Do you just read through your MCAT books or do you take careful notes?

[Ihave Nonamè]

It seems I'll never get through these Kaplan books if I sit and take careful notes. I suppose I could afford to just read through some subjects and take careful notes of others (gen. chem) that I'm not solid in. What do you do when studying from the book?

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[Nerd300]

Practice problems>>>>>>>>>> >>>>reading book. More time should be spent doing practice problem + review than reading the books.

*The MCAT is a passage based exam, so even though you understand a concept, you have to combine background knowledge (coming from you) and the information that is provided in the passages (from the MCAT). Thus reading the books can only take you so far.

EDIT: read the book, but don't dwell too much on it. Practice problems and reviewing them will tell you whether you are knowledgeable about the content or you got the answer correctly by luck.

1. It depends of your background. I was a biology major, therefore I had more content knowledge in the Bio/Biochem section than other sections. Thus, I spent less time on the Bio/biochem books.

2. Chemistry and Physics are all about practice. Doing practice problems and reviewing them (both the ones you got right and wrong) provides you a view of your strengths and weakness. Then you can revisit these weak areas in the books to build on them. Remember, calculators are not allowed on the exam, so the problems especially for physics are more conceptual, if you understand the concept, you will have 50% chance of choosing the right answer.

3. When I came across an unfamiliar equation/concept or just plain did not understand it, I marked it down to comeback to it later.

4. The only book that I read religiously was the social science book because it was basically a lot of terms that I needed to memorize +I only took 1 psychology course in college. Therefore basically taught myself that section.

4. Does Khan Academy still have the MCAT section on:
-If Yes, after reading a chapter, do the practice problem that correspond to that chapter.

 

[Dr Meow]

Im super nontrad because it took me 7 years to do well on the mcat. Any other idiot would have given up a long time ago but this idiot here doesnt quit.

Both books or practice problems by itself are useless.

For 5 years i read the books several time, did a tremendous amount of practice problems, and took a lot of notes, and tried to understand my mistakes and you know how i scored on my practice exams?

A 4 on verbal every single time on the OLD mcatscale. That is equal to a 121 on the new scale.
And NOTHING else improved either on any section.

Zero improvement for 5 years of trying.

So something was wrong and i tried everything and every way to get better. And everything failed to get better no matter what I did. I hired a tutor for 3000 dollars even and it ended with pity.

I gave up for 2 years. And on my 3rd year, i hated working at job so much that i was either going to get in or die. Every bit of my neurons were ****ed.

But this time around I used Anki and premade decks and my own flash cards.

Magically in 1 month, i brought my score up to 508 on the new test. Im not exactly sure about the conversion since the new test has the extra psych section.

But it was like 12th percentile to 85th percentile in 1 month.

Do the Anki. Feel the Anki. BE ONE with Anki. You talk to Anki like she is your wife.

 

[lumya]

I wouldn't say it should be your only method of studying for the MCAT, but I did read all of my MCAT books (I used Berkley Review but I have used Kaplan previously and the Psychology and Biochemistry ones are pretty good). I read it like a textbook and took notes on certain areas I was not familiar with and added other resources (mainly Khan Academy or other online resources).

But after I finished going through the books and getting an understanding on what was on the MCAT, I did what others recommend you do for actual active learning - flashcards (paper ones, I'm sorry, I'm just not an Anki convert quite yet), practice questions, and practice full length exams. That's what's going to really help you learn and understand the material and the book scan help serve as supplemental material if there's a topic you're struggling in.