Do I need to review my baseline MCAT now?

[flavortown98]

Basically -- I've been out of college for 2 years now and have to retake my MCAT after not getting in last cycle (my score has expired). I took my baseline MCAT and scored a 495 (124/128/121/122), which I expected, as I have been away from this material for multiple years. I'm taking a Kaplan MCAT review course, and they recommend reviewing my baseline exam in detail now. My question is that, though I know I need to go through this exam eventually, do you think that this is the most productive use of time right now when I really need to content review almost everything? I just worry that trying to go through the whole exam now with large knowledge gaps will be like trying to cover all MCAT topics at once. Thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[lockstitch]

Ignoring the part about the review course first, I would say, if you don’t think it’s going to be a good use of your time then don’t do it. But also, a “review in detail” doesn’t mean you have to study through every topic, more like go through and take stock of what was weak. If it’s everything then fine, but making a list, say, shouldn’t be equated to studying the whole curriculum.

What are you looking for here, though? Permission to tell the Kaplan instructors that you don’t want to review this now? Permission to let yourself off of doing it?

Anyway, all the best! I’ve done the MCAT many years out of school too and posted a bit about what helped me study.

 

[flavortown98]

Ignoring the part about the review course first, I would say, if you don’t think it’s going to be a good use of your time then don’t do it. But also, a “review in detail” doesn’t mean you have to study through every topic, more like go through and take stock of what was weak. If it’s everything then fine, but making a list, say, shouldn’t be equated to studying the whole curriculum.

What are you looking for here, though? Permission to tell the Kaplan instructors that you don’t want to review this now? Permission to let yourself off of doing it?

Anyway, all the best! I’ve done the MCAT many years out of school too and posted a bit about what helped me study.

Thanks! Just looking for opinions -- it doesn't make sense to me to do an in-depth review of the exam right now, but if anyone has strong opinions or reasoning for why I should reconsider, I'm interested in hearing them to make sure I haven't made some oversight in my logic. What you said about glancing through the exam to see which topics I missed makes a lot of sense to me! I'll probably do that and then proceed with the review before going through those questions in detail.

 

[gyngyn]

I took my baseline MCAT and scored a 495 (124/128/121/122), which I expected, as I have been away from this material for multiple years.

When you say baseline MCAT, you are referring to a diagnostic test, right?