- Joined
- Aug 10, 2017
- Messages
- 2,734
- Reaction score
- 5,320
Before taking the MCAT I did a lot of research on different strategies for studying and I have done quite a bit since. I wanted to post some of the methods I used and stuff that I have learned. I scored a 516 (129, 129, 128, 130), which I know is not sky high, but whatever. Hopefully, you can learn something from this:
Overall Plan:
I started studying for the MCAT in September of 2018 to take the test in May of 2019. This is a bit longer than normal, but I needed the extra time because I was working 30-40 hours a week and taking classes part-time. As a result, I could only study for the MCAT for 15-20 hours a week. The time period over which you study is less important than the total hours that you study. I recommend 30-40 hours per point that you want to increase from your initial diagnostic exam. I studied for a total of 650 hours and improved my score by 17 points.
First, I took the free Next Step diagnostic. Any diagnostic MCAT will do. I scored 499 (125, 123, 124, 127), and this score gave me a starting point to focus my studies as I worked on my weakest subject areas first and left my strongest subjects for last. I recommend this method, but there are some people that like to study all the subjects concurrently. There is no wrong way to do it. Just find what works best for you.
I developed a study plan with the help of mcatselfprep.com, which costs $10 for the basic account. That website has video playlists grouped by MCAT subject (Biology 1 and 2, Chemistry 1 and 2, etc.) from Khan Academy, AK Lectures, Crash Course, and others. It also offers suggestions on readings that you can do in Kaplan and Princeton Review books for further study if needed. It acted as a central hub for all my studying and greatly simplified things. You can pay an extra $90 for 5000+ premade Quizlet flashcards that cover all the major topics of the MCAT, or you can make cards yourself. I bought the extra cards, but I ended up making a lot of cards too. There is a deluxe package too, which I got, but it is not worth the hefty price tag in my opinion.
Whatever you do, you should use some kind of detailed study plan. There are other options besides Mcat Self-Prep, like the ones found on SDN! You can honestly just google "MCAT study schedule" and find a plethora of resources. Knock yourself out.
Content Review:
My content review was almost exclusively the video content from Khan Academy, AK Lectures, and Crash Course. To best learn and retain this information I primarily utilized spaced repetition flashcards that I made myself on Anki. Image occlusion and overlapping cloze deletion are amazing add-ons that I would recommend.
The quality of your notecards makes a big difference. When I first started studying I would make simple “Term: Definition” cards, but then I learned that putting in a little more effort into card creation paid huge dividends. I started making questions that imitated AAMC discrete questions. For example:
Your opinion on healthcare policy is influenced by the idea that healthcare disparities exist because poor people are lazy. What is this an example of?
Throughout your content review, it is very helpful to intersperse passages and questions to test your understanding. MCAT Self Prep has mini AAMC exams that consist of 60-80 questions pulled from the AAMC bundle to test you periodically. Even if you decide to self-study another way or take an in-person class, I recommend doing AAMC passages throughout to keep an “AAMC mindset.” Questions from 3rd party sources are helpful, but the AAMC writes the MCAT and their questions and FLs are the gold standards. Doing these questions throughout your content review also allows you to check your progress periodically instead of coasting and finding out a month before your scheduled MCAT that you aren’t ready.
Here is an example AAMC mini-exam:
AAMC Mini-exam 1
For Chemistry/Physics Section, take 30 minutes to complete problems 1 through 19 from the Official MCAT Chemistry Question Pack
For Critical Analysis and Reasoning Section, take 33 minutes to complete problems 1 through 21 from the Official MCAT Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills Question Pack, Volume 1.
For Biochemistry/Biology Section, take 30 minutes to complete problems 1 through 20 from the Official MCAT Biology Question Pack, Volume 1.
For Behavioral Sciences Section, take 20 minutes to complete problems 1 through 12 from the Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior Section in the AAMC MCAT Section Bank.
Full-Length Practice:
This is arguably the most important phase of your preparation. You should try to take between 6-10+ FLs before you take the MCAT. The 1 non-scored and 4 scored AAMC tests are required. That leaves 1-5+ that you can get from 3rd party sources. I used the free Next Step FL and 2 Kaplan FLs on top of the AAMC practice exams. I took my 7 practice exams over a period of 8 weeks. 1 each Saturday leading up to my test. If you are studying full time you can cut this time in half and do 2 FLs per week. Taking these FLs helps with timing, passage analysis, stamina, and more. You need to replicate the real test environment as best as you can. Turn off your phone, have the same break length, eat the same breakfast and lunch. I prepared this way, and when I took the real test I didn’t have any nervousness about the process because I had done it many times before. The actual test was still high stakes, but I was able to focus on what I knew and not on my emotions.
The most important part of this last phase of studying is reviewing your tests and focusing on your weaknesses. If you encounter a topic that you are unfamiliar with you should revisit your content to ensure your understanding is where it should be. Spend at least as much time reviewing the test as you spent taking it (7.5 hours+). I also spent this last month finishing every AAMC passage available and I did the section bank and CARS question packs twice. I cannot stress enough how important those AAMC questions are.
