Sociology/Psychology: Kaplan or TPR? (One year later)

[nawrp11]

Hi there,

I'm in the midst of prepping for April 1st, and I'm contemplating switching the material I use to study psych and sociology. I'm currently using EK, but I find that it just doesn't suit my learning style. I've looked on other threads and it seems that the most praise has been given to either TPR or Kaplan soc/psych books. I'm wondering: now that the new MCAT has been administered for almost a year now, has a definitive leader emerged between those two books in terms of which one is the best for psychology and sociology?

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[ieatshrimp24]

I took a TPR course over summer 2015. One of my instructors who took the MCAT said that the Psych/Soc section is just straight up memorization. He said it takes two weeks to memorize the stuff and he did fine on the test.
I already took the test and I would definitely agree with him. Honestly, TPR and Kaplan Psych/Soc content review books read like textbooks and I feel there's really no other way around it. You just gotta read the definitions and memorize them to the best of your ability. The Psych/Soc section was pretty much hit or miss. None of the passages were complex. None of them really made you stretch deep into the back of your mind with all your brain power. But if you didn't know certain words, then you were kinda screwed.
The best advice I can give you is to look at a word you don't know and think about what it means. Psychology terms are appropriately named to indicate what they mean.
If you don't wanna feel like you're reading a textbook, then you can switch over to Khan Academy videos every once in a while.

 

[nawrp11]

I took a TPR course over summer 2015. One of my instructors who took the MCAT said that the Psych/Soc section is just straight up memorization. He said it takes two weeks to memorize the stuff and he did fine on the test.
I already took the test and I would definitely agree with him. Honestly, TPR and Kaplan Psych/Soc content review books read like textbooks and I feel there's really no other way around it. You just gotta read the definitions and memorize them to the best of your ability. The Psych/Soc section was pretty much hit or miss. None of the passages were complex. None of them really made you stretch deep into the back of your mind with all your brain power. But if you didn't know certain words, then you were kinda screwed.
The best advice I can give you is to look at a word you don't know and think about what it means. Psychology terms are appropriately named to indicate what they mean.
If you don't wanna feel like you're reading a textbook, then you can switch over to Khan Academy videos every once in a while.

So the Kaplan and TPR sociology/psychology books are pretty much the same? One is not known to be better than the other?

 

[ieatshrimp24]

So the Kaplan and TPR sociology/psychology books are pretty much the same? One is not known to be better than the other?

I've taken a look at the Kaplan book and I've used the TPR book for my actual studying. I would say they both consist of chapters full of definitions. I used Khan Academy videos to supplement stuff that I couldn't really understand. This is just my opinion.
Also, I would not advise you to do the Khan Academy passages. Just watch their videos if you feel the need. I've done passages for the sciences and psych/soc sections and kept getting everything wrong. Plus, there's no way to time yourself because they give you hints and they tell you when you're wrong while you're doing the passages. I don't know why people recommend this. I got everything wrong on their passages but I did pretty well on the actual MCAT. Again, just my opinion.

 

[nawrp11]

I've taken a look at the Kaplan book and I've used the TPR book for my actual studying. I would say they both consist of chapters full of definitions. I used Khan Academy videos to supplement stuff that I couldn't really understand. This is just my opinion.
Also, I would not advise you to do the Khan Academy passages. Just watch their videos if you feel the need. I've done passages for the sciences and psych/soc sections and kept getting everything wrong. Plus, there's no way to time yourself because they give you hints and they tell you when you're wrong while you're doing the passages. I don't know why people recommend this. I got everything wrong on their passages but I did pretty well on the actual MCAT. Again, just my opinion.

Alright, thanks for the info!

 

[supremus]

TPR P&S (2nd ed) reads really nice and feels complete.