A month of vacation before PR MCAT Course

[tmandudeguy]

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I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out what I should do for about 3 weeks before my course starts for the princeton review. I received all my books for the course. I dont know if I should randomly start reading all the content for each subject or if I should leave those books for the course syllabus. Can some PLEASE help me out for what the best thing I can do is? Im completely lost and dont know if I should buy another book to use meanwhile. I dont know how to structure the studying or anything (which is why I got the course). My course is about 11 weeks. Should I take time off now, or actually start studying which is what I want to do.

Thanks again!

 

[tmandudeguy]

bump... please anyone?

 

[angldrps]

TPR course will provide you with a syllabus which will tell you exactly how to structure your study plan. I would recommend start practicing verbal now. TPR course is good for everything except verbal. Their strategy suggests you skip an entire verbal passage, which is a TERRIBLE suggestion.Use your TPR verbal workbook to start doing 1-2 passages daily...don't overdo it because you don't want to exhaust your resources. If you want to save your verbal passages from TPR workbook until the course starts, then you can buy EK 101 verbal book and practice with it. I suggest you practice doing verbal passages on a daily basis so by the time your course starts, you won't feel pressured under the time crunch to get everything done. hope this helps.

 

[centraldogma]

TPR course will provide you with a syllabus which will tell you exactly how to structure your study plan. I would recommend start practicing verbal now. TPR course is good for everything except verbal. Their strategy suggests you skip an entire verbal passage, which is a TERRIBLE suggestion.Use your TPR verbal workbook to start doing 1-2 passages daily...don't overdo it because you don't want to exhaust your resources. If you want to save your verbal passages from TPR workbook until the course starts, then you can buy EK 101 verbal book and practice with it. I suggest you practice doing verbal passages on a daily basis so by the time your course starts, you won't feel pressured under the time crunch to get everything done. hope this helps.

This. This is what I recommend to all my students (I'm a TPR MCAT instructor). Being able to tackle verbal passages quickly and efficiently only comes from practice. I used EK 101 passages in addition to TPR verbal material and found the book to be very useful.

Also, looking through the sciences review textbooks might be helpful, especially if it's been a while since taking one of them. Perhaps consider reading the first chapter of each just to get a feel for the books' style?

Other than that get ready to study for hours on end everyday for your summer. Good luck 🙂

 

[tmandudeguy]

Awesome! Thanks so much guys. I actually bought the 101 EK verbal book and a comprehensive kaplan book (just to get both sides) with all 5 subjects so I can keep the princeton material for the course. How does this sound to you guys? I plan on doing one day physical sciences, one day biological and then verbal and then recycle every 3 days for the next 3 weeks. What do you think?

 

[tmandudeguy]

And one LAST thing! on verbal days.. how many passages should I do on verbal days from the 101 EK book?

 

[angldrps]

Awesome! Thanks so much guys. I actually bought the 101 EK verbal book and a comprehensive kaplan book (just to get both sides) with all 5 subjects so I can keep the princeton material for the course. How does this sound to you guys? I plan on doing one day physical sciences, one day biological and then verbal and then recycle every 3 days for the next 3 weeks. What do you think?

In comparison to TPR books, kaplan books are terrible....if you really want to start reviewing now before your class starts, then just start reading the TPR chapters. You will not be exhausting your TPR resources by just reading the chapters, instead you will be ahead of other students when your class starts. The reason why I am suggesting that you don't use kaplan is because kaplan is horrible for doing content review, but kaplan does provide excellent practice material with their course. If you want to start with practicing problems before your class starts, then read a chapter in TPR and then do the corresponding problems from the Kaplan book. Save the practice material in your TPR books until the start of your class.
Do about 1-2 EK 101 passages daily..you can adjust your pace based on your performance on these passages. Make sure you spend a lot of time reviewing these passages before starting a new one to pinpoint why you are getting questions wrong.

 

[tmandudeguy]

I unfortunately already bought the kaplan book 🙁. The chapters are nearly similar to TPR however MUCH less in depth. Its very light review compared to the huge books for each subject I got for TPR. I kind of wanted that since I just want light review for the next 3 weeks before I go full gear for 3 month for TPR course. You still think I shouldnt use the kaplan book? and do the 3 day cycle?

 

[angldrps]

There is nothing wrong with using the kaplan books. The material is exactly the same no matter which company's book you use. The difference comes in which company does a better job with providing the information in a clear, easy to understand, and without unnecessary information. If you don't want to feel like you wasted $ with buying kaplan, then go ahead and read it. Any kind of review is better than no review. The point I was trying to make was that since you have both TPR and Kaplan books, then if I was in your position then I would review content soley with TPR books as they are MUCH better written. By doing review with either TPR or kaplan, you will be able to stay one step ahead of your class. Go ahead and read the same chapter from both TPR and Kaplan, and if you don't notice much of a difference between the two, like i did, then use Kaplan. There really is no right or wrong. I just gave you advice based on my own experience with these books.

 

[centraldogma]

Awesome! Thanks so much guys. I actually bought the 101 EK verbal book and a comprehensive kaplan book (just to get both sides) with all 5 subjects so I can keep the princeton material for the course. How does this sound to you guys? I plan on doing one day physical sciences, one day biological and then verbal and then recycle every 3 days for the next 3 weeks. What do you think?

This is a great plan. You'll be in good shape for when the class starts 🙂

If you're going to hit some passages/practice problems, I'd recommend that you initially focus on accuracy rather than speed. Take as much time as you need (esp. for verbal). You'll naturally get more efficient as you go through the materials. Also GO OVER YOUR MISTAKES. This is the best way to improve your score. Really analyze why you got the question wrong (did you not understand the passage? the question? do you not know the material? etc) Don't just mindlessly blow through the practice materials. They are precious.

When I started out with the Princeton course I could only read through 5 passages of verbal (there are 7 total) in one hour, meaning I had to skip 2 whole passages! Obviously this is not ideal; however, on the real test I finished the whole verbal section with a few minutes to spare because I kept to doing 1-2 passages a day from TPR and EK.

edit: I should also add take it easy for now. I'm sure you're eager to take on this test (which is awesome), but 10 weeks into the course you might feel burnt out. Make sure to take breaks and get a good routine going with respect to food, exercise, sleep, etc.

 

[tmandudeguy]

awesome! thanks for the help guys, its really is much appreciated! I hope all of you the best of luck with any of your endeavors 😉

 

[centraldogma]

awesome! thanks for the help guys, its really is much appreciated! I hope all of you the best of luck with any of your endeavors 😉

Anytime. PM if you have more questions. Good luck 🙂

 

[angldrps]

awesome! thanks for the help guys, its really is much appreciated! I hope all of you the best of luck with any of your endeavors 😉

no problem! wish you good luck as well...also, as the other poster mentioned don't stress yourself out to much before your class begins. try to relax a bit.