Advice on long term studying (7-8 months)?

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[TheAnonymous]

I'd vote against studying for that long too - it's counter productive.

Study for 4-5 months at max, take the test, and if you are not happy, retake it. The experience you gain going through the actual test (and the weeks leading up to the actual test) is much more valuable then sitting down and focusing on content review for months.

 

[Chelsea FC]

Hey all,

I have a somewhat peculiar situation. I'm a senior, and intend to apply for med school next summer. I originally planned to leave the entire Spring semester free just to study for the MCAT, but as it turned out I'll have to take a full load next semester. I am very determined to get the best score I possibly can, and I'm not sure if studying for 3-4 months (want to take the test by April so I can apply early) with a full semester and a part time job would allow me to give it my all. Furthermore, I wasn't exactly the best student, and I'm afraid I didn't really learn all that well in the pre-req courses. I crammed and squeezed my way through, and I'm now nervous for the MCAT. I have been looking forward to taking the test for a long time; I see it as my chance to redeem myself.

My plan is to dedicate the rest of the year to nothing but content review. I have a very light course load, so I can pretty much treat MCAT material as another course. I feel that with 2.5-3 months of dedicated content review, I can lay down a strong foundation, and then next Spring I can focus 3-4 months on practice, practice, and more practice. I learn best when I take things slow, so I feel that this way would be better than trying to do the whole MCAT shebang next semester (when I'll be pretty busy). From the stuff I have read around here, it seems the consensus is that TBR is the most thorough in terms of content review. While it may be too much for normal students, I feel it is right for me as someone who sorely needs to cement all the material.

I would be eternally grateful for any feedback, advice, criticism! Specifically, advice on what prep materials to use and how to accomplish my goal most effectively is what I need. Thank you all in advance for your help!

Op Im not saying you shouldnt listen to these people saying you shouldn't study so long. But in all honesty they know nothing about you and how you study so while in general it may be a bad idea it might work for you.. Below I link someone who studied this long and it was successful for the exam and scored a 526. Again this might not be th best way to study but only you knows whats best
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/how-i-prepped-for-a-526.1146107/#post-16975435

 

[Dr. Trenb]

As @Chelsea FC said, it depends on you and how you study. It also depends on your background and how you did in prerequisite classes. If you 2.0/2.5 Physics, then yes I would suggest you go back and review with little more details. If not, then a light review would probably suffice.
Khan Academy contains many practice questions. You can do them to gauge yourself.
If you do need a detailed review of specific subjects, I recommend The Berkeley Review.

 

[SnowyMoon]

I think you know best how you study, and I would hesitate to put words in your mouth as to proper study habits. I too am a long term study kinda guy. However, there are valid points to not retaining the information. I believe it would be useful to utilize something like Anki to keep yourself up on the information you've learned before. Make sure you're going over the things you learned 3 months ago when you're 6 months into an 8 month study time. Also, understand that the MCAT is as much about critical thinking as content, so make sure you have/build strong critical thinking skills.

Good luck, and happy studying.

 

[fleur64]

Thank you all for the replies!

Yeah, I've heard of people burning out due to studying so long, but I honestly think I learn best in a slow-burn type of style. I'm easily overwhelmed by a ton of information in short periods of time, but whenever I take my sweet time, and go through a very dense and detail-oriented review, I have done very well. My buddy is a genius, he's always at the very top of the class, and it's not uncommon for him to get perfect scores on tests. He listens to lecture very carefully, but otherwise doesn't do anything special study-wise. Then a few days before the test, he turns on this switch and relentlessly jams information into his brain, using up literally every second up until the test. He even saves one last page to "flash-memorize" right before they hand out the test.

I got burned so many times trying to follow him. First off, I'm a terrible listener and I have a hard time staying awake during lectures. And when the test would come up, I simply could not keep up. I suck at cramming. I become worn out and lazy and my mind wanders, telling me it's hopeless. I'd check out long before we were supposed to finish studying, while my friend would keep hammering away at the material.

I finally wised up and realized I'm just not capable of doing what he does, and I learned that I truly learn by writing. I would sit for hours with the textbook and the notebook, all my colorful pens, and my favorite music, and I would slowly go through the book, writing down every detail and key point and making it all very organized and pretty. I'd then go over my notes every day, as I would add to them. This method really clicked for me, and although I could never match my friend, I did very well. On one Anatomy test (a very difficult class at my university), I got a 106 while he got a 120, lol. The biggest drawback to this method, however, is how long it takes, hence my apprehension at the prospect of mastering both content review and practice while taking a full course load and a part time job. I could probably manage and do okay, and I know that med school requires us to be ready to handle tons of information very quickly, but keep in mind that I seek to do the best I can possibly do. I really want to maximize my potential on this test; it's as important to me personally as it is to my candidacy for medical school.

