Best Comprehensive MCAT review book

[desigirl101]

Hey guys!!
I just finished my sophomore year and I'd like to spend this summer volunteering and, more importantly, prepping for the MCAT!! But I don't know what book to get. I have time, plenty of it, so I WANT a comprehensive review, I've had plenty of questionable teachers and difficult classes in the past, I've definitely struggled with grades and doing well on my MCAT is incredibly important to me, I want to review thoroughly, and I'll take prep classes later in the year, but I want to start off with books first.
Unfortunately, I don't think I know how to pick a good MCAT review book, I went to my local barnes and nobles and thought I liked the Barrons MCAT review, then came home, and read a thousand reviews about how it absolutely sucked!!
So please, any recommendations would be appreciated, are there any books you'd recommend for a comprehensive MCAT review, especially for the chemistry/physics sections?? My local book stores sell mcgraw hill, kaplan, barrons and princeton review books and I was considering princeton review: cracking the MCAT, although now I'm not sure if its good or not, so let me know what you used and if you liked it.
Thanks!!

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[Mt Kilimanjaro]

I bought basic science textbooks from amazon for $0.01 and borrowed the ExamKracker from the library for practice. Amcas publishes a free outline of the tested topics.

 

[red doctober]

Yeah I've heard that Barrons is just horrible. A textbook that you use in class is probably too much info for what you need to study for the MCAT. TBR is probably the best in the amount of content they include, but they do have a lot of content. My personal favorite was EK because it was very condensed. That said if you are very rusty on a topic, EK might not suffice. When that happened to me, I then resorted to class textbooks and other resources like Khan Academy.

But just as an aside, it's going to be a waste of your time to study now. Begin studying a few months before your test. It's just basically cramming a bunch of info that you will soon forget, so there's little point in doing a bunch of studying now if you're going to take the test next year. Enjoy your summer and maybe use that extra time to pick up and additional activity.

 

[darkjedi]

I personally used the EK books and found them to be the most helpful and well structured.

You also may find more help in the MCAT Discussion forum here
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?f=31

 

[sector9]

Moving to MCAT Discussions

 

[desigirl101]

I've heard that EK isn't that indepth and none of the stores near my house have BR and I really wanted to look the books over before I got them but are they definitely the best? because then I can get online, I just want to make sure they are the best for a comprehensive review

 

[MedOldAge]

I've heard that EK isn't that indepth and none of the stores near my house have BR and I really wanted to look the books over before I got them but are they definitely the best? because then I can get online, I just want to make sure they are the best for a comprehensive review

Berkeley Review are not sold as retail in any store but from their website (although you may be able to buy them second hand from some folks advertised in this forum.

My 2 cents opinion is:
**********************
1. Get the Princeton Review Cracking MCAT from Amazon (don't do the 4 on line practice test and save them until the last push 4 months before MCAT day with the rest of AAMC FL test.

2. Get the Nova for Physics from Amazon.

3. Do Chad Video for G-Chem and O-Chem (and Physics if you like)

4. Get the Princeton Review MCAT Biology Reveiw from Amazon

5. Get the BR set (except Verbal) and slowly digesting them.

http://www.berkeley-review.com/TBR/home-study.html

This is not all and I am sure other SDNs have different opinion.

 

[Elevencents]

Way too early to start reviewing with MCAT prep. You're going to use up all the good resources before you're anywhere close to taking the exam.

 

[valkener]

EK is concise but not the most comprehensive. They stress the most important parts but you need more if you want to cover all of your bases and practice plenty. Honestly, using only one publisher only works if you're already an A student with a high GPA. Otherwise you have to work much harder to score comparably.

 

[mcgst9]

Way too early to start reviewing with MCAT prep. You're going to use up all the good resources before you're anywhere close to taking the exam.

That seems like a silly comment. She doesn't have to take her practice tests before she reads the review books a few times.

That being said, I wouldn't start studying this early because I would personally lose interest, but that's her choice and it depends on what kind of student she is.

Anyway, I went with TPR and read that during last semester, then borrowed EK books from my teachers after the semester ended. I started reading the EK books the first week of May, and I am almost done reading through them twice. It's very condensed and easy to read.

Do not take the practice tests until about month before you plan to take the actual exam though. And don't worry about scoring low on TPR. It's much more difficult than the AAMC tests. Just make sure you order a few of the AAMC tests.