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- May 21, 2016
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First let me thank you for giving this thread the time of your day. It would really mean the world to me if you bare with the long description below. I dropped a whole bunch of money on Kaplan, and it did not work as great for me in certain areas. Almost 20 days into the course, I discovered SDN and found mcatjelly's schedule and I am going by that with some modifications. I was quick on this, as I feel I am running out of time and I just wanted advice on whether I am on a good path. I am a bit stressed out, so I just wanted to get a final confirmation on the adjustment I'm making. I would appreciate any feedback.
I am following mcatjelly's schedule, except I am only doing the areas I really struggle in: Physics, Chem, OChem through the Kaplan content review txtbooks. I am doing psych/socio through Khan Academy based off a strong review I read for that section, and everything else through EK since I heard EK was more concise. Most of this is based on really quick research I did on what is best for what, with the limited time I have, which is why it's hard for me to be confident right now in my new plan. I am basically reading the chapters quickly (as emphasized by Kaplan), and doing practise after (like 2-3 passages) to try and absorb the material better and then moving on. I am only taking my time in my weak spots of chem/phys. Also, how should I balance Ochem? Probably my weakest area, but there isn't a lot of it on the mcat, from my understanding. Should I save it for the end if I have time, skip some chapters, or..? I do want to go into the exam knowing my stuff, but I also don't want to waste time on a subject that will take me considerable time since I am weak in it.. knowing there is little of it on the exam.
For practise, I am randomly choosing practise amongst the resources I have (well making sure I get a taste of each): 2011 TBR passages, Khan academy, 2015 EK 30 min exams, and Kaplan: passage based questions, high yield problem solving guide, and lessonbook hmwrk.
I was planning on having certain time points.. to review the content I studied in the past 1 or 2 weeks. Just going through the quick summaries at the end of the Kaplan chapters for example.
At the end of content review before FLs, I plan to do the following:
-Spend some time learning some basic arithmetic without a calculator. Planning on using Leah4sciMCAT series on youtube for that.
-Focus a set time to just memorize anything needed to still be memorized (formulas, aas, etc).
-Spending 1 full day in Chem practise, and another day in Physics practise (my 2 weak areas). I'm not really sure.. but I wanted to buy the EK 1001 books for this, but I heard those were a lot harder. I also heard TBR is good for this, but I only have the 2011 books. Will this suffice, or does anyone recommend anything in particular that will really help me with Chem/Phys practise? As well, I haven't paid much attention to timing thus far. I was planning on timing myself once I start Kaplan exams/aamc packs.
Also, so far, I think I have done well on the CARS practise so far ;/ Not really sure, but the best I have done is getting like 2 wrong on some practise I did. I do one cars EK exam, TBR passage, or Kaplan PBQ every morning. I was thinking after content review was finished, I would spend one day just doing CARS practise.. and include some LSAT comp test practise (idk, I've heard of this helping a lot of people on MCAT cars). I didn't find the Kaplan CARS chapters were helpful and rather a waste of my time. So, I'm basically skipping reading any CARS content review. Would anyone strongly advise against this? Also, has the whole writing out an outline summarizing the paragraphs (Kaplan strategy for cars), ever worked for anyone? I tried it with, and without, and I don't think it made a difference to my score. By the way, I found my biggest struggle with CARS qs, was just that I havn't seen a lot of the vocabulary and so I didn't know what it meant and I couldn't always interpret the meaning by the placement of the word in the sentence. Like, after I googled the word, I perfectly understood. Does anyone know where I can find the best practise for this, passages with a lot of high level vocab? I guess I'm asking, where can I find the hardest CARS passages?
Thank you very much for reading this whole thing. It means a lot to me. Please, if there is any feedback you can share, whether you like my plan, think it needs modifications or hate it. Anything will help. I'll pay it forward in the future some way. Thank you again.
I am following mcatjelly's schedule, except I am only doing the areas I really struggle in: Physics, Chem, OChem through the Kaplan content review txtbooks. I am doing psych/socio through Khan Academy based off a strong review I read for that section, and everything else through EK since I heard EK was more concise. Most of this is based on really quick research I did on what is best for what, with the limited time I have, which is why it's hard for me to be confident right now in my new plan. I am basically reading the chapters quickly (as emphasized by Kaplan), and doing practise after (like 2-3 passages) to try and absorb the material better and then moving on. I am only taking my time in my weak spots of chem/phys. Also, how should I balance Ochem? Probably my weakest area, but there isn't a lot of it on the mcat, from my understanding. Should I save it for the end if I have time, skip some chapters, or..? I do want to go into the exam knowing my stuff, but I also don't want to waste time on a subject that will take me considerable time since I am weak in it.. knowing there is little of it on the exam.
For practise, I am randomly choosing practise amongst the resources I have (well making sure I get a taste of each): 2011 TBR passages, Khan academy, 2015 EK 30 min exams, and Kaplan: passage based questions, high yield problem solving guide, and lessonbook hmwrk.
I was planning on having certain time points.. to review the content I studied in the past 1 or 2 weeks. Just going through the quick summaries at the end of the Kaplan chapters for example.
At the end of content review before FLs, I plan to do the following:
-Spend some time learning some basic arithmetic without a calculator. Planning on using Leah4sciMCAT series on youtube for that.
-Focus a set time to just memorize anything needed to still be memorized (formulas, aas, etc).
-Spending 1 full day in Chem practise, and another day in Physics practise (my 2 weak areas). I'm not really sure.. but I wanted to buy the EK 1001 books for this, but I heard those were a lot harder. I also heard TBR is good for this, but I only have the 2011 books. Will this suffice, or does anyone recommend anything in particular that will really help me with Chem/Phys practise? As well, I haven't paid much attention to timing thus far. I was planning on timing myself once I start Kaplan exams/aamc packs.
Also, so far, I think I have done well on the CARS practise so far ;/ Not really sure, but the best I have done is getting like 2 wrong on some practise I did. I do one cars EK exam, TBR passage, or Kaplan PBQ every morning. I was thinking after content review was finished, I would spend one day just doing CARS practise.. and include some LSAT comp test practise (idk, I've heard of this helping a lot of people on MCAT cars). I didn't find the Kaplan CARS chapters were helpful and rather a waste of my time. So, I'm basically skipping reading any CARS content review. Would anyone strongly advise against this? Also, has the whole writing out an outline summarizing the paragraphs (Kaplan strategy for cars), ever worked for anyone? I tried it with, and without, and I don't think it made a difference to my score. By the way, I found my biggest struggle with CARS qs, was just that I havn't seen a lot of the vocabulary and so I didn't know what it meant and I couldn't always interpret the meaning by the placement of the word in the sentence. Like, after I googled the word, I perfectly understood. Does anyone know where I can find the best practise for this, passages with a lot of high level vocab? I guess I'm asking, where can I find the hardest CARS passages?
Thank you very much for reading this whole thing. It means a lot to me. Please, if there is any feedback you can share, whether you like my plan, think it needs modifications or hate it. Anything will help. I'll pay it forward in the future some way. Thank you again.
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