How I studied for a 526

[james11]

This forum was super helpful so I figured I should pay it back and share how I got the score I did. I got really lucky but I do think that this review schedule was pretty instrumental and so I’m sharing it here. It was based off of this approach so huge shout out to @smtrinidad. Basically I had the summer to review so I wrote up a 13 week schedule: content review (ExamKrackers) followed by 10 full length tests.

Materials:

AAMC Official Guide to the MCAT — Has an outline of topics and then a half length official practice test that I used as a diagnostic. The outline is good to look at towards the end and figure out what you still feel hazy on.

Exam Krackers MCAT 2015 complete set — Content review. I think EK was great about only including what you need to know, and nothing more. Kaplan/TPR is more exhaustive but it’s diminishing returns. Plus the 30 minute exams for each chapter in EK are really on point. Fully recommend

TPR Psych/Soc — There are an infinite # of terms that can be tested on this damn section so it doesn’t hurt to have a second perspective especially because EK is pretty brief on these subjects. Plus gives you 3 practice tests (although can get them free by looking up ISBN)

Next Step Strategy & Practice complete set — Equivalent to about 4 full lengths worth of passages. Bought it so I could do some passages in the early weeks. Honestly the quality is pretty hit or miss so can’t fully recommend but doing more passages can never hurt you. One week I’d do all the Test 1s, then Test 2s etc

AAMC Q-packs — basically repurposed questions from the old exam, and a bit easier than the real thing, but u gotta take all the official practice material you can get

EK 101 Verbal Passages — I bought this for extra verbal practice but frankly was unimpressed with the quality of the questions and only did about a third of it.

Full lengths: 1 official AAMC (took as FL#2, at T minus one month), 3 Next Step (pretty good), 3 TPR (way harder than real thing) 3 EK (harder than real thing but pretty good). All company practice tests are harder than the official one and the real deal so don’t get too scared by your scores.

Notes and reflections:

1. Schedule is attached and should be pretty self explanatory. It’s definitely worth making a schedule because when you inevitably slack off on one day, you feel like you need to catch up and stay on track the next day.

2. If you’re stressed for time, doing practice passages and full lengths is way more useful than doing exhaustive content review. Just remember you need to spend time on every single missed question for this to be at all worthwhile.

3. Definitely give yourself a rest day every week. It doesn’t always have to be Sunday or whatever, it’s just nice having a buffer day because inevitably you fall behind.

4. Ideally especially in the earlier weeks you’re only spending a few hours a day on this stuff. If you let the MCAT become your life it absolutely will and burnout is way more dangerous than knowing a few fewer obscure sociological theories.

5. Anki is absolutely crucial. To the uninitiated, it’s a flashcard app that uses an algorithm to space out your review so as to maximize the amount of info you can have memorized. Anytime I was going through a chapter and saw some fact I straight up did not know, I’d put it in my Anki deck. Also would do this for practice questions I missed, if I was missing the underlying fact. The key is to buy the iphone app ($20 but so worth it) and review whenever you’re just sitting around because you need to use this every day for it to work. But it works so well, by MCAT day I had 600 cards in my deck, so that’s 600 facts I didn’t know going into the summer that I knew cold for the MCAT.

6. Sleep schedule is huge, I knew I was gonna wake up at 6 on test day so I slept at 10 and woke at 6 for at least a week beforehand.

7. Give yourself plenty of personal time, mental health and stability cannot be overvalued. For me the main outlets were music, running, reading, and drinking with friends/family... ymmv

8. One size does not fit all, you need to modify to fit your schedule etc, and probably don’t need to spend as much time studying as I did, but this approach worked for me. Good luck friends

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[cjcarter]

Thanks for sharing! Congrats on the amazing score.

 

[Chromie12]

Hey Congrats on the AMAZING SCORE!! But I'm still a little confused by the pass...so by "first pass" for chapter 1, does it mean going over all chapter 1 in all 5 books (for each subjects) in one day? What if I'm using TPR? Is it okay if I just change EK with TPR? I never heard about NS before...what's your opinion on this test prep sets? Thank you so much!

 

[james11]

Yes first pass ch 1 does mean go over all five Chapter 1s. However I would split this over two days, doing two one day and three the next day. Hope that clears things up

 

[040111333]

5. Anki is absolutely crucial. To the uninitiated, it’s a flashcard app that uses an algorithm to space out your review so as to maximize the amount of info you can have memorized. Anytime I was going through a chapter and saw some fact I straight up did not know, I’d put it in my Anki deck. Also would do this for practice questions I missed, if I was missing the underlying fact. The key is to buy the iphone app ($20 but so worth it) and review whenever you’re just sitting around because you need to use this every day for it to work. But it works so well, by MCAT day I had 600 cards in my deck, so that’s 600 facts I didn’t know going into the summer that I knew cold for the MCAT.

Thanks for the info! Do you think it's okay to use quizlet in place of Anki?

