Study Time?

PreMeddieRick said:

Overall how much time would you say you have REALLY spent studying for the MCAT? I heard that the 36-40s spend like upwards to 300 hours studying for the exam. What do you think?

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I would say 90+ hours. I can't study 200 hours because I am taking 19 credits of science and math classes.

PreMeddieRick said:

Overall how much time would you say you have REALLY spent studying for the MCAT? I heard that the 36-40s spend like upwards to 300 hours studying for the exam. What do you think?

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2 hours a day for...2.5 months?? plenty of days slacking. 2*100 = 200 max.

i think more important things are to sit down and understand the meaning of the stuffs. i.e., what is force, how can you manipulate it, etc? i think the MCAT is a test of science philosophy and becoming a lot more experiment oriented.

In the last month, I was putting in ~30 hours a week. Before that I was only doing 10-15 or so. It depends on your learning style really. There's no set number of hours that you can study and magically end up at a higher score. I know people that put in more than 300 hours and still didn't break thirty. Quality over quantity.

PreMeddieRick said:

Overall how much time would you say you have REALLY spent studying for the MCAT? I heard that the 36-40s spend like upwards to 300 hours studying for the exam. What do you think?

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dude everyone has a peak range; once you hit it, I really don't think any amount of studying will help. 38-40 range is within a few questions, so luck will probably come into play.

I really only studied during my test prep course meeting times. This time increased the few weeks before the test began, but in retrospect, I probably could have studied more.

My main prep was the 6 full length MCATs 6 weeks before the big daddy.

I spent pretty much the whole summer studying. Avg about 20 hrs a week for 12 -14 weeks gives a grand total of more than 250 hours of my life given over as payment to the evil trolls at AAMC those @#$Q F^#%@^ Whew! Sorry I am still a little emotional about the whole thing (sniff sniff).

All the studying seriously paid off though: I went from a 22 on my 1st practice test to a 36 on the real deal.

I know someone who broke 38 doing two hours a day for a month during full time work. Depends a lot on studying and test taking skills.

jhk43 said:

2 hours a day for...2.5 months?? plenty of days slacking. 2*100 = 200 max.

i think more important things are to sit down and understand the meaning of the stuffs. i.e., what is force, how can you manipulate it, etc? i think the MCAT is a test of science philosophy and becoming a lot more experiment oriented.

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JHK43 has got the secret down. Use the force PreMeddieRick, use the force!

Used a similar approach as jhk43...

Had been out of school for 2 years and didn't have the green for a Kaplan course...so while working full time, I did about 3hrs x4days/week and one weekly marathon session of 8hrs (usually on the weekend) starting in the middle of Jan. till the April MCAT, which equals about 12weeks x 20hrs = 240