Section Specific Tips:
Chemistry/Physics (C/P)
List of Resources Used:
Overall Plan:
I started studying for the MCAT in September of 2018 to take the test in May of 2019. This is a bit longer than normal, but I needed the extra time because I was working 30-40 hours a week and taking classes part-time. As a result, I could only study for the MCAT for 15-20 hours a week. The time period over which you study is less important than the total hours that you study. I recommend 30-40 hours per point that you want to increase from your initial diagnostic exam. I studied for a total of 650 hours and improved my score by 17 points.
First, I took the free Next Step diagnostic. Any diagnostic MCAT will do. I scored 499 (125, 123, 124, 127), and this score gave me a starting point to focus my studies as I worked on my weakest subject areas first and left my strongest subjects for last. I recommend this method, but there are some people that like to study all the subjects concurrently. There is no wrong way to do it. Just find what works best for you.
I developed a study plan with the help of mcatselfprep.com, which costs $10 for the basic account. That website has video playlists grouped by MCAT subject (Biology 1 and 2, Chemistry 1 and 2, etc.) from Khan Academy, AK Lectures, Crash Course, and others. It also offers suggestions on readings that you can do in Kaplan and Princeton Review books for further study if needed. It acted as a central hub for all my studying and greatly simplified things. You can pay an extra $90 for 5000+ premade Quizlet flashcards that cover all the major topics of the MCAT, or you can make cards yourself. I bought the extra cards, but I ended up making a lot of cards too. There is a deluxe package too, which I got, but it is not worth the hefty price tag in my opinion.
Whatever you do, you should use some kind of detailed study plan. There are other options besides Mcat Self-Prep, like the ones found on SDN! You can honestly just google "MCAT study schedule" and find a plethora of resources. Knock yourself out.
Content Review:
My content review was almost exclusively the video content from Khan Academy, AK Lectures, and Crash Course. To best learn and retain this information I primarily utilized spaced repetition flashcards that I made myself on Anki. Image occlusion and overlapping cloze deletion are amazing add-ons that I would recommend.
The quality of your notecards makes a big difference. When I first started studying I would make simple “Term: Definition” cards, but then I learned that putting in a little more effort into card creation paid huge dividends. I started making questions that imitated AAMC discrete questions. For example:
Your opinion on healthcare policy is influenced by the idea that healthcare disparities exist because poor people are lazy. What is this an example of?
- Stereotyping
- Prejudice
- Discrimination
- Racism
A lot of people have asked me this question in private messages, so I'll give a detailed example of how I created flashcards from review materials.
To start, here's a short passage that I pulled from a random page of the TPR 2015 bio/biochem book. (This page is available in the free preview on Amazon, so I assume it's okay to post it here.)
Based on that passage, here's approximately what I'd write in my notes:
The first thing I'd do in Anki is to make double-sided cards for all of the key vocabulary (underlined) in my notes. For example:
I'd also make a few cards to create quick associations between those vocab terms:
I'd use cloze deletion cards to go into more detail. There are a lot of different ways to set up patterns of cloze deletion – for example:
This will create two cards that display like this:
Here's another one:
This will create three cards that display like this:
And here's an example of a cloze deletion card combined with a question. The bold is additional text that will display with the answer.
Finally, I'd make a few cards with broader conceptual questions about why all of this stuff is important and how it relates to other topics. I'd add more as I did MCAT practice questions that discussed different applications of this material.
If there were any particularly helpful diagrams in that portion of the text, I'd take a picture of them and either add them to a relevant card as a supplement, or use the image occlusion add-on if there were labels that I wanted to quiz myself on.
This example is pretty simple because the material is pretty straightforward... the idea is to test yourself on the same material over and over, in a variety of different ways, and on a variety of different levels. You can think about Bloom's taxonomy if it's helpful
Throughout your content review, it is very helpful to intersperse passages and questions to test your understanding. MCAT Self Prep has mini AAMC exams that consist of 60-80 questions pulled from the AAMC bundle to test you periodically. Even if you decide to self-study another way or take an in-person class, I recommend doing AAMC passages throughout to keep an “AAMC mindset.” Questions from 3rd party sources are helpful, but the AAMC writes the MCAT and their questions and FLs are the gold standards. Doing these questions throughout your content review also allows you to check your progress periodically instead of coasting and finding out a month before your scheduled MCAT that you aren’t ready.
Here is an example AAMC mini-exam:
AAMC Mini-exam 1
For Chemistry/Physics Section, take 30 minutes to complete problems 1 through 19 from the Official MCAT Chemistry Question Pack
For Critical Analysis and Reasoning Section, take 33 minutes to complete problems 1 through 21 from the Official MCAT Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills Question Pack, Volume 1.
For Biochemistry/Biology Section, take 30 minutes to complete problems 1 through 20 from the Official MCAT Biology Question Pack, Volume 1.
For Behavioral Sciences Section, take 20 minutes to complete problems 1 through 12 from the Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior Section in the AAMC MCAT Section Bank.
