I'm a snail training for a rabbit marathon

[Fdsa2495]

As the title states, I'm a snail, meaning I am extremely slow when it comes to reading and comprehending at the same time trying to prepare for the MCAT and future medical school. I have taken a MCAT course and have tried out some passages for the MCAT and what I have realized is that the MCAT is really based on reading, comprehending what you've read and then being able to quickly apply to answer the questions.

Now, in my case I take hours and hours of reading my upper div bio/chem books and taking notes, drawing pictures, reading powerpoint slides to completely understand concepts and be able to apply it for exams. I really just love sitting down, slowly reading and getting the most out of every work from my books but this takes forever!!! Also, many of my friends have suggested flashcards but I hate flashcards they don't work for me, because I need to see all the information and compare/contrast everything to really dive in and understand the concepts. I do well in all my classes cGPA and sGPA 3.9, but I feel like this won't work for the MCAT and it surely will not work in Medical school.

How can I become more efficient for medical school and for the MCAT. I am planning to take the MCAT in August, 2016 and apply for the next cycle so I still have sometime. I would love to hear from current pre-med/medical students, how do you guys study "faster" and more "effecient" compared to what I have described.

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[Sardinia]

Utilize Anki cards for long term retention. Get organized, create a realistic study plan. There are pretty good ones stickied in the SDN MCAT thread, I hyperlinked one for you. I used TPR for sociology/psychology, TBR + Exam Krackers + Kaplan for the core subject review. If you have trouble obtaining any of the above materials due to financial issues please try to scavenge the internet: Dropbox, Scribd, or any list of other sites featuring public document sharing. The MCAT threads centered around the month give you a good read on what could potentially be on the exam, however diligently following the MCAT course outline is optimal.

If you come for a research background it will help you a lot on the passage based reading section which required me to think on a more rigorous level than my tests in undergrad. Every student comes to take the MCAT at a varying extent, however my impression was that the MCAT helps solidify and shape a lot of necessary study habits you will need in the future. Good luck~

 

[Styrene]

I never read a single textbook in my life -- that seems like it would take way too much time. Just use ANKI and make your own practice tests but in anki form so to speak. Once I started that, I never went back to any other method of studying.

 

[TBV]

As the title states, I'm a snail, meaning I am extremely slow when it comes to reading and comprehending at the same time trying to prepare for the MCAT and future medical school. I have taken a MCAT course and have tried out some passages for the MCAT and what I have realized is that the MCAT is really based on reading, comprehending what you've read and then being able to quickly apply to answer the questions.

Now, in my case I take hours and hours of reading my upper div bio/chem books and taking notes, drawing pictures, reading powerpoint slides to completely understand concepts and be able to apply it for exams. I really just love sitting down, slowly reading and getting the most out of every work from my books but this takes forever!!! Also, many of my friends have suggested flashcards but I hate flashcards they don't work for me, because I need to see all the information and compare/contrast everything to really dive in and understand the concepts. I do well in all my classes cGPA and sGPA 3.9, but I feel like this won't work for the MCAT and it surely will not work in Medical school.

How can I become more efficient for medical school and for the MCAT. I am planning to take the MCAT in August, 2016 and apply for the next cycle so I still have sometime. I would love to hear from current pre-med/medical students, how do you guys study "faster" and more "effecient" compared to what I have described.

It is possible, there are people like this at my school but I should warn that these are the people that are up all hours of the night, missing social events, crying before exams, etc. Med school would be so much harder without natural talent for memorization not gonna lie. Only saying this as a warning of the work you'll have to put in. n=1 though.

 

[Lucca]

I worry about getting all of the facts into my head before I worry about understanding. Flash cards for memorization, drawing pathways and logic circuits to understand things like physiology, working problems for anything math based, describing math equations in words for chemistry and physics. Etc

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

MCAT is as much about recognizing question patterns, buzz words, and critical thinking as it about content knowledge.

Personally, I found it more helpful to study "how to take MCATs" rather than the content of the test itself.

But then again everyone has their own system so what works for me may not for you. Best of luck