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Started by carrot395
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I thought you were @Catherine Wang (see another thread on upper level courses on front page)

I find classes and prep courses to be an utter waste of time and money. Everyone learns their own way and in their own pace and SDN provides scheduling schemes to provide structure. What is important is finding the right books.

So basically, use Kaplan for non-CARS content review, Princeton Review for practice and NextStep and EK for CARS practice. And of course, use AAMC exams for final review.
 
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I thought you were @Catherine Wang (see another thread on upper level courses on front page)

I find classes and prep courses to be an utter waste of time and money. Everyone learns their own way and in their own pace and SDN provides scheduling schemes to provide structure. What is important is finding the right books.

So basically, use Kaplan for non-CARS content review, Princeton Review for practice and NextStep and EK for CARS practice. And of course, use AAMC exams for final review.
i think they are. go back and read the other thread. First post from different account, last post from this person thanking for the response.
 
i think they are. go back and read the other thread. First post from different account, last post from this person thanking for the response.

It's probably a slip up from forgetting the info of the second account. I recommend OP to delete the initial account (or remove the avatar and any info).

OT: Prep courses are always bad. With the 2015 MCAT, it's far worse because no one has any idea about it.
 
kittycat do you think taking notes in prep books while you are in the class would be beneficial, or not necessary in your opinion?
 
I personally thought the Kaplan psych book and in class format were very inadequate. The psych book missed a TON of topics, and there was minimal content review in class. All we did in class was test taking strategy, which would be fine if kept to one full day of it, but having every day be about strategy? Come on, By now most of us have our own set strategies for standardized testing. So that's my two cents.
 
I used Khan Academy videos for some hard organic chemistry concepts. No idea what their video is like for passages.
Sorry my message was a bit confusing, I meant how are there videos as question 1. Separately, I was asking if you used any of there questions or passages for preparation given Khan is "teamed up" with the AAMC so their questions are, supposedly, good practice and simulate AAMC questions.
 
I took notes on a blank piece of paper, because I am a visual learner. I like to keep my notes in 1 folder haha. Everyone in my prep class took class notes so you should probably take notes too.
I meant as in when I'm taking orgo this semester if I take class notes in my MCAT book concurrently would that be helpful or a waste of time? Sorry I should have been more clear!
 
2) Princeton Review
-In person classroom (summer): I love this class and I have met really great instructors. Part of the charm is that I hang out with other students everyday to struggle together, and this motivates me. I would highly recommend in person classroom because it is way less depressing than sitting in front of your computer. Highly recommend their class.

You recommend dropping a few thousand for somebody to verbally recite what's already in the books? That you also paid for?

Interesting, but I disagree.
 
Bolded parts are what is necessary, the rest are what I consider to be the minor details.

For anyone using the Kaplan books (set of 7) do you think I would be okay to review just the concept summaries at the end of that chapters?
I feel like I am reading material for the 1000th time when I work through the chapters. I have done 2 chapters so far by painstakingly annotating every detail of the chapter (takes me about 5-7 hours) versus probably 1 hour doing the chapter summaries. I just don't want to come across that one discreet question and be like damn, wish I would have spent a zillion hours reading those Kaplan chapters! Shame on me!

Has anyone done this? What were your results? If it makes a difference, I am also simultaneously taking 15 hours of upper level hard sciences and working 2 jobs. I am out of time 🙂

Thanks in advanced for replies.
 
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@frosted_flake - no @ just the summaries; you need the details.

Can't answer and won't try. I disagree 100% with the comments on Kaplan online classes being a waste. I thought they were helpful for the in-depth content reviews like electro statics, kidney, endocrine, circuits/resistors, orgo orgo orgo, molecular genetics, neuro, psych/soc.

I continue to attend the live on-line sessions and will do so until test day (9/12)
 
Is it just me, or do the discrete questions at the end of the Kaplan chapters suck? I know an above poster mentioned they were not MCAT style at all, but I am saying they are poorly written...
 
Don't waste your time on the end of chapter Kaplan questions. Do the content review, do passages from Kaplan online or AAMC or EK. The end of chapter questions are really just to see if you retained what you just read (can't remember who said that yesterday so credit to whoever that was)
 
I got 515... which is 93% percentile.

Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems 130 / 97%
Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills 129 / 93%
Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems 128 / 87%
Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior 128 / 87%

I am slightly confused by what the scores really mean... also how to convert to old MCAT score

A 515 is roughly a 33. See my signature regarding the accurate percentile conversion presented by @efle
 
Gasp, how can 93 percentile be the median score for medical school matriculants? I thought the acceptance rate is 45% nationally.

It's not. It would be around the 83th percentile (so a 31 or 510). This is from recent reports from what i saw for MD acceptance averages (which is far more important than matriculant averages). DO is obviously lower, so overall is around a 29-30.

For MD: 31 +/- 2 is fine
For DO: 27 +/- 3 is fine