Full-Length Practice:
This is arguably the most important phase of your preparation. You should try to take between 6-10+ FLs before you take the MCAT. The 1 non-scored and 4 scored AAMC tests are required. That leaves 1-5+ that you can get from 3rd party sources. I used the free Next Step FL and 2 Kaplan FLs on top of the AAMC practice exams. I took my 7 practice exams over a period of 8 weeks. 1 each Saturday leading up to my test. If you are studying full time you can cut this time in half and do 2 FLs per week. Taking these FLs helps with timing, passage analysis, stamina, and more. You need to replicate the real test environment as best as you can. Turn off your phone, have the same break length, eat the same breakfast and lunch. I prepared this way, and when I took the real test I didn’t have any nervousness about the process because I had done it many times before. The actual test was still high stakes, but I was able to focus on what I knew and not on my emotions.
The most important part of this last phase of studying is reviewing your tests and focusing on your weaknesses. If you encounter a topic that you are unfamiliar with you should revisit your content to ensure your understanding is where it should be. Spend at least as much time reviewing the test as you spent taking it (7.5 hours+). I also spent this last month finishing every AAMC passage available and I did the section bank and CARS question packs twice. I cannot stress enough how important those AAMC questions are.
Section Specific Tips:
Chemistry/Physics (C/P)
- Don’t worry about memorizing every single equation that you encounter. You will encounter some equations that are very long and cumbersome and many of these equations will be given to you in passages on the real test. I recommend finding a list of 100 or so equations on Reddit or here on SDN. The lists that include 200-300 equations are too long and contain too many low-yield equations to be helpful.
- You need to practice high-speed math without a calculator. Practice converting most numbers to scientific notation because the math is much quicker that way. Round your numbers frequently. On a multiple-choice test like the MCAT you don’t need to get the exact answer, you just need to get close enough that it narrows down to the correct answer.
- If you know that a math problem will take more than 2-3 minutes, then pick a random answer, flag the question, and come back if you have time. You don’t want to run out of time with 5 questions unanswered at the end. It is easy to lose track of time in the C/P section because of the math problems.
- CARS is one of the most difficult sections to improve, but it can be done. I improved my score by 6 points from 123 on my diagnostic to 129 on the real test.
- I said earlier to focus on the AAMC questions, but for the CARS section, this is even more important. All 3rd party resources miss the mark on CARS. For this reason, I do not recommend doing any questions from any 3rd party resource. You should do the CARS question packs at least one time and preferably two times. While I don’t recommend doing the questions from 3rd party sources, it is great practice to read the passages from Jack Westin, Testing Solutions, or a content review book. Instead of answering the questions, you can work on your reading comprehension. The following is a list of strategies for improving your reading comprehension and these strategies will help with every section, not just CARS.
- Metacognition – Metacognition literally means “thinking about thinking.” In the context of reading comprehension, it just means to be aware of what you are thinking. Understanding a passage requires both seeing the words on the page and thinking about those words. This may sound simple, but it is so easy to drift off.
- Comprehension Monitoring – You need to be able to quickly discern if you do or do not understand something. On CARS, if you still don’t understand something quickly, it is best to ignore that sentence and move on. It is a common misconception that you have to understand every single word. You don't.
- Linking – In discovering the main idea, it is important to be able to quickly connect a sentence you just read to a sentence you have previously read. You have to work to understand how each sentence in the passage fits together.
- Summarizing – When you truly understand something, you are able to water it down to simple main points that even a fourth-grader could understand. Work on constantly summarizing and re-summarizing what you are reading as you read it.
- Main Idea Finding – CARS questions tend to focus on the main idea of the passage. In fact, if all you can do during a passage is to discover its main idea, you can often answer the majority of the questions correctly.
- Using Background Information / Previewing – Although the CARS section does not require you to have background knowledge on philosophy or history to understand these passages, using what background information you do have can help make a passage more understandable.
- Making Inferences and Predictions – Try to make inferences and predict what the author is going to say next. Doing so enhances your engagement with, and understanding of, the passage. If you think about it, this is what you are doing when reading a novel or watching a movie.
- Visualization – By visualizing what you read, you will not only understand it better but also have an easier time remembering it.
- The AAMC section bank is essential to improve your score in B/B. I only improved in this section after I started comprehending research articles. Many of the passages in this section are dense, and the more you can comprehend, the better.
- It is sometimes difficult to keep track of all of the abbreviations used. I don’t recommend highlighting very much in any of the sections because I think it takes too much time and is distracting, but I liked to highlight whenever an abbreviation is established so I can quickly reference back.
- Read lots of research articles! It will help in this section.
- Get the 100 page KA notes. This should be your main resource for content in this section. There is also a 300-page version of this document that expands on definitions and has pictures. Some people really like the longer version, but I found it to be unnecessary. Look at both and figure out your preference.
- For practice, I recommend the AAMC questions, as always, but I also recommend UWorld if you want to spend the extra money to buy that question bank. Their questions are very similar to the real MCAT and their explanations are second to none. They go into a great deal of depth and have excellent diagrams that really drive home the material.
List of Resources Used:
- Anki
- Videos from Khan Academy, Crash Course, AK lectures
- Kaplan full lengths 1-2
- Next Step diagnostic and full length 1
- The entire AAMC bundle
- UWorld
Last edited:
