AAMC Material Enough for Practice?

[SirocN]

Hey Everyone

I have done the content part of the MCAT STUDYING and am now going towards the practice exams/question part.

I was looking through AAMC Material and Noticed they have the:
MCAT - Official MCAT Prep Bundle

This bundle has:
- Sample Test
- Online Practice Questions
- 3 full length practice exams (Will buy more form EXAMCRACKERS)
- 2 Biology Question Packs (120questions each pack)
- Chemistry Question Pack (120questions each pack)
- 2 CARS Question Packs
- Physics Question Pack

Just wondering if you guy think all this material would be enough?
If not, does anyone know any other places I can buy chemistry or CARS question packs?
I have heard ExamCrackers FL are great and will be purchasing more of that

Thank you!

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[PlsLetMeIn21]

No, that is not even close to enough. I have been told by many, many people that 1000 passages and 7000 questions is the minimum. I just finished my content review as well and am finishing the last of the passages that went with that. After over 600 TBR science passages (over 5000 questions), over 100 EK CARS passages (over 600 questions), and over 150 TPR P/S and EK P/S passages (over 900 questions) I am at my half way point. Over the next two months I am scheduled to take 8 practice exams (312 passages and 1840 questions) and the AAMC study materials (another 60 or more passages and 700 questions.) I feel good right now, except for CARS, after 6500 questions. After over 10,000 questions by test day, I hope to be as prepared as I can be.

 

[pms_testosterone]

Yes, it is enough. I only used AAMC (and Khan Academy, I but didn't finish all the questions there) for practice and scored in the 99th percentile.

Make sure to leave enough time to use ALL the AAMC resources.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

Congratulations on doing so well. We all come from different backgrounds, and I'm quite certain I would not do well with so little practice. I don't want to risk being underprepared given the importance of this exam with my GPA.

 

[discovermed9000]

No, that is not even close to enough. I have been told by many, many people that 1000 passages and 7000 questions is the minimum. I just finished my content review as well and am finishing the last of the passages that went with that. After over 600 TBR science passages (over 5000 questions), over 100 EK CARS passages (over 600 questions), and over 150 TPR P/S and EK P/S passages (over 900 questions) I am at my half way point. Over the next two months I am scheduled to take 8 practice exams (312 passages and 1840 questions) and the AAMC study materials (another 60 or more passages and 700 questions.) I feel good right now, except for CARS, after 6500 questions. After over 10,000 questions by test day, I hope to be as prepared as I can be.

Give your balls a tug lmao. Anyways, AAMC material is totally fine for 508+. For anyone still reading this, I got a 506 in 3 weeks of study. Memorized the Kaplan quick sheet and used Khan Academy on things I didn't understand. Grinded out section banks, sample, then fl 1 and fl2. Scored a 506 on FL1 and really grinded out my weaknesses and scored a 514 on fl2. Made the mistake of not studying anything after FL2 and forgot a couple of things on the exam. MCAT is an important exam but don't let it eat up your life. If I were aiming for 520, grind out exam krackers + khan academy coupled with UWORLD for reinforcement. Last 3 weeks only do AAMC and really focus on weaknesses. If you follow my plan, you are well on your way to a 510-520!

 

[deleted853480]

The only section I used just the aamc content was for the c/p section and I got a perfect score in that section. But that section is more my cup of tea. I recommend doing uworld as well.

 

[Blueprint MCAT Tutor]

@SirocN thanks for your questions! If you are on a time crunch, then doing only AAMC material is highly advisable as it'll be most representative of what you will see on the actual exam. I don't like to give hard numbers on how many problems you should do to be prepared, as everyone has a different baseline, but I do recommend working on passages and practice exams from a third-party source as well. I would do these third-party passages before doing AAMC so that you can iron out your strategy and content weaknesses and then be ready to fully implement everything on AAMC material.

There are several sources available for third-party material! I can give you further information on Next Step materials if you have any questions! However, if you have time and resources available, definitely look into doing some third-party practice material as well. The key to success is seeing as many novel questions and passages as possible. At a certain point there will be diminishing returns and burn out, so you don't have to go overkill on it, but definitely looking into a few practice exams and question banks will be helpful as well.

Let me know if you have any questions at all! Good luck and keep up the good work!

 

[rball]

If you have finished the content review and know it fairly cold, my advice would be to do bunch of full length practice exams, timed. Do 2 a week - that gives you 4 days in the week (1 day for the full length, 1 day for review). The remaining 2 days I'd split between doing content review on weak areas, and doing practice questions. I would take 1 day of the week completely off and do something fun.

The MCAT is really a test of your ability to interpret passages and use fundamental knowledge/understanding of basic sciences. It also a test of your endurance. So the most important thing in my opinion is to do full-length timed practice tests and review the completed test very thoroughly.

Given this, I personally think it's a good idea to do at least a few 3rd party tests. You could also break up your AAMC qpacks into full-length tests and treat them as such, but idk if you'd have enough questions to do that. I would recommend shooting for getting at least 10 practice full-lengths under your belt before taking the MCAT. In your case that would be around a 5-6 week study period (you should taper off the days leading up to your exam). But this depends on your goal score too and your baseline. If you do use 3rd party tests, I would use them early in your study period and save the official ones closer to the exam.

 

[MyOdyssey]

No, that is not even close to enough. I have been told by many, many people that 1000 passages and 7000 questions is the minimum. I just finished my content review as well and am finishing the last of the passages that went with that. After over 600 TBR science passages (over 5000 questions), over 100 EK CARS passages (over 600 questions), and over 150 TPR P/S and EK P/S passages (over 900 questions) I am at my half way point. Over the next two months I am scheduled to take 8 practice exams (312 passages and 1840 questions) and the AAMC study materials (another 60 or more passages and 700 questions.) I feel good right now, except for CARS, after 6500 questions. After over 10,000 questions by test day, I hope to be as prepared as I can be.

Who has the best P/S and CARS passages?

 

[Cornfed101]

AAMC is the only good resource for CARS unfortunately. Don’t waste your time answering too many questions from 3rd party resources, but you can definitely read passages from elsewhere for practice. The best P/S questions are UWorld in my opinion.

 

[deleted853480]

I second this^^^^

 

[Gill_97]

I used UWorld and AAMC for my preparation. Lots of practice questions and they keep on adding more.

 

[MyOdyssey]

No, that is not even close to enough. I have been told by many, many people that 1000 passages and 7000 questions is the minimum. I just finished my content review as well and am finishing the last of the passages that went with that. After over 600 TBR science passages (over 5000 questions), over 100 EK CARS passages (over 600 questions), and over 150 TPR P/S and EK P/S passages (over 900 questions) I am at my half way point. Over the next two months I am scheduled to take 8 practice exams (312 passages and 1840 questions) and the AAMC study materials (another 60 or more passages and 700 questions.) I feel good right now, except for CARS, after 6500 questions. After over 10,000 questions by test day, I hope to be as prepared as I can be.

Which edition of EK CARS did you get?

Which editions of TPR P/S and EK P/S did you get?

 

[907914]

Gonna throw this in here: I literally only did the AAMC material and about 100 khan academy passages and scored a 521...so....Yes, AAMC can be enough depending on who you are.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

Who has the best P/S and CARS passages?

I liked KA for P/S passages the most and TPR next. Both helped me, but anyway you slice it, this section requires memorizing a ton of theories by name. I got a 130 and feel KA and TPR both had a lot to do with it.

For CARS I agree with the comments above, nothing is as good as AAMC. I think my EK was the 9th edition, but I have no idea if it makes a difference. Their passages were okay for practice, but nothing felt like my MCAT except for AAMC materials.