How many practice MCATS?

[Hawaiianhost1]

How many practice MCATs are you taking total (counting all AAMC, Kaplan, TPR, TBR, etc)? And how early in your review did you start taking them? I started taking practice tests half-way through my review and got ~25's. I'm wondering when would be the best time to start taking practice tests that would reflect your actual score. Thanks!

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[Drexon]

Well i took a course and I took the suggested practice tests while during the course. I took the tests during the course before I finished my review for two reasons.
1: to ensure i receive the higher score guarentee (this is so that i can have an extension for the online content material)
2: to see how far I am

but i advise against taking a lot of practice tests before you finish your content review. please be weary of this advice. The only reason i say this that people generally spend a lot (yes you'll probably do this too because I did it too) studying for content and not taking practice tests to get use to the format of the test. Even though you are studying for the mcat by studying for content, you're not learning how to apply your knowledge appropriately.

Thus the bottom line of my advice is to finish your content review asap and then focus on the taking practice tests. Also don't take too many practice tests before you're done with content review to save up enough tests to do after you're done with reviewing content. Don't spend as much time reviewing content and spend more time taking tests. Don't pay too much attention to your 25 score because that's going to go up with practice and time .

Best of luck !

 

[NYR56]

Do practice MCAT questions throughout content review, don't do FLs. I took 7 of the 8 AAMC practice tests in the 2 weeks prior to the real MCAT and though that was ideal. I started getting tired by the end and definitely didn't want to keep going at that rate. Whichever books you're using, just do the questions they have on the topics you're studying until the last few weeks before your test. Aside from maybe taking 1 FL earlier to see what it's like, there's no point taking a FL before you're done with content review.

 

[Vanguard23]

Stay away from Kaplan FL's. When I took the class, they threw in a massive score on the PS section to compensate for it being way too hard. How the hell is that at all indicative of the actual test?
And that's ignoring that I was making high 20's on the Kaplan FL's and low 20's on the AAMC ones. Guess what my actual score was closer to? Definitely take AAMC practice tests. They're going to be as close to the real deal as you can get.

 

[annonymous1309]

I have taken 4 of the Kaplan practice MCATs and my scores are still in the high 20s ..ie not getting better each time (with the exception of one in the low 30s). How many practice tests does it typically take for people to see there scores improve to the score they are looking for?