Am I studying enough?

[zeppelinpage4]

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Hey everyone, I could use some advice about how much I am studying. I had read some older threads about people putting in nearly 6 hours a day and I was hoping that I would do the same. However, I did not realize how much harder it would be to sit and study at home. There are more distractions here and I am afraid that I may not be dedicating enough time to preparing for this exam.

Anyhow, my plan is to study the whole summer. I am taking a Kaplan Advantage class which started around May 15th. Since then I've been keeping up with the class and doing all the required work/readings for the course. I sometimes do additional problems from Kaplan and I began some ExamKrackers verbal passages (just took Verbal Test 1).

Overall, I am putting about 3-4 hours of studying each day, 5-6 days a week. It has been enough to keep up with the readings and required work that Kaplan has to offer. But I haven't done many problems/passages outside of that. I am still in the content review phase and do not plan on taking any full length tests till July. However I don't know if I should be putting more hours and work into this exam, or if my current approach focusing just on the required material is alright.
I'm registered to take the actual MCAT on August 18th, so I have some time to prepare.

Any advice or opinions would really help. I know, the amount we study is dependent on the individual, but I have never studied long term like this and want to make sure I am not slacking.

 

[Double Bonded]

Hey everyone, I could use some advice about how much I am studying. I had read some older threads about people putting in nearly 6 hours a day and I was hoping that I would do the same. However, I did not realize how much harder it would be to sit and study at home. There are more distractions here and I am afraid that I may not be dedicating enough time to preparing for this exam.

Anyhow, my plan is to study the whole summer. I am taking a Kaplan Advantage class which started around May 15th. Since then I've been keeping up with the class and doing all the required work/readings for the course. I sometimes do additional problems from Kaplan and I began some ExamKrackers verbal passages (just took Verbal Test 1).

Overall, I am putting about 3-4 hours of studying each day, 5-6 days a week. It has been enough to keep up with the readings and required work that Kaplan has to offer. But I haven't done many problems/passages outside of that. I am still in the content review phase and do not plan on taking any full length tests till July. However I don't know if I should be putting more hours and work into this exam, or if my current approach focusing just on the required material is alright.
I'm registered to take the actual MCAT on August 18th, so I have some time to prepare.

Any advice or opinions would really help. I know, the amount we study is dependent on the individual, but I have never studied long term like this and want to make sure I am not slacking.

If you have to ask...then no.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

If you have to ask...then no.

I know my post seems odd, but honestly I've just never studied over such a long period of time. I cover all the material I am expected to and I feel fairly comfortable with the content. I just wanted to know if there was something more I should be doing like practicing passages, or if it would be alright to do those after content review is finished. I expect I'll study a lot more once I start taking full lengths in July and know what I should focus on. However for content review, it hasn't taken up as much time as I had expected (hence some perspective from others who studied would be nice).

I realize this is a pretty neurotic question, so apologies in advance.

 

[ozzi22]

I know my post seems odd, but honestly I've just never studied over such a long period of time. I cover all the material I am expected to and I feel fairly comfortable with the content. I just wanted to know if there was something more I should be doing like practicing passages, or if it would be alright to do those after content review is finished. I expect I'll study a lot more once I start taking full lengths in July and know what I should focus on. However for content review, it hasn't taken up as much time as I had expected (hence some perspective from others who studied would be nice).

I realize this is a pretty neurotic question, so apologies in advance.

i think you are doing just fine

 

[MDminded]

Questions:
1. Are you currently working? (If no, then try shooting for investing 5 hours a day. Find more practice problems. If yes, then do what you can, but I'd suggest squeezing in more practice problems - read below)
2. How long/often does your class meet? (I ask this because the "review" process also counts as hours, so add that into your "study time" each week)
3. How many (quantify) additional passages are you doing? (1, 2 verbal passages? 3 EK Bio passages?)

