Content Prep - falling into same traps. Help.

[Futbol99]

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Anyone feel like/have experienced going much slower on content prep than intended everyday? How did you get out of that habit? I know this is a new test for the majority, but it applies to the past too. I would love some input from all.

I might be setting too much on my plate per day but this isnt the first time it happened to me. I fell short on last years mcat because I would spend a full 1 or 2 days per chapter stupidly, focusing on little details, and making notes. I know from experience and for myself that the best part of my learning comes from doing practice questions, but sometimes I never let my self get there by how slow I can get on bare content review.
I've seen all thats tested before at least once in my life (minus sociology) and some have been every year. But when you put it in the context of the "MCAT", I just pretend like I never learned this stuff before and spend too much time reading into something.
Part of the problem stems from the fact of having too many resources and trying to use them all to avoid missing any content gaps. I begin to do things out of competency rather than supplementing. For example, I thought for most things I would do Examkrackers. But knowing that notation that EK doesn't provide details worries me, so I end up supplementing it with a heavier content book, then get lost totally.

My deep wish is to: Read/study intended section, do many practice passages, review passages and note things down, the review those at the end of the week, move on to next topic. But I always find myself falling off .

I write Aug 6, and doing well is slowly becoming a fantasy now. I was hoping I am done content by end of June to begin practice mode (Tests, more passages, official resources) but I'm merely a quarter way through.

Anyone can shed light to this? Am I being too paranoid and spending too much time unnecessarily on content which wouldn't be required to know in depth anyways?

 

[yamamamamoo]

TL;DR: Do your best to stick to one source for content (unless it is deficient in some area). Focus more on understanding and integration of major topics instead of small details. Do practice questions and exams. If you are truly lacking in one area, practice in that area specifically.

I would do your best to stick to one resource for content, another (or maybe the same) for practice, and use several different resources for verbal if possible.

I have found that TBR goes too in-depth for the new MCAT, Kaplan is pretty sufficient for students who don't have a super strong background in the sciences since they go a bit more in-depth, and EK is a good refresher content book. As a science major, I use EK, and it is definitely not as in-depth as the science classes I took, but it still gives a good refresher on major topics. It does not cover every nitty-gritty detail, but the MCAT tests more understanding and application of major topics (even across subjects) than the small details of any one subject (in general, at least - there will always be a few questions that you either know or don't know based on outside knowledge).

I would focus on getting a good understanding of the major topics and try not to use dense textbooks for review - they include a lot of unnecessary material. Focus on being able to apply and integrate topics in the context of an experiment rather than knowing every small detail there is to know.

Personally, I am only spending about 1/3 of my study time until the MCAT on the material itself. The rest is dedicated to practice questions and tests, since that is where the real learning for the MCAT comes from.

There will always be some small things you just have to know (such as amino acid structures - there are no real ways to deduce the structure and side chains other than knowing them), but the best way to prepare for the MCAT is to do MCAT questions and learn how to integrate information you (should) know with information you are given.

 

[Futbol99]

@yamamamamoo Thats the type of conclusion I reached I just dont know why I dont believe in my own advice and end up trying to consume a lot of content.
When do you plan to write? And by 1/3 content, is that what your doing straight up? Can you give me a bit of detail with your schedule regarding like when to finish content, and what resources your using and how your splitting up your day? Just for comparison. Thank you

 

[yamamamamoo]

I am taking it on 8/22.

For 1/3 content, I mean that I have ~90 days to prepare, and about 30 days are spent almost exclusively on content review. Some might need a little more or a little less depending on their background. I review content from EK, do relevant TBR passages, and do the EK 30 minute exams a few days after reviewing that lecture. I also try to do 3 verbal passages per day.

The next 60 days I am planning on doing the AAMC question packs, Khan Academy passages, and full lengths. I don't believe I'll have memorized all the content by then, but I will have at least had some practice with most topics. It's not expected that you know every single thing by heart, but I think having a decent to good understanding of each topic and how to apply it is more useful than knowing intricate details. The best way to gain experience with applying the topics is by doing questions/passages/exams.

My average day is going over a chapter in one book, doing relevant TBR passages (which can take a bit to find, but they are good practice), doing some 30 minute EK exam from a previous day, and doing 3 verbal passages (either from EK 101, TPR hyperlearning, or TBR). At this point, I review pretty much every passage or exam right after I take it so my thought process used while answering the questions is still fresh in my head. Once I start taking the full lengths, I am planning on taking the full length one day, then spending the next two days reviewing both correct and incorrect answers.