 

[BTR1208]

Awesome I may do this exact study guide! Is there anyway you could share your anki deck?

 

[nomdeplume1234]

5. Anki is absolutely crucial. To the uninitiated, it’s a flashcard app that uses an algorithm to space out your review so as to maximize the amount of info you can have memorized. Anytime I was going through a chapter and saw some fact I straight up did not know, I’d put it in my Anki deck. Also would do this for practice questions I missed, if I was missing the underlying fact. The key is to buy the iphone app ($20 but so worth it) and review whenever you’re just sitting around because you need to use this every day for it to work. But it works so well, by MCAT day I had 600 cards in my deck, so that’s 600 facts I didn’t know going into the summer that I knew cold for the MCAT.

Can you give an example of how you would format some of your Anki questions? Did you use the (cloze?) feature or recall? What would one of your flashcards look like? I think if I were to start I would get bogged down in the details and have like 6000 cards for one chapter alone. How do you figure out what is important and what is not important.... when everything is ultimately important?

 

[Gurby]

You're a hero, thank you.

 

[Jack Westin]

@james11 your advice is so good! I definitely think every student who is serious about improving to take 1-7 into account.

 

[james11]

Glad I could be a bit helpful guys.

Thanks for the info! Do you think it's okay to use quizlet in place of Anki?

Yeah I mean obviously quizlet is a great free option. What I like about Anki is the algorithmic review (maximizes efficiency) and also having it on your phone although I guess quizlet must have a phone app (I haven't used it in forever).

Awesome I may do this exact study guide! Is there anyway you could share your anki deck?

Can you give an example of how you would format some of your Anki questions? Did you use the (cloze?) feature or recall? What would one of your flashcards look like? I think if I were to start I would get bogged down in the details and have like 6000 cards for one chapter alone. How do you figure out what is important and what is not important.... when everything is ultimately important?

So the key with my anki deck is that I would only put details I was completely unfamiliar with. I think every detail in Exam Krackers is generally "important" in that it could show up on a question but that isn't to say you need to have the entire book memorized. So I'm not gonna share my deck because it's not really representative of a good MCAT deck; it's very personalized in that it only focuses on terms that I was totally unacquainted with from my premed classes. I used cloze for almost everything. I attached a couple examples of cards I made.

 

[curry88]

I'm selling the complete TBR Berkeley MCAT classroom handouts and notes. ($250) you can only get these notes from taking the prep class.

 

[nomdeplume1234]

Glad I could be a bit helpful guys.



Yeah I mean obviously quizlet is a great free option. What I like about Anki is the algorithmic review (maximizes efficiency) and also having it on your phone although I guess quizlet must have a phone app (I haven't used it in forever).





So the key with my anki deck is that I would only put details I was completely unfamiliar with. I think every detail in Exam Krackers is generally "important" in that it could show up on a question but that isn't to say you need to have the entire book memorized. So I'm not gonna share my deck because it's not really representative of a good MCAT deck; it's very personalized in that it only focuses on terms that I was totally unacquainted with from my premed classes. I used cloze for almost everything. I attached a couple examples of cards I made.

can you tell me how you got the formatting correct? did you screenshot stuff or is there a way you could easily type in K+ so the + is superscripted?

 

[drink02]

do you feel like EK biochem was enough for content?

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

Glad to read about another Anki lover. We integrated Anki into our program several years ago and try to insist that all student use it. Here are some important things we've learned about notecards everyone can benefit from...and yes, you should do Anki, not quizlet or any other app. Anki isn't just a software for flashcards, it systematically utilizes the principle of spaced repetition to deliver the best cards to you at the best moment...about when you are likely to forget them. Reviewing a regular deck of cards presents the information TOO frequently in most cases, and then when the student remembers the card well they set it aside...and then it gets reviewed too INFREQUENTLY and they forget it. This cool little app does the thinking for you by tracking not only your correct answers and spacing, but how well you knew the answer each time. Must have. However, consider the following caveats:

1. Notecards BREED a "memorization focus" and that's not what you should be focusing on for the MCAT. To avoid this, write notecards that are conceptual in nature and require you to do active thinking in a critical way. You can include a few equations or Psych-Soc terms in your deck, but MOST of your deck should be notecards that are conceptual in nature.

2. Think of Anki as a way of keeping track of newly understood concepts so that you do not lose track of them and forget them--and by so doing make your study of that topic nearly worthless. Think of it as accountability to yourself that once you've invested the time required to finally understand a concept you aren't going to let yourself lose track of it. You are going to put it onto a notecard. So very often, students have an "aha" moment, go home understanding something new, but a few weeks or months later they don't remember what they "aha"-ed about--its gone. If every time you learn something you get it into Anki, that won't happen (assuming you regularly keep up with your deck).

