MCAT Examkrackers Comprehensive MCAT CBT Prep Course

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XM Examkrackers

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Dear SDN Members:

Attached to this post are descriptions of Examkrackers Live Comprehensive Courses, and of our approach to the CBT.

Please post in this thread with your questions regarding our Comprehensive Courses.

To find an EK Course near you, follow this link to our map:

http://www.examkrackers.com/course-map.php

Note: If no classes show up, please make sure "I am taking the MCAT" is selected up top.


We currently have more than 60 locations across the US as well as the best MCAT prep books on the market. Examkrackers has four major points that have helped our students receive high scores on the MCAT.

1) Best Teachers - Examkrackers has the best teachers. Examkrackers pays our teachers more than other test prep companies. Not only are we able to attract the best teachers this way, we also reward highly motivated teachers by giving them bonuses according to their student ratings. Although all of our teachers have very high scores, their teaching ability is what sets them apart from our competitors. Through student review every two weeks, we are able to insure that we give students a responsive teaching environment as well as the high quality teaching that they deserve.

2) #1 Materials - Since the first Examkrackers books appeared on the market, they have shot up and stayed at #1 on the Amazon MCAT prep book list. Our books are colorful, engaging and thought provoking, designed to help the students stay focused and learning the whole time. Our materials are so good that some students taking competitor prep courses have bought Examkrackers books instead of using the books provided.

3) Intelligent Classroom Approach - It is hard enough paying attention to a long movie for the whole duration, let alone a long lecture. Examkrackers realizes this and designed the class time to maximize learning. Lectures are kept to 50 minutes to help students stay focused the whole time. The lectures are then followed by 30 minutes of passages and free standing questions to highlight important points of the lecture and for practice with tough questions. Finally, the students follow along in the last 30 minutes as they see how someone with very high MCAT scores approaches the same problems. This helps them gain insight as to mistakes that they may be making as well as offering them the chance to pick up tips and techniques that the teachers used when they took the MCAT.

4) Unique Verbal Approach - A frequent cause of a low score on the verbal section of the MCAT is the inability to get through the entire section. However, doing well on this section of the MCAT can significantly help a student get into medical school. Examkrackers' unique verbal approach teaches students to think like the author of the passage instead of spending valuable time writing down notes and paragraph summaries as they tackle each passage. Many students find that by practicing our simple techniques and strategies, they are able to complete the entire verbal section and score quite well.

The materials included with the comprehensive course include:
5 Coursebooks (biology, physics, chemistry, organic chemistry, and verbal)
"16 MiniMCATs" book containing 16 one hour miniMCAT exams
5 CBT exams

Members don't see this ad.
 

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This seems like a pretty intensive (in a good way) course, especially with those 16 mini exams.

My question is how often are those classes offered in the summer?
Are there any statistics on students who take classes in the summer versus those who take it in the fall? That would be a major deciding factor.

Also,when will the schedules be available? I clicked on the link and no classes were found in my state and others I have checked. Thanks alot.
 
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This sounds like great stuff. I used to teach SAT prep for a different test-prep company and we used to guarantee, in points, a student's increase in his or her score. Do you have any such guarantee, or if not, any statistics on average improvement?

Thanks!
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I'm in Cambridga, MA and would really like to take a course. If we're not prepared to take the MCAT after taking the course, can we extend the subscription?
 
Hi, I was looking and I cannot find a course in the western U.S. (i.e., NV, CO, UT, WY, etc.) is there any plan to offer courses in those areas in the near future?

Thanks!
 
This seems like a pretty intensive (in a good way) course, especially with those 16 mini exams.

My question is how often are those classes offered in the summer?
Are there any statistics on students who take classes in the summer versus those who take it in the fall? That would be a major deciding factor.

Also,when will the schedules be available? I clicked on the link and no classes were found in my state and others I have checked. Thanks alot.

Hi bostonmedical,

These classes are very intensive, and require a lot of outside study time on your own as well.

These classes are offered in the spring, summer and fall. For instance, here is a schedule for the summer course at BU (http://www.examkrackers.com/course-schedule.php?id=986) (I assume you are in Boston, which is why I sent you a link to one of the Boston courses) If you are not in Boston, just email me or PM me. If you just go directly to www.examkrackers.com and click on "I AM TAKING THE MCAT", and then go to course finder and click on your state, you should be able to see all of the courses offered.