The goal of the preparation process is to do as many practice problems as possible. When you finish reading a chapter, make sure you do every Kaplan topical test, every section test, every end-of-the-chapter practice problem...everything. If you feel comfortable and like you could TEACH that chapter, then you've done a good job of preparing. If not, I'd look at going further and either investing in the ExamKrackers 1001 set or The Berkeley Review set for further practice. This will strengthen your understanding and challenge you by taking it one step further.

I agree with Double Bonded. If you have to ask, then maybe the answer IS no. Sometimes our intuition is dead on about things like that. Perhaps you can talk to your Kaplan instructor and see how they studied. My instructor last year told me he took a practice exam EVERY week, and reviewed that thoroughly. I think if you don't feel comfortable teaching the topic to your class, then perhaps you need to do more practice problems to secure the knowledge into your head.

Hope that helps!

 

[zeppelinpage4]

Questions:
1. Are you currently working? (If no, then try shooting for investing 5 hours a day. Find more practice problems. If yes, then do what you can, but I'd suggest squeezing in more practice problems - read below)
2. How long/often does your class meet? (I ask this because the "review" process also counts as hours, so add that into your "study time" each week)
3. How many (quantify) additional passages are you doing? (1, 2 verbal passages? 3 EK Bio passages?)

The goal of the preparation process is to do as many practice problems as possible. When you finish reading a chapter, make sure you do every Kaplan topical test, every section test, every end-of-the-chapter practice problem...everything. If you feel comfortable and like you could TEACH that chapter, then you've done a good job of preparing. If not, I'd look at going further and either investing in the ExamKrackers 1001 set or The Berkeley Review set for further practice. This will strengthen your understanding and challenge you by taking it one step further.

I agree with Double Bonded. If you have to ask, then maybe the answer IS no. Sometimes our intuition is dead on about things like that. Perhaps you can talk to your Kaplan instructor and see how they studied. My instructor last year told me he took a practice exam EVERY week, and reviewed that thoroughly. I think if you don't feel comfortable teaching the topic to your class, then perhaps you need to do more practice problems to secure the knowledge into your head.

Hope that helps!

Wow, thank you! Yes that definitely helped. I was a little lost as to what to attack if I were to study more but I like that approach to content. The actual reading/review hasn't taken up much time, so I'll try to do more passages each day.

I'm volunteering twice a week and might have summer research but I hope I can make the time.

 

[Sitagliptin]

If you have to ask...then no.

I'm inclined to agree. People ask questions like the OP's when they're feeling lazy and looking for someone to tell them "Oh, you're doing fine".

You need to ask *yourself* if you've mastered the material. The best way to do that, of course, is to see how well it shows up in the various practice problems/tests you do.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

I'm inclined to agree. People ask questions like the OP's when they're feeling lazy and looking for someone to tell them "Oh, you're doing fine".

You need to ask *yourself* if you've mastered the material. The best way to do that, of course, is to see how well it shows up in the various practice problems/tests you do.

Lol I have to admit, I definitely felt lazy. Though I did actually look to get some confirmation of it, thus getting motivated to study a harder. Rather than "You're doing fine".

Anyhow I put in about 5 hours yesterday and did a ton of physics discrete problems after I reviewed Organic, so I'm trying to take the advice given out.

 

[Jlaw]

You're fine, its probably better to go into the test a little under prepared than to go in burnt out. You see alot of threads about people taking tons of practice tests with awesome scores and then dropping 10 points on the real thing because they peaked too soon.

For what its worth I'm doing basically the same thing you are doing. Kaplan class from March-May. Currently reviewing the basics and next week I'm going to start taking practice exams and working through Examkrackers 1001/101 passages. I felt like I was kind of going through the motions to keep up with the Kaplan class but I'm beginning to realize that just going through the motions did help me and now taking the time to study on my own is really solidifying my understanding of things. My test is in July.

Anyway good luck, and don't sweat it, you have plenty of time.

