Best way to beat the Mcat.....

[Rudy1223]

Ok, I read many posts on here and this is the impression I got; give me your impressions/opinions on this.

1. Many people are just looking and studying AAMC practice materials (aamc practice items and tests) and seem to do well ( >30) without taking a review course.

2. Some of the exams that are published by the prep. companies are poor indicators of real test performance

.....This is the impression (and please give me yours) I feel that you could know all the science cold and still not score very well on this test. However, many people that are taking exams ( 8-10 Mcat exams) seem to do very well because of the practice that comes out of those tests.

So I have about 15 Mcat tests and all the aamc stuff. Should I just do all of these exams before the real thing and I should be fine........feedback please!

Also, If you learn all the science that is tested in the aamc tests (even the questions you miss) and learn the explanation that they give for each question is this as good as scoring a high score on these tests.

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[Gleevec]

1. It is definitely true you can do well on the MCAT without a prep course, as long as you have the study materials and practice tests. The classes themselves are horrible and most instructors are less knowledgeable than some of the brighter students in the class.

2. Actually, the Kaplan and AAMC tests (for AAMC only tests 4-6 are accurate) were pretty much around my actual score (+/- 2 for Kaplan, +/- 1 for AAMC 4-6).

3. It is a common misconception that if you know science it wont show on the MCAT. If you know the science, and you know it well, you will do fine on those sections of the MCAT. The trick is, the science is only the beginning of the question. Usually you are asked to use the science you already know to understand a foreign and novel problem. So while it is true you can know the science and not do well, that is because PURE regurgitation is probably only 25% of the test, while most of the rest of the test is inference and synthesis.

Do the tests and yall be fine.

 

[Rudy1223]

ummm....bump.....

(come on I know many more people have opinions on this)

** thanks gleevec