EK = no good?

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Muscles00GT

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A friend of mine who was just recently accepted to LECOM, WVCOM, and a few other medical schools, told me to stay away from the EK study guides. Up until I talked to him about it, I had the intention of buying the EK complete study guide package to study over the summer (i plan on taking MCAT in spring 2008). When I brought that idea up to him, he told me to stay away from EK because their study guides and practice tests will do me no good. He took the Kaplan course and ended up getting a 26 on the MCAT. I've heard a lot of good things about EK on this forum, but he was the first one to literally bash it. So do you think it's still worth buying the complete study package? thanks

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A friend of mine who was just recently accepted to LECOM, WVCOM, and a few other medical schools, told me to stay away from the EK study guides. Up until I talked to him about it, I had the intention of buying the EK complete study guide package to study over the summer (i plan on taking MCAT in spring 2008). When I brought that idea up to him, he told me to stay away from EK because their study guides and practice tests will do me no good. He took the Kaplan course and ended up getting a 26 on the MCAT. I've heard a lot of good things about EK on this forum, but he was the first one to literally bash it. So do you think it's still worth buying the complete study package? thanks

yes
 
A friend of mine who was just recently accepted to LECOM, WVCOM, and a few other medical schools, told me to stay away from the EK study guides. Up until I talked to him about it, I had the intention of buying the EK complete study guide package to study over the summer (i plan on taking MCAT in spring 2008). When I brought that idea up to him, he told me to stay away from EK because their study guides and practice tests will do me no good. He took the Kaplan course and ended up getting a 26 on the MCAT. I've heard a lot of good things about EK on this forum, but he was the first one to literally bash it. So do you think it's still worth buying the complete study package? thanks

I am using the EK stuff to study alongside my TPR Hyperlearning materials and I feel the TPR course stuff is much better. I feel that the TPR stuff gives me a more complete picture of the concepts I need to know. The embedded questions in the TPR text ask relevant questions that keep me on my toes. EK was good for summarizing some concepts that I needed a bit more clarification in but I prefer the thorough approach of the TPR Hyperlearning books. However, I didn't use the TPR for Physics. I relied on NOVA Physics and loved it, I highly recommend it for your physicis review.

I used some off the shelf Kaplan stuff and didnt like the tone at all.
 
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I took the EK course and did all their books. If you're trying to learn material you didn't learn well the first time around forget it. Its designed to review the super important material, but its nothing that could teach you stuff really well. I also took the Princeton course. I liked EK more for particularly because their books have color, really cool tid bits on the side (cartoons), and they stick to the important stuff. So look at where you stand, if you want to learn the stuff all over again don't do EK, if you want to do well on the test by just focusing on the really important concepts and hammering those in.. EK is pretty good. Definitely get at least their Bio book. Your friends outcome on getting a poor score on the mcat is a reflection of your friend and not the course as I have friends with a 40 after taking Kaplan. Pick a course that fits your study style, but ultimately you gotta study. I spent a lot of time debating what to take what stuff to buy which took away time from studying. Same material different format and depth. I would recommend EK over Princeton because the chapters are shorter, and the important stuff is clearly marked allowing you to have more time to do what you really gotta do... taking tons of practice tests on material you've studied.
 
So do you think it's still worth buying the complete study package?

Most definitely.

EK was all that I studied from for last August's MCAT. I hadn't had biology since HS and no O-chem, but through studying only the EK materials I still managed a 9 on BS (13 PS, 12 VR).

Perhaps your friend may not be good at independent study rather than the EK material being no good. I highly recommend it.
 
I am using the EK stuff to study alongside my TPR Hyperlearning materials and I feel the TPR course stuff is much better. I feel that the TPR stuff gives me a more complete picture of the concepts I need to know. The embedded questions in the TPR text ask relevant questions that keep me on my toes. EK was good for summarizing some concepts that I needed a bit more clarification in but I prefer the thorough approach of the TPR Hyperlearning books. However, I didn't use the TPR for Physics. I relied on NOVA Physics and loved it, I highly recommend it for your physicis review.

I used some off the shelf Kaplan stuff and didnt like the tone at all.

Ok, cool. I heard the NOVA physics is a great review for physics. I'm finishing up my physics II right now, so it's still fresh in my mind, but I know I'll definitely need a review, so I'll definitely look into the NOVA physics. thanks
 
I feel that the TPR stuff gives me a more complete picture of the concepts I need to know.

I totally agree. TPR is a great comprehensive review. Heck read TPR then read EK (thats sorta what I did.) EKs organization is a bit better so during the test you have an outline of material covered in your head, and you know most questions (99%) can be answered with the material in EK [confidence], so you can just refer back to that chapter/section (in your head) and remember all the concepts associated with that topic, and boom, you got a formula or a simple concept realization you. After the TPR course I felt way more confident about the science, but EK made me feel like a better test taker.
 
I totally agree. TPR is a great comprehensive review. Heck read TPR then read EK (thats sorta what I did.) EKs organization is a bit better so during the test you have an outline of material covered in your head, and you know most questions (99%) can be answered with the material in EK [confidence], so you can just refer back to that chapter/section (in your head) and remember all the concepts associated with that topic, and boom, you got a formula or a simple concept realization you. After the TPR course I felt way more confident about the science, but EK made me feel like a better test taker.

Thanks for the advice. What TPR books do you recommend? I looked on their site and only found some science coloring books (i.e. coloring book for physiology, anatomy, etc.)
 
Personally, I think EK's overrated. Everyone was pimping EK's verbal manual back when I was studying for the MCAT. So I bought their book and used their verbal method on the test. As you can see from my profile, it didn't help at all.
 
EK 5th Ed complete, 1001 Qs, AAMC practice exams, and one month of studying yielded me a 33 (PS 12, VR 11, BS 10). It had been 10 years since my last chemistry and organic chemistry lectures. I did have recent coursework in Physics, Biochemistry, and Cellular biology. I don't know what you're shooting for, but I'm very happy with my results.

I liked EK because it was bare bones, cut to the chase, material. Just reading EK won't do you any good, though. You have to do practice exams and then use EK to help explain the stuff you missed. I didn't use any of EK's methods -- I just used them for condensed review material.
 
Thanks for the advice. What TPR books do you recommend? I looked on their site and only found some science coloring books (i.e. coloring book for physiology, anatomy, etc.)

I would just buy the hyperlearning books from a student who already took the course from Ebay, or just find a friend who has done the course and doesn't want the material anymore. I would use all of them except for their sample mcat marked A-D (I personally didn't do them myself because of what I'd heard ... garbage). Their books are thick, but its in large font and easy to read. (I'm surprised why ebay doesn't have more of the hyperlearning books... I'm not sure if its illegal to resell these books.) A lot of people swear by their verbal but I can't personally make any comment about this section of the mcat (their strategy didn't work for me). Forget the physiology/anatomy coloring books, their website is geared towards medicine .. premed/medstudent combined. I would definitely get the questions and answers book. Their questions were much better than EK. Don't do what I did.. don't get so so much material that you cannot reasonably cover everything and do all the problems. These courses are designed so that if you do all the problems and read everything you would be exposed to most if not all possible variations of a concept. Doing one problem and learning how to do that type of problem well is better than getting done with 4 problems and not really learning how to tackle such a problem. (I speak mostly for the sciences.. verbal is not my strong point.. I'm sure practice would have made perfect for verbal more than any of the other sections.)
 
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