3. A good Anki notecard prompts you to THINK in the way you just learned to think. OR it requires you to APPLY the new information you just learned. It should be 1) active recall and 2) conceptual. So, instead of putting on a notecard: FRONT: What is the ideal gas law? BACK: PV=nRT , you might put something like: "Which equation can best be used to demonstrate that pressure and volume are inversely related during lung expansion and contraction?" You also don't have to write just one card. If you suddenly feel like PV=nRT makes more sense than it ever has before, come up with 2-3 Anki cards that test those newly formed concepts.

4.Don't ask for "other people's decks." I get that as premeds we are all looking to maximize our efficiency in prepping for this exam, but it is in the MAKING of the notecards themselves, AFTER you have discovered or figured out something new, where powerful LEARNING occurs. If you went through all of the OPs notecards you would have a very false sense of security. HE DID THE WORK, not you. Those cards represent his aha moments not yours. Going through them will do very little for you. Pay the piper and make your own personalized set!

Have fun with Anki. Great app. But keep it conceptual!

 

[Dr. Cyanide]

Hey James, I really like your schedule and how you incorporated taking tests earlier so you can get use to the format of the tests.
I have several questions to ask:
1. Did you use the EK psych and soc book at all? Or did you only study the TPR psych and soc book for that week indicated in your schedule?
2. Did you do any passages after reading each chapter like BR passages?
3. Do you usually use your anki cards a day or so after you create some cards or do you wait a week?

Thank you so much for your time !

 

[Raininleuf]

your study plan does not incorporate your determination. that helps!!

 

[james11]

@Dr. Cyanide

1. Did you use the EK psych and soc book at all? Or did you only study the TPR psych and soc book for that week indicated in your schedule?

yep, I used it right along with all the other EK books, so when it says Chapter 1 I'd be going through P/S as well as chem etc


2. Did you do any passages after reading each chapter like BR passages?

Well, I did the EK 30 minute tests on my 2nd pass days. So on my second day of working through an EK chapter, after reading it through and reviewing my notes, I'd take the 30 minute quiz. Never used any BR stuff although I've heard it's high quality. The more passages the merrier right? Another source of passages was the Next Step books but honestly I didn't love the quality of those so you could sub out those days for BR or something else

3. Do you usually use your anki cards a day or so after you create some cards or do you wait a week?

Anki has its own formulas about when it shows you your cards but i'd basically be adding cards every day and reviewing every day through the 40-50 cards it'd serve for for me to review.

 

[Dr. Cyanide]

@james11
Thank you very much! this whole time I thought it was the 5 EK books minus psychology and sociology (so the cars book instead hahaah)
Well, I am taking my test in January so ill be looking forward to the EtOH.

 

[babyelephant]

Can you upload your anki deck? I want to go thro them and add what I don't know of it to my deck!

I want your pokemon card

 

[Life2dmax]

Can you upload your anki deck? I want to go thro them and add what I don't know of it to my deck!

I want your pokemon card

Its already been stated above that it's better to review and make your own cards as it's part of the learning process

@OP did you use multiple decks? It sounds like you just had a huge 600 card anki deck. I'm not familiar with this program so would it be better to make anki decks on each topic that you're not familiar with or just one big deck?

 

[james11]

Its already been stated above that it's better to review and make your own cards as it's part of the learning process

@OP did you use multiple decks? It sounds like you just had a huge 600 card anki deck. I'm not familiar with this program so would it be better to make anki decks on each topic that you're not familiar with or just one big deck?

I just used one big deck because I liked my review sessions to be totally mixed up -- physics question followed by psych followed by biochem. I guess you could do it either way really

 

[pre_med03]

the examkracker comes with a total of 6 books, for your schedule are you not using the reasoning skills book?

 

[james11]

the examkracker comes with a total of 6 books, for your schedule are you not using the reasoning skills book?

Good catch, yes I was just using the other 5. I thik I went through the reasoning skills book in a day somewhere towards the middle/end of the schedule but it didn't really seem like "content review" per se so I didn't include it in the first round of review

 

[CDS15]

Congrats on your score man! I have a few questions that I think are pretty general, but could help me apply your schedule and advice better.

When you are reviewing a section, do you take the time to make an outline of the information, or do you read it and try and absorb it as is? I'm asking this because I believe I have dug myself into the nasty habit of outlining nearly EVERY section of the test, and I believe this is completely inefficient. However, this is generally how I studied for exams in college and high school beforehand, so I'm not sure if I even know another strategy to proceed with.

Do you have any advice regarding this? Anyone is welcome to reply of course, and I could really use the help!

 

[BDJWalkers]

Hey, I really want to start studying and the AAMC recommends that I should take a practice test to see how I do,did you take a practice test first to examine your weaknesses and if so, are there free practice test out there? Also, Congratulations.

 

[james11]

Congrats on your score man! I have a few questions that I think are pretty general, but could help me apply your schedule and advice better.