Some days are long (when you have a lot of TBR passages), and some are short (when you have <5 or even none). I take a day off about once every 7-9 days. There are some good schedules on here for the new MCAT (you can just search for some) that might give you some good ideas what to do each day, but each schedule might use different review books, so you will have to tailor the schedule to your own timeline and resources.

 

[Tiffafi]

I am 100% completely in the same boat right now. I started studying the 2nd week of May (right after finals unfortunately) and am taking the test August 6th as well!

I have both the EK and TPR sets but so far I've only been using the EK books, khan academy, and referring to the AAMC guide. I'm having a hard time getting through just a single chapter (lecture) of the EK books because I've been taking notes as I go. But I think i'm having the same problem of worrying about detail and what is important.

So thankful I'm not the only one with this problem!!

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

Goodness gracious, such an over emphasis on content. You need to recognize that the MCAT, MCAT 2015 especially, is rewarding you for about 70% critical thinking and test taking skill, augmented with no more than 30% content mastery. You need the 30% only because much of the 70% is critical thinking about the 30%...and you cannot reason about concepts about which you have no clue.

With this in mind, you are putting the cart before the horse. Numerous learning research studies have demonstrated the efficacy of the Testing Effect. Students understand and retain information better when they are tested on it first, then study and deepen that knowledge, then test again. That is why every student should attempt to learn MCAT content in the terms of MCAT testing. We teach our students a topic such as acid-base by beginning with some practice MCAT questions about acid-base. Then we review principles surrounding the acid-base topics tested and strive for deeper mastery. However, during this "content review" You are remembering the questions you just attempted, and thinking about the topic we are discussing within the framework of how the MCAT tests acid-base. If you were strictly studying content you would probably just "read up" on acid-base. However, if you just attempted an MCAT question which required you to understand the intricacies of how individual molecules are changing during the titration and the relative ratios of each species... Then as you study titrations, even titrations beyond the scope of the questions you attempted, you are studying it differently. You are thinking about what the molecules are doing. You are being exponentially more efficient. Meanwhile, in your brain, neuronal interlacing is not only connecting your memories of the practice questions with your memories of what you are studying, but it is assigning greater strength ratings to what you are learning than it ever would have if you were studying "out of context." Your brain, and long-term potentiation, work this way. There is nothing you can do to change it. So work with instead of against it. If you give your brain relevant context (accurate MCAT question during your learning/content review phase) it will store the information more efficiently; if you study for random "general knowledge" your brain will rank it lower and discard it sooner.

Take-home: beginning with a 100% content review phase, and then shifting to a 100% practice test phase is foolish. You will need a few tests for diagnostic purposes near the end, but only a few. By far, the greatest total value you can obtain from a practice test is to use it during your learning phase, then analyze it, expand/deepen your knowledge of the subjects on which you or being tested, then repeat.

Every MCAT student should understand these concepts whether taking a prep course or studying on their own, they are equally applicable in either regard.

 

[yamamamamoo]

@Altius Premier Tutor I disagree with taking diagnostics before you learn the material. The only use you gain from taking a diagnostic before learning the material is that you know you aren't yet prepared. Yes, it will tell you that you need to study (because you don't know the answers to the questions that you haven't studied for in the first place), but it has little value beyond that. See Sn2ed's take on this...

Take a more advanced topic and ask a student questions about it before they have learned it - when answering the questions, they have no idea of the relevance of the information within the questions and what they should and should not be paying attention to. Learning the basic ideas first and then testing allows students to have at least SOME sense of what they should be paying attention to, and then after working through questions and still getting them wrong, that is when true learning will occur. You will know your ideas that you started with, your thought process while you were working through the question, how your thought process was incorrect (or correct), and how it could be improved for next time.

I am not advocating for a strict 1-month "study only, test none" phase. I (and many others here) study content, do passages or questions on that same content (a form of testing), and review it within the same day or soon after. But doing practice questions on a subject you have not yet studied has very little value. You wouldn't "keep those questions in mind" while learning the content, simply because you couldn't know what to pay attention to or how to think about a question before you had any knowledge to attempt it (in a way that might yield the correct answer). You could go back afterwards and review the questions and apply what you have just learned, but you wouldn't be able to compare your thought process before and after and see where it had gone awry because you didn't have a satisfactory or realistic thought process about a specific topic to begin with.

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

"Doing practice questions on a subject you have not yet studied has very little value."

