Passing down advice on prepping for MCAT

Thanks, seems like great advice! I'm just wondering, what do you think I should spend more time on, reviewing material or just doing practise problems, such as the 1001 questions series. I mean, even if you dont know the material well, and u do like 2 or 3 passages on say titrations I would think in those 3 they will ask every type of question the Mcat can right?

MYRY

BUMP

Thanks for the help!! Karma to you!!

myry said:

I found using the EK home schedule worked well.

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What is the EK home schedule? Is it found in a specific EK book?

Do you think it's good to take an AAMC practice test as the first part of studying, just to see where your strengths/weaknesses are? Which test would be the best for that? Jordan (from EK) told me a specific one...but careless me forgot. 🙁

But, a big THANKS! for the advice.

myry, excellent advice!! I really liked the positive attitude one. Gotta believe in ourselves to succeed...so true! Thanks! and your pup is the cutest! 😀

Hi:

Thanks for your advice. Thats pretty much what I am trying to do. My initial plan was to exclusively rely on EK materials for review. But some of the materials I found not that well explained. I have TPR's review books. Actually, I am not sure if others have noticed this..but contents of TPR's review books and EK review materials are very similar - in terms of chapter organization and contents. What I like about TPR is how they present the material. For instance, look at the Chemistry lect 2 or 3, and look at the equivalent materials in TPR's physical sciences review book. They are similar..but TPR's presentation is better. Perhaps its my stupidity that cannot grasp EK that easily.

My present plan is to quickly review using TPR's book. Its like pre-screening. I am doing all the examples in the chapters. I am almost done with gen. chemistry part. Once I go through TPR's review materials, I will rely on EK exclusively - I will read the chapters, do the problems, 30 min. exams etc.

Does that sound doable? Or am I being too unrealistic?

Shahab

myry said:

I know a lot of people are preparing now for April. Here's some advice you might want to keep in mind:

1. Before you start to prepare, have faith you will be able to succeed. It's all in your mindset, and this way you do not waste time worrying about if you can do it when you could be using your time efficiently preparing.

2. When you work, work. Use this time efficiently and be done with it. THen you will have more time to truly play.

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I agree that MCAT is about psychology...from my own bad experience..

Thanks for the tips myry! Love that last quote. Yeah...I need to fine-tune my mental endurance or else my head will explode halfway through the exam and everyone will have turkey dinner =(

Good post. Attitude is key. I think the EK guys said this, but regardless, I believe that looking at the MCAT as an opportunity is a good way to go.

It's a right of passage, and just one of many hurdles that will earn us the "right" to be physicians. After all, all docs had take the exam, and even if you don't end up doing as well as you hoped, you still can take it again. I really do believe that getting into med school is a matter of simply not giving up. Good luck to my fellow April exam takers.

thanks for the tips..will try to use them when studying for mcat..🙂

thank you so much for this advice. 🙂

Some more advice, from a PM convo I had a while back...

If you really do have a good grasp of the fundamentals, you should be okay. The MCAT is still an achievement test at heart.

But once you get past the knowledge issues, the test is all about figuring out what bits of knowledge apply to each question. For instance, they may give you a molecule and ask how it will behave in a certain reaction.
Bad thing to do: freak out because you've never seen that molecule before and/or you remember some obscure reaction that kinda looked like that except you aren't sure, then give up and guess.
Good thing to do: hm, okay, it's got a carbonyl...nucleophilic attack conditions...okay, which one of these answer choices has a nucleophile...ha, there's only one...nailed that sucka...next!

Some of the questions might be intimidating. For example, on my MCAT, there was a passage that went on for two pages about "You are an industrial chemist, and..". Scary-looking, until you realize that it's redox chem and one new equation. The trick is cutting through to the basic concepts and not getting flustered.

Homing in on what's important is a skill, and the best way I've seen to learn it is by taking lots of tests. After a while, you start to realize how testmakers typically go about asking questions, and what they like to do to throw people off. This also serves to review the actual content and build mental endurance.

If you decide you're sick of staring at MCAT all the time, you might want to get one of those brainteaser books. Basic high school math contests (google for AMC and AIME) are also good.

As for using those skills in real life, well, that's not quite as easy. Part of that comes down to personality. But it should help if you make a conscious effort to think of things in a broader context...sometimes just being aware of how things fit together makes the world make so much more sense. It's a lot easier to do orgo, for instance, if you're thinking "electron wants to go that-a-way" instead of "hmm...is that a Wittig reaction?"

But if all else fails, there are plenty of stupid test tricks:
Pick the answer that looks most like the others; if that doesn't work, pick the longest one
Answers that defy the laws of physics are wrong, even if it's a bio question
Orders of magnitude are your friend...sanity checks!
If you go back to a question and then talk yourself into changing your answer, and you have no real reason other than paranoia, you just lost points
Pick C! Pick C!
If part of question #65 contains the answer to #19 (and it will, on a comprehensive exam), more points for you if you notice
If you've got a string of related questions, and you know the answer to at least a few, chances are that there's only one logically consistent set of answers for the rest
(Note: don't force the last two if you are having trouble finishing the test)

Don't worry so much about what your brain congenitally does or does not want to do. Sure, brains help...I've had my a$$ casually handed to me by genius freaks entirely too many times. But willingness to put in the effort matters more. Seriously, most of the people I know who scored better than I did are not brilliant. They learned their stuff cold, did every practice test they could get their graphite-encrusted little paws on, and thus kicked some MCAT. There's no shame in having to practice...I've taken more examinations than Janet Jackson's breast after the Super Bowl, and wouldn't have done half as well otherwise.

Good luck to you!

Sunflower

great post myry! much appreciated! i have printed it out and posted it on my cubicle at work. i'm taking the april mcat and what usually happens is i plan on studying that night, but then i go home and crash. thanks again for the advice and pep talk! 🙂

Thanks Sunflower. Good advice and nice pep talk. I agree with what you said about doing practice tests to get a good feel for how questions are posed etc. Thanks again.

Do questions until your eyes bleed. There are only so many ways that a subject can be worded into a question. If you do a ton of questions (AND READ THE ANSWER EXPLAINATIONS!) you will do absolutely great.

Good luck to you guys.

i may be the exception, but i think i did too many practice tests and not enough time studying my weak subjects. i think i did about 6 practice tests and should have spent more time learning electrochem and genetics more, which seemed to be in large quantities on my mcat version last april.

i would suggest doing a practice test or two, then devote some hard core time to studying what you find you are weak in, before doing another practice exam.

just my 2c