When you are reviewing a section, do you take the time to make an outline of the information, or do you read it and try and absorb it as is? I'm asking this because I believe I have dug myself into the nasty habit of outlining nearly EVERY section of the test, and I believe this is completely inefficient. However, this is generally how I studied for exams in college and high school beforehand, so I'm not sure if I even know another strategy to proceed with.

Do you have any advice regarding this? Anyone is welcome to reply of course, and I could really use the help!

So the first time I read a book chapter I just read it through. Simply read it and engage with the information. Then I take notes, and it's not a full outline of the chapter. I only write down things that I didn't know coming in (or had learned before but was still kind of shaky on them). so they were compressed notes.

This system won't work for everyone or even anyone but me. Instead I recommend everyone takes the pieces from this that look good, looks at other study systems and makes their own that fits their own personal study habits. That's what I did to create this. So if you study for every exam by taking outlines, yes that takes a lot of time, but it may be worthwhile if that's the best way you personally learn.

Hey, I really want to start studying and the AAMC recommends that I should take a practice test to see how I do,did you take a practice test first to examine your weaknesses and if so, are there free practice test out there? Also, Congratulations.

Thanks and good question, yes I did take a diagnostic. What I did was take all the passages in the AAMC Official GUide to the 2015 MCAT. THis works out to a half-length diagnostic test and since it's official you know you're getting a good look at what you're getting yourself into.

 

[Necr0sis713]

Do you have any tips for CARS? I'm getting my ass sliced and diced and served to me on a nice, shiny silver platter whenever I do it.

 

[BDJWalkers]

So the first time I read a book chapter I just read it through. Simply read it and engage with the information. Then I take notes, and it's not a full outline of the chapter. I only write down things that I didn't know coming in (or had learned before but was still kind of shaky on them). so they were compressed notes.

This system won't work for everyone or even anyone but me. Instead I recommend everyone takes the pieces from this that look good, looks at other study systems and makes their own that fits their own personal study habits. That's what I did to create this. So if you study for every exam by taking outlines, yes that takes a lot of time, but it may be worthwhile if that's the best way you personally learn.



Thanks and good question, yes I did take a diagnostic. What I did was take all the passages in the AAMC Official GUide to the 2015 MCAT. THis works out to a half-length diagnostic test and since it's official you know you're getting a good look at what you're getting yourself into.

 

[BDJWalkers]

I noticed that you said you took half length official practice test from the AAMC official guide for diagnostic. I will be taking the MCAT in 2017 of my junior year, but I will be studying now. Do you think its a good idea for me to buy the 2015 guide to take diagnostics or should I wait for the 2016 guide, or just start studying without doing the official diagnostic with half length test.

 

[GEToutLADYits6AM]

How much do you think knowing the information is the battle on this test? 50%?
I feel like outside information does not help that much

 

[eoan]

Can anyone verify if these are the correct versions of the materials he mentioned? If you have better versions, please let me know!
AAMC Official Guide to the MCAT
Exam Krackers MCAT 2015 complete set
TPR Psych/Soc
Next Step Strategy & Practice complete set
AAMC Q-packs
EK 101 Verbal Passages
Full Lengths - practice tests from all of the above?

 

[Life2dmax]

Also question: On ur doc u say ch1-6....and I think its written somewhere that you did all of the EK books for that chapter. However, some books have more/less fewer chapters? How did that work?


Also: what are NS section tests? Are those like FLs and can they replaced with FLs?

 

[Fdsa2495]

Can anyone verify if these are the correct versions of the materials he mentioned? If you have better versions, please let me know!
AAMC Official Guide to the MCAT
Exam Krackers MCAT 2015 complete set
TPR Psych/Soc
Next Step Strategy & Practice complete set
AAMC Q-packs
EK 101 Verbal Passages
Full Lengths - practice tests from all of the above?

If you haven't already bought these, most of them are on reddit (PDF formats) as torrent files.

 

[Life2dmax]

also it says you only used 1/3 of the verbal EK 101, so what did you do mostly to practice every day?

 

[doctor_wannabe]

Thanks for sharing your schedule! How do you feel about the 30-minutes test after each EK chapter? I read a few reviews that said the passagesquestions aren't good representations of the real thing on the test. What do you think?

 

[james11]

I noticed that you said you took half length official practice test from the AAMC official guide for diagnostic. I will be taking the MCAT in 2017 of my junior year, but I will be studying now. Do you think its a good idea for me to buy the 2015 guide to take diagnostics or should I wait for the 2016 guide, or just start studying without doing the official diagnostic with half length test.

don't think it mattters. I bet the passages will be the same in both editions

How much do you think knowing the information is the battle on this test? 50%?
I feel like outside information does not help that much

Yeah thats about accurate. You want to have been exposed to everything on the outline but don't need to memorize. Test is more about critical thinking, most of the info is in the passages. When in doubt, do more practice tests and less content review

Also question: On ur doc u say ch1-6....and I think its written somewhere that you did all of the EK books for that chapter. However, some books have more/less fewer chapters? How did that work?


