How I studied for a 526

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james11

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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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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.

Congrats on the awesome score! Did you also use Anki? Do you think it would be okay to use quizlet instead or is there something magical about Anki that gets people high scores? :rolleyes:
 
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Were you in school during the time of studying? And if so did you make any modifications to the plan?

I was a full time junior yes. I started studying in early October, and aimed to finish 1 reading of a chapter (1st reading skim over, 2nd read carefully/anki/30 min exam/ 3rd read carefully for anything you miss). I could do all 3 readings for most chapters, but for the last couple ones, I only did 2 readings. I finished any content study by early christmas break, and only took practice exams for a full month until the test day at Jan 23rd. (I took 5 NS, 1EK, 1 AAMC Sample, 1 AAMC scored). For CARS, I used Testing Solutions 30 day success series, and followed it in parallel to EK contents. So I did a lot of CARS practice even before I started the full lengths. I also found EK verbal very useful as a more concise version of the Testing Solution strategies. Don't get discouraged by your CARS scores for any company, I was doing as bad as 60% wrong in Testing Solution verbal tests, and got a perfect score in the actual exam.
 
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What was your approach for studying psych / soc?

I mainly used EK, and I think it does a decent job at covering most of the topics. However it's not enough on its own, as I'd find many concepts/theories in my full length practice exams that are not in the EK book. So during my review of the full lengths, I would go through each question and answer choice, and just google all the terms that I did not recognize immediately. I'd also watch the relevant Khan Academy videos for the terms. I also had the Princeton Review Psych/Soc book, but used it very rarely.
 
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Congrats on the awesome score! Did you also use Anki? Do you think it would be okay to use quizlet instead or is there something magical about Anki that gets people high scores? :rolleyes:

Haha, maybe there is something magical about Anki. I don't know, I didn't use quizlet, so I have no idea.
 
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
 
Hello James! I need your advice guys!!!!

I will take an MCAT on August 25th. I start to do review with Kaplan Books. What will be the best practice to do while doing active content review??? I want to buy Examkrackers EK-Tests® for the MCAT for $50. However, I do not know what kind of questions are there and how to combine content review with Kaplan and practice tests with EK???? Or could you give some other advice???

I think doing AAMC package when 2 month will be left for the real exam. Is it ok???
 
Are the NS exams worth doing or should I just take all four of the EK tests?
 
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@james11 how long did you spend on (both)your pass 1 days, pass 2 days, and pass 3 days? I just made my schedule for the summer after looking at your content review schedule and am trying to get an idea on timeframes for days. Thanks!
 
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Same question as above post!
@james11 how long did you spend on (both)your pass 1 days, pass 2 days, and pass 3 days? I just made my schedule for the summer after looking at your content review schedule and am trying to get an idea on timeframes for days. Thanks!
 
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Reactions: 1 user
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