Sorry for the long story, but I just wanted to share what works for me. I see myself becoming very overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material needed for the MCAT, especially because I'm very weak in most of the sciences. I know people get burned out from MCAT studying, but perhaps it would be better to think of it as me spending a semester relearning the prerequisite knowledge rather than true MCAT studying.

I actually study the same way as you! After trying to take the mcat this August, I realized that I had started to forget information I studied before. In terms of my study schedule, I ended up writing out 2 chapters and memorizing information. And then the following day do the passages. This worked out well for me in terms of knowing the information. I used TBR just in case you were wondering. I was done with knowing the content inside and out in almost a month. And after that you can devote time into concepts you are having trouble with. This is all just to shed some light on what worked for me since we both study in a similar way. If you really decide to study for 6-7 months, then I suggest you spend a couple days a week just reviewing your notes so that you don't forget the material.

 

[Gurby]

Study for 4-5 months at max, take the test, and if you are not happy, retake it. The experience you gain going through the actual test (and the weeks leading up to the actual test) is much more valuable then sitting down and focusing on content review for months.

This is either bad advice or sabotage. Take it once and do well.

 

[TheAnonymous]

This is either bad advice or sabotage. Take it once and do well.

You might think so.

However, I will clarify it because the last thing I want to do in this world is to offer someone bad advice.

First of all, I did not mean to say that you should take the test without being well prepared. You should only take the test when you are 100% ready. What I meant to say is that no matter how much time you give yourself to prepare, even after 8 months, you will very likely still feel "rushed" towards the end. I think the majority of the learning (and valuable prep) takes place in the last month prior to the MCAT. So in the case of the 8 months period, you will only have let's say 1 month of valuable prep. Whereas if you break it down to 2, you will have 2 months of valuable prep. Hopefully this makes sense. So hopefully OP understood my point correctly because my intention was not to suggest to OP to take the test twice - that's absurd.

Having gone through this myself, I believe spending 7-8 months studying for the MCAT is generally not a smart move, unless you are a non-trad (i.e. very, very far from the pre-reqs) or you cannot commit to studying full-time (i.e. have another major commitment that leaves you only let's say 4 hours/week for studying). Other than that, generally it's not a wise prep strategy, specially if you are planning on dedicating more than 2 months of it to content review or if you are planning on dedicating a portion of it to solely content review.

Again, from my personal experience, when you have that much time, it's very easy to fall into the content review trap where you start reading the chapters a few times, take detailed notes, start memorizing every single detail.. and guess what - you shortly after realize you forgot half of it. So when OP said he/she wants to dedicate 2.5-3 months to content review, and then a year later to solely practice, the first thing that came to my mind was that its not a smart idea because OP will certainly forget most of the stuff and will need to dedicate another month or so "reviewing" content and thus have wasted some valuable time. Instead, the best way to go on about this is to read a chapter, then dedicate a good amount of time taking practice passages, before moving on to the next chapter and 4 months is just the "right" amount of time for this, again unless you are in the "non-trad" category, not a typical premed.

Again, I do apologize, my intention was definitely not to mislead someone. I've taken the MCAT more than once and have dedicated months and months of my life to it. OP should however remember that this is just my personal opinion.

 

[Gurby]

You might think so.

However, I will clarify it because the last thing I want to do in this world is to offer someone bad advice.

First of all, I did not mean to say that you should take the test without being well prepared. You should only take the test when you are 100% ready. What I meant to say is that no matter how much time you give yourself to prepare, even after 8 months, you will very likely still feel "rushed" towards the end. I think the majority of the learning (and valuable prep) takes place in the last month prior to the MCAT. So in the case of the 8 months period, you will only have let's say 1 month of valuable prep. Whereas if you break it down to 2, you will have 2 months of valuable prep. Hopefully this makes sense. So hopefully OP understood my point correctly because my intention was not to suggest to OP to take the test twice - that's absurd.

Having gone through this myself, I believe spending 7-8 months studying for the MCAT is generally not a smart move, unless you are a non-trad (i.e. very, very far from the pre-reqs) or you cannot commit to studying full-time (i.e. have another major commitment that leaves you only let's say 4 hours/week for studying). Other than that, generally it's not a wise prep strategy, specially if you are planning on dedicating more than 2 months of it to content review or if you are planning on dedicating a portion of it to solely content review.