Also: what are NS section tests? Are those like FLs and can they replaced with FLs?

Ya I would split it up evenly, so "Chapter 5" might actually mean Chapters 5 and 6 in Chem (which is longer) and nothing from Bio I. I forget. Youre smart you can figure out how to split it up. NS section tests refers to the NS Strategy & Practice books that I used for extra passages in the early weeks

also it says you only used 1/3 of the verbal EK 101, so what did you do mostly to practice every day?

I didn't do much verbal practice (other than pleasure reading), it was one of my stronger sections from day 1

Thanks for sharing your schedule! How do you feel about the 30-minutes test after each EK chapter? I read a few reviews that said the passagesquestions aren't good representations of the real thing on the test. What do you think?

They're pretty good, harder than the real thing but the questions are representative of the more difficult ones you find on the real test. Don't get too discouraged if you score poorly tho because they really are hard. On some of the trickier chapters for me(acid base, electrochem) I got like 13 or 14 / 23... and you know how my score on the real thing ended up

 

[Mer Grey]

This forum was super helpful so I figured I should pay it back and share how I got the score I did. I got really lucky but I do think that this review schedule was pretty instrumental and so I’m sharing it here. It was based off of this approach so huge shout out to @smtrinidad. Basically I had the summer to review so I wrote up a 13 week schedule: content review (ExamKrackers) followed by 10 full length tests.

Materials:

AAMC Official Guide to the MCAT — Has an outline of topics and then a half length official practice test that I used as a diagnostic. The outline is good to look at towards the end and figure out what you still feel hazy on.

Exam Krackers MCAT 2015 complete set — Content review. I think EK was great about only including what you need to know, and nothing more. Kaplan/TPR is more exhaustive but it’s diminishing returns. Plus the 30 minute exams for each chapter in EK are really on point. Fully recommend

TPR Psych/Soc — There are an infinite # of terms that can be tested on this damn section so it doesn’t hurt to have a second perspective especially because EK is pretty brief on these subjects. Plus gives you 3 practice tests (although can get them free by looking up ISBN)

Next Step Strategy & Practice complete set — Equivalent to about 4 full lengths worth of passages. Bought it so I could do some passages in the early weeks. Honestly the quality is pretty hit or miss so can’t fully recommend but doing more passages can never hurt you. One week I’d do all the Test 1s, then Test 2s etc

AAMC Q-packs — basically repurposed questions from the old exam, and a bit easier than the real thing, but u gotta take all the official practice material you can get

EK 101 Verbal Passages — I bought this for extra verbal practice but frankly was unimpressed with the quality of the questions and only did about a third of it.

Full lengths: 1 official AAMC (took as FL#2, at T minus one month), 3 Next Step (pretty good), 3 TPR (way harder than real thing) 3 EK (harder than real thing but pretty good). All company practice tests are harder than the official one and the real deal so don’t get too scared by your scores.

Notes and reflections:

1. Schedule is attached and should be pretty self explanatory. It’s definitely worth making a schedule because when you inevitably slack off on one day, you feel like you need to catch up and stay on track the next day.

2. If you’re stressed for time, doing practice passages and full lengths is way more useful than doing exhaustive content review. Just remember you need to spend time on every single missed question for this to be at all worthwhile.

3. Definitely give yourself a rest day every week. It doesn’t always have to be Sunday or whatever, it’s just nice having a buffer day because inevitably you fall behind.

4. Ideally especially in the earlier weeks you’re only spending a few hours a day on this stuff. If you let the MCAT become your life it absolutely will and burnout is way more dangerous than knowing a few fewer obscure sociological theories.

5. Anki is absolutely crucial. To the uninitiated, it’s a flashcard app that uses an algorithm to space out your review so as to maximize the amount of info you can have memorized. Anytime I was going through a chapter and saw some fact I straight up did not know, I’d put it in my Anki deck. Also would do this for practice questions I missed, if I was missing the underlying fact. The key is to buy the iphone app ($20 but so worth it) and review whenever you’re just sitting around because you need to use this every day for it to work. But it works so well, by MCAT day I had 600 cards in my deck, so that’s 600 facts I didn’t know going into the summer that I knew cold for the MCAT.

6. Sleep schedule is huge, I knew I was gonna wake up at 6 on test day so I slept at 10 and woke at 6 for at least a week beforehand.

7. Give yourself plenty of personal time, mental health and stability cannot be overvalued. For me the main outlets were music, running, reading, and drinking with friends/family... ymmv

8. One size does not fit all, you need to modify to fit your schedule etc, and probably don’t need to spend as much time studying as I did, but this approach worked for me. Good luck friends

Congratulations on a great score!

I want to ask about EXAM Crackers. How many chapters are there? Because I have only MCAT Kaplan Book set 2015 and each book contain 12 chapters. Also, did you have a good foundational knowledge on science in order to score that high? I am really inspired with your achievement! Thank you for sharing!

