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Have you tried spanking her? That usually works with girlfriends...





Seriously though, once you've review the mcat material the real work is practice problems. People think the mcat is all studying and content review. Those people usually fail. She needs to do thousands of practice problems and practice exams and learn how the test ask questions and why she got things wrong. You can't tutor that. So bring this up with her and then it's on her.
 
get her to do a practice test. After she gets a 490 on her first test she'll be more driven to invest herself into it (at least thats what happened to me and my friends)

i know people who got low Bs and high Cs through their premed coursework and brute forced their way to a 517+ score just by alternating practice test -> review shaky content -> practice test -> review etc. Almost every high scorer I know took at least 10 practice tests (20 is probably ideal) and thoroughly reviewed each and everyone one. The consensus opinion is that content review is a huge waste of time unless you've been out of school for years.
 
Probably the easiest thing is to sign up for an exam date. It will be far off when signing up, so not that stressful. But then actually having an impending test day should make it easier to study.
 
kb1900 said:
get her to do a practice test. After she gets a 490 on her first test she'll be more driven to invest herself into it (at least thats what happened to me and my friends)

i know people who got low Bs and high Cs through their premed coursework and brute forced their way to a 517+ score just by alternating practice test -> review shaky content -> practice test -> review etc. Almost every high scorer I know took at least 10 practice tests (20 is probably ideal) and thoroughly reviewed each and everyone one. The consensus opinion is that content review is a huge waste of time unless you've been out of school for years.
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why would you say 20 is ideal as opposed to 10? 10 seems like a lot to me.
 
There is not much more you can do. You have been very supportive, offered to help her and even sit with her while she studies. It's up to her to study. She's a college grad who supposedly has a great med school application. She knows what to do and how to do it. She also knows the MCAT is the first in a long series of high stakes exams required in medicine. She might be rethinking the whole thing. Just keep being supportive as she works this through.


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Practice tests. I often talk with very successful applicants and time after time I hear about taking practice tests until the process becomes routine. It does help with nerves and with stamina. It will also help her wake up and come to the realization that this is a difficult test that she needs to prepare for through review of the material and preparation for the type of study question used on the test.

You can't do it for her. If she wants to go to medical school she must do this. If she says she wants to go to medical school but she doesn't prepare for the MCAT she is telling you by her actions that she's not serious about doing this (perhaps fear of failure or something else is holding her back).
 
^ I used only AAMC official practice exams, I think there were 7 or 8 of those and it was plenty
 
I was kind of the same way. Scheduling a date helps, and then bringing her a study plan helps make it seem more approachable.
 
Chromium Surfer said:
why would you say 20 is ideal as opposed to 10? 10 seems like a lot to me.
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because thats basically all of them that are available without breaking the bank. i didnt spend a cent on prep books or anything like that. also its a lot easier to see improvement if you take 8 tests from kaplan rather than 1 from EK, 1 from Kaplan etc...

Also I thought that 20 was pretty reasonable to do in a month or so if you really treated it like a competition for yourself. If you have about 2 months to prepare and completely free days, you can easily warm yourself up with 1 practice exam every 2-3 days with review in btw -> ramp up to 1 every other day with review in btw-> to eventually 1 every day with review at the end of the test.

hell, i wanted to be a thousand % sure fatigue wouldnt be a factor and managed to take two tests in one day while telling myself my score didn't matter, my endurance did. maybe its over the top, but the actual test was truly a walk in the park. and for such a high stakes exam, you def wanna stay on the side of "over prepared" rather than under
 
md-2020 said:
It is...20 is straight up insane.

I did 9 over the course of 6ish months and found it already plenty/exhausting....you need meaningful content review in between each.
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i personally think "meaningful content review" = review the concept using 10% of your time and do problems/flashcards/passages that utilize that content 90% of the time.
 
@Huggy it sounds like she has a serious case of burnout which makes sense at this stage. You being super supportive is very helpful. Try giving her 2 options, take some time off without doing anything related to school stuff and by time off I mean like 3 months. And then tell her to gear up again when she's more determined. Also you tubing people who are already in med school make jolt her by providing a look into their daily lives. I watch strive to fit on you tube. She makes me want to aspire to be where she is. The other option is to leave her be and try not to bring it up. Don't ask her if she's studying today. Or has she picked a date to sign up. But do let her know how proud you are of her accomplishments thus far. She might have to fall off the wagon for a bit and sort it out internally first before you will be able to help her out the way you would like.

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I agree 1000% with the wise LizzyM.

Tell your GF that if she doesn't fix the problem, and she goes ahead and takes MCAT, she's going to crash and burn. For poor choice making alone on taking a high stakes, career deciding exam while not being at her best, and knowing that she has serious deficits, that this Adcom member knows others who would reject her outright how making such poor choices.


Huggy said:
It's very sad for me to see someone with so much potential and such a passion for medicine not apply herself because of a huge "fear of the test"- her words. She does have anxiety and is currently talking with somebody about the problem for both her daily life and taking tests.

She admits that she hates studying, that she doesn't enjoy it like she used to, and that she's in denial and avoiding the exam. What can I do to help? Please, only serious responses.
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