I started by reading about the test and printing out a copy of the topics that are tested from the AAMC website. I carefully examined those topics, taking one color (orange) of highlighter to the ones that I was pretty sure that I understood thoroughly. (Basically all the general biology and general chemistry.) I used a different color (yellow) for the ones that I had never studied. That way, as I mastered a topic, I could mark it through with pink and turn it orange like the others that I already knew well.
This became my master list that I consulted throughout my study.
I then took the free test # 3, cold. After I was done, I used my list of topics and assessed each question that I had gotten wrong. What principle or concept was I missing? I also looked at the ones that I had gotten right, to understand if my rationale had been correct. For some, I was right, but for the wrong reasons.
Then I turned to free review materials available online to teach myself about each topic that I had missed. I worked through practice problems and read explanations for a week or two, and then tried the test again. Not surprisingly, given that I had just seen the right answers a couple weeks before, my score the second time was a lot better, unrealistically high. In some cases, I was just remembering the right answer. But given that it is a long test, I couldn't just have memorized all the right answers, and some of the improvement was from real learning. I was more interested in what I got wrong. Those became my topics to really focus on aggressively for a couple more weeks of study before buying the next test.
That was essentially the pattern that I followed for a few months, with practice tests becoming more frequent until I was taking 3-4 per week, sometimes recycling exams I'd taken before, sometimes adding in a new one for a better gauge of how I would perform on the real thing. Taking the tests didn't take nearly as long as pouring over them afterward, evaluating my answers and whether the reason for getting an item wrong had been a knowledge deficit or a failure to identify the real question or just a silly mistake.
In the last week leading up to the test, I watched all of the videos from jcoreview.com at least once each. It was like my full time job that week, watching MCAT review videos 10 hours per day, every day. *EDIT: I think I did actually take a week of vacation time from work to make that happen. It is hard to recall the details of that period of my life, because I had SO much going on at once. Looking back, I just kind of know that it all happened, and I can recall the broad strokes, but it is hard to put them in strict chronological order.
I could see how for most people, that kind of intense schedule of testing and review and testing and review would be really grueling and unpleasant. I think seeing it as a game really helps. I know lots of people who would put in the same amount of time and intense focus in getting Valkorek the Destroyer up to level 43, by finally slaying the Wildebeest of Darkness. And no disrespect to gamers. I'm not dissing on them for their choice of recreation... rather I'm saying that when you make something fun for you, even if it is brutally challenging, it becomes easy and enjoyable to do. For me, slaying the MCAT was like a really intense grinding dungeon crawl. I was in it for the high score, and the stakes didn't matter... not until after it was over and the dust settled.
But it certainly didn't feel that way in the moment.
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