 

[Hemenway]

This forum was super helpful so I figured I should pay it back and share how I got the score I did. I got really lucky but I do think that this review schedule was pretty instrumental and so I’m sharing it here. It was based off of this approach so huge shout out to @smtrinidad. Basically I had the summer to review so I wrote up a 13 week schedule: content review (ExamKrackers) followed by 10 full length tests.

Materials:

AAMC Official Guide to the MCAT — Has an outline of topics and then a half length official practice test that I used as a diagnostic. The outline is good to look at towards the end and figure out what you still feel hazy on.

Exam Krackers MCAT 2015 complete set — Content review. I think EK was great about only including what you need to know, and nothing more. Kaplan/TPR is more exhaustive but it’s diminishing returns. Plus the 30 minute exams for each chapter in EK are really on point. Fully recommend

TPR Psych/Soc — There are an infinite # of terms that can be tested on this damn section so it doesn’t hurt to have a second perspective especially because EK is pretty brief on these subjects. Plus gives you 3 practice tests (although can get them free by looking up ISBN)

Next Step Strategy & Practice complete set — Equivalent to about 4 full lengths worth of passages. Bought it so I could do some passages in the early weeks. Honestly the quality is pretty hit or miss so can’t fully recommend but doing more passages can never hurt you. One week I’d do all the Test 1s, then Test 2s etc

AAMC Q-packs — basically repurposed questions from the old exam, and a bit easier than the real thing, but u gotta take all the official practice material you can get

EK 101 Verbal Passages — I bought this for extra verbal practice but frankly was unimpressed with the quality of the questions and only did about a third of it.

Full lengths: 1 official AAMC (took as FL#2, at T minus one month), 3 Next Step (pretty good), 3 TPR (way harder than real thing) 3 EK (harder than real thing but pretty good). All company practice tests are harder than the official one and the real deal so don’t get too scared by your scores.

Notes and reflections:

1. Schedule is attached and should be pretty self explanatory. It’s definitely worth making a schedule because when you inevitably slack off on one day, you feel like you need to catch up and stay on track the next day.

2. If you’re stressed for time, doing practice passages and full lengths is way more useful than doing exhaustive content review. Just remember you need to spend time on every single missed question for this to be at all worthwhile.

3. Definitely give yourself a rest day every week. It doesn’t always have to be Sunday or whatever, it’s just nice having a buffer day because inevitably you fall behind.

4. Ideally especially in the earlier weeks you’re only spending a few hours a day on this stuff. If you let the MCAT become your life it absolutely will and burnout is way more dangerous than knowing a few fewer obscure sociological theories.

5. Anki is absolutely crucial. To the uninitiated, it’s a flashcard app that uses an algorithm to space out your review so as to maximize the amount of info you can have memorized. Anytime I was going through a chapter and saw some fact I straight up did not know, I’d put it in my Anki deck. Also would do this for practice questions I missed, if I was missing the underlying fact. The key is to buy the iphone app ($20 but so worth it) and review whenever you’re just sitting around because you need to use this every day for it to work. But it works so well, by MCAT day I had 600 cards in my deck, so that’s 600 facts I didn’t know going into the summer that I knew cold for the MCAT.

6. Sleep schedule is huge, I knew I was gonna wake up at 6 on test day so I slept at 10 and woke at 6 for at least a week beforehand.

7. Give yourself plenty of personal time, mental health and stability cannot be overvalued. For me the main outlets were music, running, reading, and drinking with friends/family... ymmv

8. One size does not fit all, you need to modify to fit your schedule etc, and probably don’t need to spend as much time studying as I did, but this approach worked for me. Good luck friends

Hi James11!

After looking at your study plan, I'm just wondering how many hours per day do you think you spent following this plan? Especially, how long did it take you to cover each 1/2 chapter?

Thanks for the post!

 

[Coltuna]

As a non trad, having taken most of my prereqs 4 years ago, do you think that the concise nature of EK will be enough for content review? I plan on supplementing with BR practice passages.

 

[Horse Apiece]

Hey, thanks for sharing. How did you go about setting up your Anki deck, with intervals and such?

 

[Fdsa2495]

@james11 Did you take time off or did you study with classes?

 

[james11]

Congratulations on a great score!

I want to ask about EXAM Crackers. How many chapters are there? Because I have only MCAT Kaplan Book set 2015 and each book contain 12 chapters. Also, did you have a good foundational knowledge on science in order to score that high? I am really inspired with your achievement! Thank you for sharing!

Ek has 4-7 chapters per book and I distributed them so that it'd be even across the board. Yes the school I attend has really good premed preparation which I had experineced in the past year/two so that was definitely a benefit

Hi James11!

After looking at your study plan, I'm just wondering how many hours per day do you think you spent following this plan? Especially, how long did it take you to cover each 1/2 chapter?

