been out of school couple of years now but have a science degree. kindly share your sucess story/reviews/recommendations about practice books,classes and or sessions(kaplan vs priceton vs gold standard)
thanks in advance
thanks in advance
how did you ace MCAT?
- Thread starter Nilesor
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take practice tests! I took most of the aamc ones in a month between my first test and my retake...
I took the mcat without taking any practice tests and did pretty bad (25)
Then I took 6 practice aamc official tests over 1 month and didn't really do any more content review and jumped 8 points (33).
While that isn't the best score, that 8 point increase was in just 1 month and due to practice tests.
If I could go back in time and tell myself how to study, I would have acquired even more practice tests and combined content review with like 15 practice tests over about a 4 month period.
Also, I would recommend getting some verbal practice books and doing some passages every or every other day (so when you go a week or so between practice tests, you're still working on verbal inbetween)
I took the mcat without taking any practice tests and did pretty bad (25)
Then I took 6 practice aamc official tests over 1 month and didn't really do any more content review and jumped 8 points (33).
While that isn't the best score, that 8 point increase was in just 1 month and due to practice tests.
If I could go back in time and tell myself how to study, I would have acquired even more practice tests and combined content review with like 15 practice tests over about a 4 month period.
Also, I would recommend getting some verbal practice books and doing some passages every or every other day (so when you go a week or so between practice tests, you're still working on verbal inbetween)
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I aced my MCAT by learning to read and write properly.
I took the September 10th MCAT last month and I ended up getting a 38S (12PS/11V/15BS). What I think helped me the most was taking the AAMC practice tests (all of them) timed and under testing conditions (as close as you can come to that..)
In all of the practice tests verbal was my weakest subject so I ordered the 101 verbal passages from EK and I did all of them. Some were good, others not so much. Overall I feel like it helped to boost my confidence.
What really started getting my scores up though was taking the real practice tests from AAMC and learning HOW TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES in passages. MCAT ace-ing is not just about knowing the material cold, it's also about knowing how the MCAT exam writers like to ask questions.
By the time I finished taking all of the practice tests I could pretty much guess what questions were going to follow each passage just by skimming through the passage. This helped me because when I actually went to look at the questions after finishing the passage I wasn't shocked and I didn't get caught in a nervous slump.
Another I would suggest is to try hard NOT to get caught up in the details of a passage. If you get a chemistry or physics passage that is talking about a big multi-step reaction or describing the layout of a nuclear power plant don't freak out and try to memorize all of the details of the reactions or the plant design. Try to think broadly and guess what concepts the MCAT exam writers are trying to target by putting together this elaborate passage. Usually the concepts being tested are very simple in comparison to the passage. This is how they intimidate people.
In all of the practice tests verbal was my weakest subject so I ordered the 101 verbal passages from EK and I did all of them. Some were good, others not so much. Overall I feel like it helped to boost my confidence.
What really started getting my scores up though was taking the real practice tests from AAMC and learning HOW TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES in passages. MCAT ace-ing is not just about knowing the material cold, it's also about knowing how the MCAT exam writers like to ask questions.
By the time I finished taking all of the practice tests I could pretty much guess what questions were going to follow each passage just by skimming through the passage. This helped me because when I actually went to look at the questions after finishing the passage I wasn't shocked and I didn't get caught in a nervous slump.
Another I would suggest is to try hard NOT to get caught up in the details of a passage. If you get a chemistry or physics passage that is talking about a big multi-step reaction or describing the layout of a nuclear power plant don't freak out and try to memorize all of the details of the reactions or the plant design. Try to think broadly and guess what concepts the MCAT exam writers are trying to target by putting together this elaborate passage. Usually the concepts being tested are very simple in comparison to the passage. This is how they intimidate people.
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