 

[coyotelime]

You've heard this a million times, but quality over quantity. If you are going over your mistakes and reviewing thoroughly I imagine it would be difficult to get through all your materials in less than 5-6 hours per day.

But hey, maybe your corpus callosum is bigger than the average man/woman(though they differ slightly haha) and you can process at superhuman speeds.

 

[MDminded]

You've heard this a million times, but quality over quantity. If you are going over your mistakes and reviewing thoroughly I imagine it would be difficult to get through all your materials in less than 5-6 hours per day.

It's ALL in the review. I probably should have mentioned that when I said "do as many practice problems as possible". The analysis is what defines your success.

 

[Silverfalcon]

Overall, I am putting about 3-4 hours of studying each day, 5-6 days a week. It has been enough to keep up with the readings and required work that Kaplan has to offer. But I haven't done many problems/passages outside of that.

This is why I disagree you are studying/putting enough hours OR studying correctly for that matter. Of course, you (and others) are entitled to their own opinions.

 

[raltima07]

It's ALL in the review. I probably should have mentioned that when I said "do as many practice problems as possible". The analysis is what defines your success.

👍👍

 

[zeppelinpage4]

You've heard this a million times, but quality over quantity. If you are going over your mistakes and reviewing thoroughly I imagine it would be difficult to get through all your materials in less than 5-6 hours per day.

But hey, maybe your corpus callosum is bigger than the average man/woman(though they differ slightly haha) and you can process at superhuman speeds.

It's ALL in the review. I probably should have mentioned that when I said "do as many practice problems as possible". The analysis is what defines your success.

Alright, so a lot of you guys told me to review the problems thoroughly and I am quite sure this is where I need to improve.


As for review/analysis, I did verbal reading passages from EK 101 and whenever I finish a VR test, I spend about two hours reading through every answer both right and wrong.

For the sciences, I answer the end of chapter questions (10 discrete), complete all the topical tests (2-3 passages with some discrete) and one or two subject tests (30-40 discrete each). Unlike VR, for the science passages, I only go over the answers for questions I get wrong, rather than looking through the solutions for every problem.

For VR, I know that understanding the correct answers is just as important as knowing why the wrong answers are wrong. So I try to read through each and every solution. However with the science sections, it's little bit more obvious when I happen upon the right answer, so I don't really bother going through the solutions for every questions, unless I don't understand it. Does what I am doing seem sufficient for review?

All of this takes no more than 4 hours a day on average. I could try to complete every subject tests and chapter quiz but these are all discrete problems and not passage based. So I don't know if it'll be worthwhile or not.

 

[Gnomes]

It sounds like you are studying plenty to me. I advise taking an AAMC practice exam as soon as possible (like, tomorrow, maybe) if you haven't already. The AAMC practice exams at e-mcat.com give you a very nice breakdown into topics, and you can use that to guide your studying.

For what it's worth, I don't think you can improve your MCAT score all that much by studying without doing full sections under timed conditions. In the end, I studied full-time for only two and a half weeks and got a 39R. (Granted, I work in a lab, so I've had a fairly high level of continuous biology exposure after graduating, but bio was my lowest section score in the end.) I think I missed about three questions due to lack of specific knowledge, so, maybe if I'd studied longer I could have gotten a 40, I guess. It wasn't a matter of having learned it really well in the classes, either - I got an unremarkable mix of As and Bs for my prereqs - it's just the fact that the MCAT is not mainly a knowledge test. Taking practice exams helped me to accept this and stop trying to memorize my physiology textbook 🙂

It's probably different for different people, of course. But to the extent I'm sure of anything, I'm sure taking a full length practice exam under timed conditions, early in your studying, is solid advice.

 

[hiyaman]

I think about 6 hours is pretty normal, there's a lot of people that study 8-10 hours a day esp when its the only thing you are doing in the summer.

 

[EricMont]

I did 6-8 hours a day the first crack at this and it resulted in major burn out. I then did about 2 hours a day the second time and felt way better.

