Buying "old year" versus "new year" MCAT Prep

[Z-123]

I have been looking online where they are selling the MCAT preps. The "old years" seem significantly cheaper than the newer years.

Is there a benefit to buying, for example, Kaplan's 2019-2020 book if taking it next year, versus the 2018-2019 book year?

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[Zenabi90]

Review books don't generally change much from year to year. TBR has often advised potential users to buy older editions.

A caveat: the MCAT changed drastically in 2015, so don't go too far back looking for a deal. I'd say anything from 2016-onward is acceptable, 2017 is good, ignore 2018 and newer because full price is a bad price.

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

I have been looking online where they are selling the MCAT preps. The "old years" seem significantly cheaper than the newer years.

Is there a benefit to buying, for example, Kaplan's 2019-2020 book if taking it next year, versus the 2018-2019 book year?

Hi Z-123,

Having tutored for the MCAT for several years, I can say that I completely agree with Zenabi90. Don't use any prep material from the "old" MCAT. Only use materials from 2015 on. Since 2015, the concepts tested by the MCAT haven't changed so the review materials shouldn't have changed much either. That being said, when companies started publishing new materials for the 2015 MCAT, there were almost certainly typos and errors that slipped through the editing process that were corrected in later editions. I would personally look for a 2016 or 2017 edition. This should have fewer typos and still be reasonably cheap as compared to the brand new materials.