Thanks for the post!

good qustion, in general it was a few hours (say 3-4), i did this over the summer while also shadowing and doing a lil clinical research. The days I did "first pass" it was more of a commitment and took most of the day. Then I still had dinner/later to have wine with the fam and so on (gotta love being at home)

As a non trad, having taken most of my prereqs 4 years ago, do you think that the concise nature of EK will be enough for content review? I plan on supplementing with BR practice passages.

mmm maybe not it's tough. Yes EK was very concise and the reason it worked for me is that I was very recently sitting in all the prereq classes. This schedule def isnt made for nontrads and I'm sorry I can't be more helpful

Hey, thanks for sharing. How did you go about setting up your Anki deck, with intervals and such?

Any time I messed up a question I would put the relevant fact in a flashcard. Never messed with the intervals and just did it every day when I was in th e restroom or standing in line at chipotle etc

@james11 Did you take time off or did you study with classes?

I did this over the summer

 

[jkbray1]

This forum was super helpful so I figured I should pay it back and share how I got the score I did. I got really lucky but I do think that this review schedule was pretty instrumental and so I’m sharing it here. It was based off of this approach so huge shout out to @smtrinidad. Basically I had the summer to review so I wrote up a 13 week schedule: content review (ExamKrackers) followed by 10 full length tests.

Materials:

AAMC Official Guide to the MCAT — Has an outline of topics and then a half length official practice test that I used as a diagnostic. The outline is good to look at towards the end and figure out what you still feel hazy on.

Exam Krackers MCAT 2015 complete set — Content review. I think EK was great about only including what you need to know, and nothing more. Kaplan/TPR is more exhaustive but it’s diminishing returns. Plus the 30 minute exams for each chapter in EK are really on point. Fully recommend

TPR Psych/Soc — There are an infinite # of terms that can be tested on this damn section so it doesn’t hurt to have a second perspective especially because EK is pretty brief on these subjects. Plus gives you 3 practice tests (although can get them free by looking up ISBN)

Next Step Strategy & Practice complete set — Equivalent to about 4 full lengths worth of passages. Bought it so I could do some passages in the early weeks. Honestly the quality is pretty hit or miss so can’t fully recommend but doing more passages can never hurt you. One week I’d do all the Test 1s, then Test 2s etc

AAMC Q-packs — basically repurposed questions from the old exam, and a bit easier than the real thing, but u gotta take all the official practice material you can get

EK 101 Verbal Passages — I bought this for extra verbal practice but frankly was unimpressed with the quality of the questions and only did about a third of it.

Full lengths: 1 official AAMC (took as FL#2, at T minus one month), 3 Next Step (pretty good), 3 TPR (way harder than real thing) 3 EK (harder than real thing but pretty good). All company practice tests are harder than the official one and the real deal so don’t get too scared by your scores.

Notes and reflections:

1. Schedule is attached and should be pretty self explanatory. It’s definitely worth making a schedule because when you inevitably slack off on one day, you feel like you need to catch up and stay on track the next day.

2. If you’re stressed for time, doing practice passages and full lengths is way more useful than doing exhaustive content review. Just remember you need to spend time on every single missed question for this to be at all worthwhile.

3. Definitely give yourself a rest day every week. It doesn’t always have to be Sunday or whatever, it’s just nice having a buffer day because inevitably you fall behind.

4. Ideally especially in the earlier weeks you’re only spending a few hours a day on this stuff. If you let the MCAT become your life it absolutely will and burnout is way more dangerous than knowing a few fewer obscure sociological theories.

5. Anki is absolutely crucial. To the uninitiated, it’s a flashcard app that uses an algorithm to space out your review so as to maximize the amount of info you can have memorized. Anytime I was going through a chapter and saw some fact I straight up did not know, I’d put it in my Anki deck. Also would do this for practice questions I missed, if I was missing the underlying fact. The key is to buy the iphone app ($20 but so worth it) and review whenever you’re just sitting around because you need to use this every day for it to work. But it works so well, by MCAT day I had 600 cards in my deck, so that’s 600 facts I didn’t know going into the summer that I knew cold for the MCAT.

6. Sleep schedule is huge, I knew I was gonna wake up at 6 on test day so I slept at 10 and woke at 6 for at least a week beforehand.

7. Give yourself plenty of personal time, mental health and stability cannot be overvalued. For me the main outlets were music, running, reading, and drinking with friends/family... ymmv

8. One size does not fit all, you need to modify to fit your schedule etc, and probably don’t need to spend as much time studying as I did, but this approach worked for me. Good luck friends

Which tests did you feel were more representative of the real mcat, NS vs. EK? You mentioned both were pretty good. If you had to do it over again and only choose one of them, which would it be and why?

 

[camnewtonthegoat]

Hi James11. Would you mind sharing your practice exam scores for comparison purposes?

 

[james11]

Which tests did you feel were more representative of the real mcat, NS vs. EK? You mentioned both were pretty good. If you had to do it over again and only choose one of them, which would it be and why?