I agree it may seem that way...but I am discussing a proven principle called the testing effect from the peer-reviewed literature. You may feel strongly, but the body of research says differently. The first meaningful peer-reviewed article on the testing effect goes back to 1917. Google: "Testing effect," "Test-Enhanced Learning," "Desirable Difficulty", "Testing effort hypothesis," you'll find more journal articles than you'd ever care to read.

Many studies since 1917 have supported that original finding that a learning period in which the test prompt is presented first, followed by review/studying, then retesting, resulted in significant long-term retention advantages over ANY of a wide variety of different study/test/retest permutations that begin with studying first (studying being defined as general review, with no test prompt). Researchers have had the same thought as you and have tried experiments where a very broad "preview" was given, then testing, then serious study...nope, empirically inferior recall performance. To go to the extreme of "unfamiliarity with the subject matter" (which, correct me if I am wrong, is what you seem to be of the opinion would make testing during the learning phase so futile) the same basic studies were used for long-term retention of advanced words from the Eskimo language which were gibberish to participants. They still exhibited empirically superior recall if testing came first. The more conceptual the nature of the material the greater the magnitude of the testing effect, making it great for the MCAT.
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It's not all testing up front. You usually do only a few questions at a time, not necessarily an entire diagnostic exam. But the key is test first, then study, then repeat.

 

[yamamamamoo]

There is no doubt that the testing effect is robust and has a large body of evidence behind it, but I think the process by which you explained it is largely incorrect. Every paper I have found so far has set up their experiment where they allow both experimental and control groups to study material first (before any testing is done), and then have the control group continue rote memorization/studying while the experimental group undergoes preliminary testing. After some period, both groups are re-tested in a final examination. Of course, the testing group normally performs slightly better. However, neither group had testing done BEFORE they had a chance to learn the material.

In an example (not something on the MCAT), say two groups of students were expected to learn a string of 20 digits. I hope you would agree that students who were not allowed to even look at the number list prior to initial testing would be at a disadvantage initially compared to students who were able to view the list, because they would simply be guessing a string of 20 digits, while if they had been able to study the list for even a short amount of time beforehand, their subsequent testing would probably put them ahead of their counterparts (who did not test after studying) when it came to the final exam. Apart from guessing, what learning could possibly be accomplished by this pre-test that wouldn't be better accomplished by learning, followed by testing testing, and then taking the final examination?

Please provide some evidence if I'm wrong, but I am finding very little to no papers that advocate for a "pre-test --> study + pre-tests --> final test" format, but rather a "study --> pre-tests (+ study) --> final test" format.

Let me know if you would like to see some papers to which I am referring...

Edit: The Gates paper (as far as I know) only included groups where at least some initial reading was done before recitation, and found that learning by recitation was more effective than continued reading, but did not examine how recitation alone with no prior reading compared. In Carrier et al. 1992, the TTST (test-trial/study-trial) group outperformed the ST (study-trial) group, which I would expect to happen -- they are essentially proving that flashcards are more effective for fact recall than passive studying. However, I would argue that this is not applicable to the way one should learn for the MCAT and is definitely not the way in which students are tested on the MCAT. Any multiple choice question is not a one-to-one fact recall question (at least in most cases). If the MCAT was a flashcard test, then your assumption that pre-tests are helpful would be correct, but as the MCAT requires complex logic and reasoning and each question is different, not much can be gleaned from going over material that you don't know which you may or may not be tested on again. Before initial learning, all an MCAT pre-test is going to tell you is that you don't know the material well enough. The way to strengthen your learning is by doing initial reading followed by testing to reinforce what you have already encountered.

Furthermore, why do you believe that a content review period followed by a testing period is "foolish"? Maybe this is a miscommunication, but during the content review period, it is not 100% content review - learning and testing are combined into this period. It is only after some testing has solidified the learning that practice tests are used. As you advocate for testing's efficacy, I would expect you to agree that full lengths are beneficial after the content has been covered. It is not only to become familiar with the length and strategy for the real test, but also to review the tests afterwards so that you will be able to correct your previous misconceptions and solidify your correct assumptions about the material.

 

[FauxBlue]

I feel the same way. I have been using Kaplan as my main studying material and then I got my hands on TBR later on which has led me to second guess myself because everyone says TBR is "over-detailed". What student wouldn't want to be over-prepared for the MCAT? I think with that mentality, it is sucking me into wanting to do more content review rather than more practice passages from TBR, Official AAMC questions, FLs, etc.

Anyone else have advice on how to kick start yourself to more passages rather than trying to go back to review content again???

PS. I haven't done any intensive practicing yet (been doing some TBR only), but none of the official AAMC material, FLs and others so far. My exam is in late August. Can I do it???