How to study for retaking the last of the current version?

[erythrocyte666]

As you all might have seen, these last test administrations for the current version have been horrendous with VERY few scoring within their AAMC avg. How does the retaker go about studying, especially with the trend of extremely harsh PS sections (which I assume throw people off for the next 2 sections)?

My strategy was to just grind it with a spinach-dip-like method of taking FLs every 2-3 days and for the days in between analyze the FLs and take longer and harder "practice tests" by just putting together passages from prep books. And only focus on reviewing content that I've missed.

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[NextStepTutor_1]

Definitely practice tests - that's a nonnegotiable for any study schedule. But also consider really, really testing yourself. With this current migration into a more abrasive MCAT than the newer AAMC practice tests (9,10,11) I'd recommend having a balance between taking practice passages that are straightforward/have an expected difficulty with passages that are very challenging.
TPR SW does a great job with this - check out their advanced passages
TBR also does a very good with this, esp. their bio, which is very challenging and may or may not reflect the test you may see on test day, but these passages will force you unpack quite challenging passages and answer questions that require you to critically think in a tremendous capacity.

 

[erythrocyte666]

Definitely practice tests - that's a nonnegotiable for any study schedule. But also consider really, really testing yourself. With this current migration into a more abrasive MCAT than the newer AAMC practice tests (9,10,11) I'd recommend having a balance between taking practice passages that are straightforward/have an expected difficulty with passages that are very challenging.
TPR SW does a great job with this - check out their advanced passages
TBR also does a very good with this, esp. their bio, which is very challenging and may or may not reflect the test you may see on test day, but these passages will force you unpack quite challenging passages and answer questions that require you to critically think in a tremendous capacity.

Thanks. As for balancing hard and straightforward passages, I plan on using EK (straightforward) and TBR/Kaplan (difficult) on non-FL days.
I did most of the TPR SW the first time around and over 70% of TBR (only chapters I felt uncomfortable with). I did loads of TPR/TBR/EK practice the first time around and doesn't seem to have helped much; what should I do DIFFERENTLY this time around? What do you concretely mean by really, really testing myself?

 

[NextStepTutor_1]

I would say that if you found TPR, TBR, and EK practice to not be very helpful, then the issue lies with how you're practicing and not the material you're using.
Concretely, I meant do the "advanced passages" in TPR SW, especially for bio, because the BS section is extremely experimental and new information will be presented in the passages that you'll have to analyze. Practice doing that with the advanced passages in TPR SW.