Hi guys so my MCAT is on Aug 23 and I have been using EK solely for content review and was planning to do all BR passages in all four subjects since I heard they were very good. Would doing content review using EK be enough to be able to solve BR passage questions? I know they are meant to be hard passages but will it still make me able to solve some questions and not be too surprised at how hard the questions can be? I wanted to use EK since I have some knowledge of the subjects as I recently took these courses and didn't want to waste much time on content review. I'm 90 % done with content review; I need like a week more then will start with BR passages and then AAMC Fls.
EK content review and BR passages
- Thread starter MShopes
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That's what I've been doing and it works pretty well. Of course, BR will ask some ridiculous knowledge-based questions (e.g., which of these molecular diagrams is X amino acid), which are obviously overkill for the MCAT. So, you'll get some wrong, but you'll have a good enough base to work through the majority of the passages. As a bonus, you'll also hit a lot of BR's content on the way, and you'll improve your set of knowledge as well as test-taking skill.
100 % agree on this and thank you for your very helpful answer. Actually, I'm happy they make their passages hard (if not harder than the real MCAT) so that I can be used to anything that MCAT throws at me and be able to learn the hardest concepts in the hardest questions. And you are right about the bonus because I will review my wrong and right questions and see the explanation for why it is right and why the others are wrong which is pretty much itself a content review using BR. So in short, we saved time and practiced a lot in the mean time. And test-taking skills will be improved definitely since we are used to the hard passages under time pressure. Good luck to you if you haven't taken the MCAT already!
Hey paul!...you mentioned you did okay, but what is the okay score for you?
some okay scores for some people are 12 while for others are 9 or so. Did you practice passages using any other source since EK only provides the 30 minute examinations which isn't a lot of passages? Or you just used AAMC as your source of major practice? Thanks for your input!P.S congrats on your acceptance to medical school, you made it
Hey MShopes I was actually thinking about doing the same thing. I'm pretty much through EK content for Bio and Chem but I was wondering have you done much of the BR practice? I heard both passage based and knowledge based questions in BR were overkill. I was considering doing BR passage based and EK knowledge questions.
Actually BR passages are just hard but they are not overkill. In fact, EK physics passages are harder than BR physics passages in my opinion while BR bio passages are harder than EK bio in my opinion. I haven't started doing BR passages yet but I have looked at around 2 passages of physics in the first section in BR and I can tell you that indeed they are hard but the knowledge you needed for them was sufficient by just going over EK content review. And BR explanation is EXCELLENT unlike EK that is very short and sometimes doesn't answer why the answer is right or wrong. For example, in some questions, EK might say that choice A is right because choice B, C, D are wrong...okay I got that but why is A right? In the other hand, BR takes time to explain in great detail why each is right or wrong. And as the other poster above said, you get a bonus of actually doing BR content review by just doing their passages. So in short, do BR passages...they are not overkill, they are rather hard but you will learn a lot. No gain without pain! Good luck!
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Completed phase I so far of both chem books.
Really good ****!
I honestly feel like I know everything for chem. And it's fun to compare your score to their chart (scale the percentage). Can't wait for hitting up the rest of the books and the following phases II and III !
Lmk how your studies are going
Completed phase I so far of both chem books.
Really good ****!
I honestly feel like I know everything for chem. And it's fun to compare your score to their chart (scale the percentage). Can't wait for hitting up the rest of the books and the following phases II and III !
Lmk how your studies are going
Hey vayntraubinator, hope your studies are going well. I just have a question; I looked all over the TBR books to see what is phase I, II, III...etc and never found that word. Is phase I means section 1 or what? Thanks !
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^I'm with above -- I don't understand what these "phases" refer to either.
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The Gen chem, ochem, and i think newer physics books (not sure) have the passages broken up into 3 "phases". It doesn't really make a difference in my opinion, but the 2nd phase has questions that might require more information from other sections. I think the 3rd has even more material. However, all passages in any phase can be answered without covering the later phases in my opinion. Its just there to give some sort of direction to the student.
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Hey paul!...you mentioned you did okay, but what is the okay score for you?
P.S congrats on your acceptance to medical school, you made it
12PS 14BS
The only other sources of practice were AAMC FL's and kaplan FL9.
A friend gave me a set of his TBR books but I'm not sure which year is it. I don't see the word phase at all there. But the books look new to me. Does TBR books get updated a lot each year? In other words, do they change the content alot each year? Thanks for the input!
12 PS and 14 BS are considered okay for you? Hmm If I only get 12 PS and 12 BS I would be glad. But to each his own, but it is always good to aim for the top which sets your mind to a certain goal and it is usually achievable with being determined. Good luck any way!
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I actually really hate and love TBR at the same time. from one perspective, some of the questions/passages are are ridiculous and they flat out slap you across the face for not remembering something from your prereqs.
on the other hand, TBR teaches you to be cool and often they show you how to take a different perspective to solve something and to "guess" the right answer. often times, you will reach a question which you can get by crossing off all the wrong answers and i feel like this is exactly what you have to do for a multiple choice test sometimes.
