How to most efficiently approach Chemistry Concept Practice?

[deleted244469]

So I just finished the EK Chemistry Book (which was fantastic, btw), and am now ready to go balls to the wall with practice questions. My question is, How did you all go about practicing the concepts/breaking them down after doing content review?

I have the TBR books AND the EK1001 Chemistry/Orgo books. Ideally, I'd like to make a "plan" in which I do a certain # of concepts per day, but I'm not sure how to exactly accomplish this, or what the IDEAL amount of concepts/problems to do per day would be.

Ideally, I'd like to maximize my knowledge absorption with this stuff. I don't want to practice a concept early on, and then put it on the back burner and forget about it, you know? Would it be best to say, do 1/3 of the questions in the EK1001 book for a concept, then towards the time I start taking FL's, restart the entire practice process over and do the other 2/3 of the questions for the concept?

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[Swagster]

EK does a great job giving you the basics and building your confidence that you know the material. Now that you have reviewed, you need to learn to apply the material. This is where you need to focus on TBR passages. What they do better than anyone is teach you how to work through questions and apply the topics to experiments and other subjects.

I'd recommend you follow the TBR phases in their books. I used the new orgo books and psych book and the old books for the rest. I did phase I right away and graded it immediately. This is very important. I learned more going over each question in phase I than I learned from the reading. I set aside one day each week to do five phase IIs (from the different books). This was important for simulating the transition from one subject to another. It also helped to see the overlap between disciplines. TBR does a very good job of mixing topics in their passages.

I saved phase IIIs for when I'd finish a book completely. I took about a week to power through half of the phase IIIs. I did this twice, once for book 1s and once for book 2s. After TBR I did EK questions. This solidified concepts and let me practice my TBR techniques.

Full lengths are important after you have completed most of your reviewing. I took three tests per week for three weeks. AAMC exams are the best hands down. I liked the TBR exams and EK exams the best of what I saw. EK did a good job with the CARS section and TBR did a good job with the P/C and B/B sections. The psychology section is pretty good on both.

With the materials you have, you should do TBR passages before EK questions. TBR teaches you to think MCAT and has great explanations and EK is ideal for summarizing and testing your rapid recall skills.