Again, from my personal experience, when you have that much time, it's very easy to fall into the content review trap where you start reading the chapters a few times, take detailed notes, start memorizing every single detail.. and guess what - you shortly after realize you forgot half of it. So when OP said he/she wants to dedicate 2.5-3 months to content review, and then a year later to solely practice, the first thing that came to my mind was that its not a smart idea because OP will certainly forget most of the stuff and will need to dedicate another month or so "reviewing" content and thus have wasted some valuable time. Instead, the best way to go on about this is to read a chapter, then dedicate a good amount of time taking practice passages, before moving on to the next chapter and 4 months is just the "right" amount of time for this, again unless you are in the "non-trad" category, not a typical premed.

Again, I do apologize, my intention was definitely not to mislead someone. I've taken the MCAT more than once and have dedicated months and months of my life to it. OP should however remember that this is just my personal opinion.

My bad, I guess I was just feeling a sort of lax attitude from your first post: "if you don't do well just retake it, no big deal", when it is in fact a big deal and every score matters.

You say you would read a chapter a few times, take notes, memorize details, and then forget half of it -- is this with or without the help of Anki?

Thanks for the explanation, I really appreciate it! I understand where you're coming from, and it makes sense. For what it's worth, I was planning on really ingraining the knowledge into my mind. Using things like Anki and reviewing the material each and every day is a luxury I could afford if I start now.

So say I follow your advice and decide to leave the studying to the 4 months in spring; what do you think I should do now? The main reason I am even thinking of this plan is because I have a very light course load this semester, and I really don't want to waste my time doing nothing. In fact, I had to withdraw from Orgo II, so I would feel very guilty pushing that to next semester, which I was supposed to keep light so I could devote my time to the MCAT. I just don't feel right taking it so easy now and then trying to handle everything next semester. Yeah, I could spend time volunteering or researching and whatnot, but honestly I want to use my time doing what has the most potential impact on my chance at med school, which would be the MCAT. I want to get the biggest bang for my buck when it comes to all this new found free time.

1) I would say at the very least you could start CARS practice right now. Improving your CARS skills will help you on every other section of the exam, and you don't really have to worry about running out of practice material. Also, CARS seems like the hardest skill to improve on, so the more energy you put into it the better.

2) When does Spring term end for you? If you absolutely must have a full course load + job during it, I would strongly consider taking a June MCAT. This gives you a month of dedicated studying time, and puts you complete in July which is still plenty early.

3) I don't see an issue with doing content review right now, so long as you make good use of a spaced repetition program like Anki or Supermemo. Yes, you will forget things and need to re-review them. No big deal - it will be easier to review them the 2nd time around and hopefully just require a quick skim through the chapter.

 

[Gurby]

1) Thanks for the suggestion, I'll definitely make CARS a priority. I'd appreciate any tips or pointers if you could point me in the right direction on how best to improve on it. I've heard good things about the EK CARS book, would you recommend just going through it?

2) Spring semester ends by the first week of May at my school. Having one dedicated month is possible I suppose, but I don't really do well under pressure, so I'd prefer to take the slower and safer route. Since I'll be applying after my senior year, it's a major priority for me to be as early as possible with my MCAT/application. It's a goal of mine to be ready right out of the gate during the application cycle.

3) Yep, I've been hearing a lot about Anki and I'll definitely be tapping into that resource, and for me personally repetition is everything.

I'm actually completely unqualified to give advice about any of this, really... I'm just starting MCAT prep myself. I'm basing my study plan mainly off of information I took from these two threads:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/how-i-studied-for-a-526.1162745/
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/how-i-prepped-for-a-526.1146107/

General plan being content review -> passages -> FL's, with daily CARS practice and creating/reviewing of Anki cards throughout the process.

For CARS I have EK 101, and two of the Next Step books. No way to tell yet if I'll feel like I still need more practice after all of this, or if I'll feel comfortable and put more time into other things after getting halfway through EK 101.

 

[Technology]

I don't know too much about the MCAT (in terms of when it's taken and if there are practices for it), but you should study until a set date that allows you to see your current status/progress. Here is an example:

I start studying in October for the MCAT. I take a practice test in December and see my current score. If I am happy with my score, then I will continue studying at my own pace and make sure I understand all of the content and even understand deeper content if possible. If I am not happy, then I will study assiduously until the next practice test in February. In February, my MCAT score rises 5 points!

This may or may not work for you, but I have used this method to increase my own scores on tests. I did this when studying for the SAT ! If there are many practice tests or available test centers that actually allow you to take a practice MCAT, then utilize them as best as you can.

Answering your question, if you have the time to do it, then why not! Would you rather study 7-8 months before and feel less stressed or study 2-3 months before and be freaking out?

Best of luck, Technology