I agree with you especially in the part that sometimes you can get a question right by crossing off all the wrong answers but probably don't know why the right answer was right in the first place. Well, who cares in the test day if you know why it is right or not ? As long as you get it right and you get your score, they won't ask you why you chose such an answer.
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This is so right on! It's all about going through explanations when it comes to review materials. Way too many people overemphasize review and reading rather than passages and thorough postgame review of the questions. People who have done nothing but passages (no reading of review material) have done quite well on the MCAT because they learn the contant from the passages they do and everything they study is in a multiple-choice mentality.
You can find the latest version of the phases in the schedules linked to my signature. As someome mentioned before, each phase incorporates progressively more information from other sections in the book or other subjects. The theory is that Phase I emphasizes review and applications of the material, Phase II emphasizes timing and applying the concepts to different scenarios, and Phase III emphasizes mixing weird stuff together to make the user go "wtf" when they start the question and "ahh, that's so easy" after they work though the answer.
As for the latest versions, physics underwent a huge change in November 2010 and is much, much better than the older version, which was already considered the best MCAT physics book around. The general chemistry underwent some changes to selected sections in late 2009. The biology book got new review exams in the back in early 2011.
That is so perfectly put. It's great to know everything and solve questions systematically every time. The problem is, it doesn't work that way on the MCAT. From time to time you just have to work though a question based on minimal information and solid test-taking skills. One of the things I loved when I read through the books was their parallel solutions; the traditional way followed by the logical, shorter way that takes advantage on the multiple choices. I think that's an underrated strength of their approach.
I'm doing the same, EK content review and now going through the passages and reviewing material whenever I'm getting questions wrong due to a lack of content knowledge. I finished book one of bio, orgo, and physics so far (but I only did about half the passages, I dont really have that much time left.) and just started chem. So far the most content review I've done is for the bio section, and stereochemistry for organic. I'm surprised how well EK physics is holding up against TBR passages, I've only really had a few big mistakes that were more based on limited conceptual thinking (i.e although I know W = K.E + P.E change, i didnt really connect to that when answering work questions).
So far I've only done four passages from gen chem 1... but its not looking pretty lol. EK chem really sucks, I think I'm going to have a lot of review to do in the next few days while taking practice passages... doesnt help that I time crunch myself and there's some pretty difficult/tricky math questions under the circumstances.
Good luck with review everyone... we'll kill this beast somehow...
So far I've only done four passages from gen chem 1... but its not looking pretty lol. EK chem really sucks, I think I'm going to have a lot of review to do in the next few days while taking practice passages... doesnt help that I time crunch myself and there's some pretty difficult/tricky math questions under the circumstances.
Good luck with review everyone... we'll kill this beast somehow...
Great to know that physics is going well with you using EK for content review. And I notice EK chem not that great but thank god I don't need much review on chem any ways since I already remember most of the info from my class. Good luck to you too! We will kill this beast for sure!
EK physics is sufficient to do BR physics passages. after EK chem, I had to review BR chem to do the BR passages. But, this is probably due to my general weakness in chem.
I think EK is awesome, just that you need to do some independent thinking. that's why people usually say you need a strong background to rely solely on it.
I think EK is awesome, just that you need to do some independent thinking. that's why people usually say you need a strong background to rely solely on it.
I've been doing BR physics passages... And some are really straightforward while others ask for outside knowledge not covered in the content review (and even common sense.... I didnt know backspin = lift...)
Is the actual mcat like this??? And am I just lacking the most basic common sense or something..???
Is the actual mcat like this??? And am I just lacking the most basic common sense or something..???
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BR has questions that require knowledge from other chapters. This is more similar to the actual mcat format. You will learn about the backspin later in the equilbirum/torque chapter I think. Don't feel dumb!
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I think I know which BR passage you're talking about. Its towards the beginning. yea I didn't know backspin=lift either
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While no one can speak about MCAT specifics, there are enough general comments around the forums to support that the MCAT has many passages that catch people off guard. There are people who post that they studied like crazy from the traditional sources and felt like the passages on their exam were nothing like AAMC or some of the big book publishers. They ask "crazy ****" was the way one poster put it best.
Just like you said, it's often about common sense. No one studies backspin or topspin in school, but it's common sense if you play sports. It's important to apply your physics intuition to practice questions as that prepares you better thany anything.
I doubt it's a case that you lack common sense; it's that school physics never asks you common sense questions, so it takes a while to get used to. Once you get used to it, physics gets so much easier and you start to love it. I hated physics in college but have to admit I learned to like it studying for the MCAT. I can definitely say that on my MCAT I felt like I used inutition and common sense more than equations on my physics passages, Keep plugging away at BR passages, as those will build that perspective better than anything else.
That is something I hated at first but after a few weeks of studying came to love. They mix things up, which at first is frustrating because you are getting punished by subjects you haven't reviewed. I hated chapter 1 in mot books. But after a while it was great in that they make you review old material as you complete the last chapters.
What it really came down to for me was the explanations. I love that they explain why the wrong answers are wrong, why the right answer is best, and give cool tricks for getting through the question faster. I love their explanations.