Good question, probably EK because they really make you think in a way that prepares you for the test. Just don't take your scores too literally (see below)

Hi James11. Would you mind sharing your practice exam scores for comparison purposes?

Do an apple F in here

 

[seriousmcattaker]

This forum was super helpful so I figured I should pay it back and share how I got the score I did. I got really lucky but I do think that this review schedule was pretty instrumental and so I’m sharing it here. It was based off of this approach so huge shout out to @smtrinidad. Basically I had the summer to review so I wrote up a 13 week schedule: content review (ExamKrackers) followed by 10 full length tests.

Materials:

AAMC Official Guide to the MCAT — Has an outline of topics and then a half length official practice test that I used as a diagnostic. The outline is good to look at towards the end and figure out what you still feel hazy on.

Exam Krackers MCAT 2015 complete set — Content review. I think EK was great about only including what you need to know, and nothing more. Kaplan/TPR is more exhaustive but it’s diminishing returns. Plus the 30 minute exams for each chapter in EK are really on point. Fully recommend

TPR Psych/Soc — There are an infinite # of terms that can be tested on this damn section so it doesn’t hurt to have a second perspective especially because EK is pretty brief on these subjects. Plus gives you 3 practice tests (although can get them free by looking up ISBN)

Next Step Strategy & Practice complete set — Equivalent to about 4 full lengths worth of passages. Bought it so I could do some passages in the early weeks. Honestly the quality is pretty hit or miss so can’t fully recommend but doing more passages can never hurt you. One week I’d do all the Test 1s, then Test 2s etc

AAMC Q-packs — basically repurposed questions from the old exam, and a bit easier than the real thing, but u gotta take all the official practice material you can get

EK 101 Verbal Passages — I bought this for extra verbal practice but frankly was unimpressed with the quality of the questions and only did about a third of it.

Full lengths: 1 official AAMC (took as FL#2, at T minus one month), 3 Next Step (pretty good), 3 TPR (way harder than real thing) 3 EK (harder than real thing but pretty good). All company practice tests are harder than the official one and the real deal so don’t get too scared by your scores.

Notes and reflections:

1. Schedule is attached and should be pretty self explanatory. It’s definitely worth making a schedule because when you inevitably slack off on one day, you feel like you need to catch up and stay on track the next day.

2. If you’re stressed for time, doing practice passages and full lengths is way more useful than doing exhaustive content review. Just remember you need to spend time on every single missed question for this to be at all worthwhile.

3. Definitely give yourself a rest day every week. It doesn’t always have to be Sunday or whatever, it’s just nice having a buffer day because inevitably you fall behind.

4. Ideally especially in the earlier weeks you’re only spending a few hours a day on this stuff. If you let the MCAT become your life it absolutely will and burnout is way more dangerous than knowing a few fewer obscure sociological theories.

5. Anki is absolutely crucial. To the uninitiated, it’s a flashcard app that uses an algorithm to space out your review so as to maximize the amount of info you can have memorized. Anytime I was going through a chapter and saw some fact I straight up did not know, I’d put it in my Anki deck. Also would do this for practice questions I missed, if I was missing the underlying fact. The key is to buy the iphone app ($20 but so worth it) and review whenever you’re just sitting around because you need to use this every day for it to work. But it works so well, by MCAT day I had 600 cards in my deck, so that’s 600 facts I didn’t know going into the summer that I knew cold for the MCAT.

6. Sleep schedule is huge, I knew I was gonna wake up at 6 on test day so I slept at 10 and woke at 6 for at least a week beforehand.

7. Give yourself plenty of personal time, mental health and stability cannot be overvalued. For me the main outlets were music, running, reading, and drinking with friends/family... ymmv

8. One size does not fit all, you need to modify to fit your schedule etc, and probably don’t need to spend as much time studying as I did, but this approach worked for me. Good luck friends

Hey man. Thank you for the thread. I mostly followed your study plan, and I just learned that I got a 526 (Jan 2016 test: 131/132/132/131). If anyone has any questions, I'm ready to answer. Good luck to everyone who still didn't take the test.

 

[dankmaymay]

Hey man. Thank you for the thread. I mostly followed your study plan, and I just learned that I got a 526 (Jan 2016 test: 131/132/132/131). If anyone has any questions, I'm ready to answer. Good luck to everyone who still didn't take the test.

Were you in school during the time of studying? And if so did you make any modifications to the plan?

 

[roxis]

Congrats on the amazing score!! How long diid you study for the test (how many months)? Thanks

 

[Necr0sis713]

About how many weeks out from my exam do you recommend starting with the section banks?

 

[theonlytycrane]

Hey man. Thank you for the thread. I mostly followed your study plan, and I just learned that I got a 526 (Jan 2016 test: 131/132/132/131). If anyone has any questions, I'm ready to answer. Good luck to everyone who still didn't take the test.

What was your approach for studying psych / soc?