while for others, knowing one sentence about them is sufficient for the MCAT. An up-to-date prep book will save you tons of time.

Finally, you never mentioned practice tests! No matter what, it's incredibly important to include these in your prep. They're how you can "bridge the gap" between the content you're learning, no matter the source, and the way it could be presented on the official test. I firmly believe that you could do 500 discrete practice questions for chem or physics and get less out of it than from carefully reviewing one C/P section of a good full-length test.

Good luck!

Thank you so much for your reply! Yea, physics was always a tougher subject for me in school so I think college textbooks for the MCAT won't help. You're right. Yea, I bought a book with full length practice tests but I am thinking about getting Exam Krackers for Physics & Chem review (and maybe their questions on C/P) too.

Oh, I had forgotten to mention that I did Khan Academy practice tests online for physics (social sciences and bio) but there were some questions that I literally had NO idea, despite my efforts, how they related to the topic of magnetism (I remember the question was about MRIs...). What do you think?

 

[Tetines of Paris]

Usually, CARS is the toughest to improve and PS is one of the easier sections. I would review using EK if you're time strapped and TBR if you're not. Also get good at quantitative questions, and estimating the right answer (because you don't have a calculator on the real test).

I was surprised at PS because I had done well in Sociology in college & reviewed my notes, but I saw that my class wasn't as "methodically" as I would've liked for the MCAT.

I plan on getting Exam Krackers for Physics and using Khan Academy for PS. You think this is okay?

 

[NextStepTutor_3]

Thank you so much for your reply! Yea, physics was always a tougher subject for me in school so I think college textbooks for the MCAT won't help. You're right. Yea, I bought a book with full length practice tests but I am thinking about getting Exam Krackers for Physics & Chem review (and maybe their questions on C/P) too.

Oh, I had forgotten to mention that I did Khan Academy practice tests online for physics (social sciences and bio) but there were some questions that I literally had NO idea, despite my efforts, how they related to the topic of magnetism (I remember the question was about MRIs...). What do you think?

KA is famous for having weird physics practice (as in, some questions are randomly really hard). But part of your problem is likely the fact that the MCAT is really good at overlapping subjects. That's the other problem with studying textbooks - you can spend days on magnetism and really master it, even to the point where you'd ace a college test, but you're still ONLY studying magnetism. On an MCAT passage, the questions are often going to bring in other concepts (centripetal force, radioactive decay...basically, whatever they can possibly relate to MRIs), and you might not know what to do.

The solution really is to take full-length tests and analyze them as much as possible. As for your idea of getting EK for physics, I'm strongly in favor. EK is known for giving a more surface-level approach to the content (less detail), but they do a good job of relating different topics. At this point, I think you'd benefit from that more than a really intense, more "textbook-like" resource like TBR.