Book recommendation for the new MCAT

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Ianternet

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Hi guys,

I am intending to take the new mcat. May I know what set of books do you recommend to prepare for the new mcat?

I have heard of kaplan and princeton, which 1 is better? What are the strength and weakness of each publisher?

What other material and practice paper did you guys use?

Thanks! :)

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I prefer a combination of PR, EK, and Kaplan (with PR being the main squeeze). Check if your local libraries have an MCAT collection, and you can see which publisher's format and style is best for you.
 
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General advise about studying from the books seems to be wide ranging, but for the practice tests, it seems to be agreed upon that nothing beats lots and lots of it from lots and lots of sources.
 
So, what are some of the full length practice test out there? I heard AAMC only got 1 full length test. Is there other FL papers or other practice papers?

If yes, what are some of the good ones that people normally use?
 
I personally like TBR if you have time to read through it. If nothing else, get the books for the practice passages. They usually have about 13-14 passages per chapter in General Chemistry (10 chapters) and O-chem (8 chapters), 15 in 10 chapters of Bio, and like 10 passages & 10 chapters in Physics. That's more than you'll ever need, and they will make you think while teaching you quick math tricks. I used them to reinforce my solubility, acid-base, and electrochem weaknesses. It really helped me a lot. If I would have reviewed TBR since the beginning of summer and did all of their passages, I think I could probably pull a 90+ percentile score rather easily. I have a pretty strong understanding of these concepts in general, so the main benefit would be from challenging myself more and learning shortcuts. I don't think the MCAT stuff is necessarily hard as long as you really plan things out and know what you're doing, which I didn't.

Kaplan is pretty decent for content review in general, although it can be way too detailed at times. I don't know anything about EK. TPR is pretty good, too. Just check out books from the library (or inter-library loan) if you want to see what is best for you.

Get NS Strategy and Practice Psychology/Sociology for PS passages, and maybe check out the EK book too for the 30-minute exams. I've been using EK for PS passages, and they seem to be decent. I feel they are representative, although slightly on the easy side.
 
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