 

[MDminded]

Alright, so a lot of you guys told me to review the problems thoroughly and I am quite sure this is where I need to improve.


As for review/analysis, I did verbal reading passages from EK 101 and whenever I finish a VR test, I spend about two hours reading through every answer both right and wrong.

For the sciences, I answer the end of chapter questions (10 discrete), complete all the topical tests (2-3 passages with some discrete) and one or two subject tests (30-40 discrete each). Unlike VR, for the science passages, I only go over the answers for questions I get wrong, rather than looking through the solutions for every problem.

For VR, I know that understanding the correct answers is just as important as knowing why the wrong answers are wrong. So I try to read through each and every solution. However with the science sections, it's little bit more obvious when I happen upon the right answer, so I don't really bother going through the solutions for every questions, unless I don't understand it. Does what I am doing seem sufficient for review?

All of this takes no more than 4 hours a day on average. I could try to complete every subject tests and chapter quiz but these are all discrete problems and not passage based. So I don't know if it'll be worthwhile or not.

Sounds like you are doing a good job. I personally do review the science correct answers, because though seemingly obvious, sometimes I find that there was another and easier way of getting to that answer than the route I took. Whatever gets me through it quicker and faster = more points = less stress.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

It sounds like you are studying plenty to me. I advise taking an AAMC practice exam as soon as possible (like, tomorrow, maybe) if you haven't already. The AAMC practice exams at e-mcat.com give you a very nice breakdown into topics, and you can use that to guide your studying.

For what it's worth, I don't think you can improve your MCAT score all that much by studying without doing full sections under timed conditions. In the end, I studied full-time for only two and a half weeks and got a 39R. (Granted, I work in a lab, so I've had a fairly high level of continuous biology exposure after graduating, but bio was my lowest section score in the end.) I think I missed about three questions due to lack of specific knowledge, so, maybe if I'd studied longer I could have gotten a 40, I guess. It wasn't a matter of having learned it really well in the classes, either - I got an unremarkable mix of As and Bs for my prereqs - it's just the fact that the MCAT is not mainly a knowledge test. Taking practice exams helped me to accept this and stop trying to memorize my physiology textbook 🙂

It's probably different for different people, of course. But to the extent I'm sure of anything, I'm sure taking a full length practice exam under timed conditions, early in your studying, is solid advice.

Thanks, I actually would like to see where I am in terms of the AAMC tests. Very solid advice, I especially need to work on timing.

Sounds like you are doing a good job. I personally do review the science correct answers, because though seemingly obvious, sometimes I find that there was another and easier way of getting to that answer than the route I took. Whatever gets me through it quicker and faster = more points = less stress.

Wow that's actually a really good idea. Once I start practicing passages I think I may try looking at solutions too. The solutions/explanations for the discrete questions that I have been doing are little dense/hard to follow, so I think I might confuse myself, but it could be really useful for passages.

Thanks guys. 😎 Since making the thread I've gotten a much better idea of where to go with the studying. Only now I can see that I don't have enough hours to do everything lol.

 

[Im Learning]

It's ALL in the review. I probably should have mentioned that when I said "do as many practice problems as possible". The analysis is what defines your success.

This is extremely valuable advice. I just spend 5ish hours reading a TBR chapter, and thought I understood what was going on. Then, I did a practice passage over the topic I had JUST reviewed and it was like a foreign language.

After going through and reviewing every single possible answer (a,b,c and d) and why it was wrong/right, I understand the concept much better than I did from just reading it.

Doing and Reviewing practice passages is, IMO, the best way to learn and retain.

 

[omgyou8myrice]

3-4 hours a day is way too much, 6-8 is just insane. I studied for maybe 2-2.5 hours a day for a little under 3 monts using a modified version of SN2's guide. Overdoing it is just as bad as studying too little imo. Burnout is not something you want to experience here.

 

[MDminded]

Only now I can see that I don't have enough hours to do everything lol.

Totally true, my friend. Totally true.