How to Get Out of the MCAT Slump

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FauxBlue

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Studying...studying...studying. As the days continue to go on in preparation for the MCAT exam, I find myself slowing down in my pace and weakening my attack on each topic, passage and so forth.

I've finished my content review using Kaplan, but I got hold of TBR recently as well from a friend. On the internet, most people are saying TBR is "over-detailed" and is much harder than the actual exam. What do I instantly think? "Well ****. Has Kaplan been under-preparing me? Do I need to do more content review with TBR?"

I'm stuck in that mentality and I'm thinking, "Boy, there are a lot of resources out there, EK, Kaplan, TPR, TBR, NS and more. Am I missing out if I don't use EK or if I don't use TBR?? I should study that instead then!"

I'm at a point where I find that I can't help but cycle in the slump of content review without actually doing more practice. I've done a few TBR passages (which are kicking my ass) and I'm not sure what my next steps (no pun intended) should be.

How should I get out of this slump and push myself to study as I did in the beginning? What has worked for you?

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Kaplan is among the most detailed resources out there. You should go on to doing FLs and then taking your time to review them plus constantly going over the notes that you took from content review without actually going back to content review itself.
 
How should I get out of this slump and push myself to study as I did in the beginning? What has worked for you?

So the slump is, from what I understand, you going back to review content when you should be practicing? I don't know what to say. You're not supposed to come out of an initial content review knowing how to do every possible question a test could throw at you. If that were the case, obviously no one would waste the time on practice and would just take the exam straight away. It's a critically important part of the process. So...do it. That's how you get out of the slump. Just realize that, despite all you're studying, you're still not there, and you shouldn't be expecting to kill everything at the very start of practice. You gotta hit the questions hard, then go back and cover the weak topics; do this for every subject and repeat. As you know, each topic, especially in the problem-heavy subjects (g-chem, phys, ochem), has its associated "problem types." Get a good grasp on how to deal with all of those, and simultaneously be reviewing the bulky memorization material daily (bio/biochem/parts of ochem/psych/soc). I'm sitting down to rewrite every metabolic process from memory (substrates, enzymes, regulation, everything) about once every couple days now, in between bio systems studies, and that alone has been super helpful (takes maybe 30min or so). EK1001 can be helpful on the chem/phys problem stuff, and subject tests in EK/Kaplan could start you critically thinking about the material. There's a variety of approaches you can take, obviously. I think your "slump" is even good, if it is this inclination to cover things you've missed - that's exactly what the practice portion of your study is supposed to be. But instead of this inkling you have that you're missing something, you can have hard data, the questions, showing you exactly what sort of concepts you're weak on. You can then zone in on that for further study and kill it the next time around.

Kaplan is among the most detailed resources out there. You should go on to doing FLs and then taking your time to review them plus constantly going over the notes that you took from content review without actually going back to content review itself.

Agreed on Kaplan. I'm loving it so far. They're going through the outline very systematically. I find by the end of each chapter, everything for that section is covered and done with. They've addressed all the proper info. Agreed on the FLs too, but as I said I think some smaller forms of practice first would be beneficial. Do some of the EK1001 discretes and then some individual subject tests. Do a post-test review and really work on getting strong for those weak areas. Then take an FL.
 
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Kaplan is definitely detailed enough. Honestly my only complaint about my Kaplan content so far is sometimes they will have a page and a half and end it with "all of this is highly unlikely to be on the MCAT". Better to be safe I suppose.
 
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I agree with the above. I can study using Kaplan, but working on questions is what really makes information stick.
 
If I am doing poorly on passages, it causes me to want to return to content review :(

But you have to understand, that's the whole point. Look at it logically: Why should you be doing well on passages straight out of content review? I'm not sure if you're just venting or you legitimately don't understand the very simple idea that no one does well without significant practice.
 
If I am doing poorly on passages, it causes me to want to return to content review :(

So after my 3rd FL, I performed poorly. I started doing 70% content and 30% questions instead of about 50%/50% prior to my 4th FL. I improved but now I plan to mix in more questions than usual. It differs for certain people. I know how you feel OP though. I finished my fist content review around Sunday last week. Been struggling on finding what exactly to focus on even after I completed a 4th FL that showed clear weaknesses in certain topics.
 
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