I don't think there is much different in terms of scores between if a student takes it during the summer or during the fall. However, I have often found that students who try to take the prep course and MCAT during the summer frequently fall into the trap where they are working or doing research full time and also trying to prepare for the MCAT, and that frequently does not turn out well. Also, it is not a good idea to take a heavy course load during the months when you are preparing for the MCAT if you are taking a prep course during the spring or fall.

What you have to remember is that aside from attending class, you have to put in a huge amount of time on your own studying to do well on the MCAT. I sometimes see students who believe attending class alone is enough to do well on the MCAT, which I don't understand, because these are the same people who put in a ton of hours studying outside of class for college. It is the same thing, you have to put in the hours yourself outside of class to do well.
 
This sounds like great stuff. I used to teach SAT prep for a different test-prep company and we used to guarantee, in points, a student's increase in his or her score. Do you have any such guarantee, or if not, any statistics on average improvement?

Thanks!

Guarantees are tough to offer and even tougher to believe. First of all, when it comes to the MCAT, attending class only gets you so far, so it would be silly to say that if you attend class, you'll improve this many points. Frankly, if you don't study outside of class, I can pretty much guarantee that you won't do well on the MCAT, even if a team of instructors with 45s were teaching you.

Second, if every MCAT test prep company guarantees that you will improve by 10 points, then why hasn't the MCAT average shifted but that much?

This goes hand in hand with the "money back" or "take the course a 2nd time for free" guarantee. If you took a prep course and go a horrible score, do you really think you are going to go back to that prep course and sit through another 60 to 100 hours of class again? If so, then you should ask yourself what would be different the 2nd time around?

What I can say is that a lot of our students, who put in a ton of effort and time, end up scoring in the mid to high 30s to even some in the low 40s. Is everyone who takes our course going to do that well? No. Of course not, I've seen some students that slack off do really poorly. In the end, it really depends on you.
 
I'm in Cambridga, MA and would really like to take a course. If we're not prepared to take the MCAT after taking the course, can we extend the subscription?

Hi ratherberocking,

I'm not sure what you mean by subscription. We offer three prep courses throughout the year, one starting in October for the Jan MCAT, one starting in Feb for the spring/early summer MCAT, and one starting in June for the late summer MCAT.

If you don't feel ready after the conclusion of the class, I would take the time on your own to go over the material that was covered in class until you feel comfortable with it. If you have a good relationship with your instructor, they will probably be happy to answer your questions by email or you can pay for private tutoring.

However, you can't just sit in on the next session of classes that start, and I don't really see the point of sitting through class all over again. The classes are designed to take you logically and progressively through the material so you will be ready to take the MCAT at the end. Sitting in for just the beginning of the next session of class really doesn't do you much good, except waste your time that is better spent studying on your own.
 
Hi, I was looking and I cannot find a course in the western U.S. (i.e., NV, CO, UT, WY, etc.) is there any plan to offer courses in those areas in the near future?

Thanks!

Hi apumic,

We are slowly but surely expanding our classroom courses across the midwest into the western US. We are launching classes in California this Feb, but don't have anything yet for those states mentioned above. However, if you would like a class to be offered at your university, you can let the main office know and if we get enough people interested, we will offer a class there.
 
Guarantees are tough to offer

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

While I agree with your intent to knock Kaplan's guarantee, which is a crock if you read their fine print, I have to laugh at your opening line. They are easy to offer. If your course works, then you can make promises.

And all I can say is that your biology books and verbal books are great, but the course you used to offer at my school before canceling it sucked big time. But cudos to your company for doing the right thing and refunding everyone in the class their money when you knew the teachers were horrible.
 
:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

While I agree with your intent to knock Kaplan's guarantee, which is a crock if you read their fine print, I have to laugh at your opening line. They are easy to offer. If your course works, then you can make promises.

And all I can say is that your biology books and verbal books are great, but the course you used to offer at my school before canceling it sucked big time. But cudos to your company for doing the right thing and refunding everyone in the class their money when you knew the teachers were horrible.

I think a lot of people view these guarantees as a huge safety blanket and don't take the MCAT as seriously as they should, and hence don't score as well as they could have. What people have to realize is that although you can take the MCAT multiple times to get a better score, all of the USMLE tests are one time and that's it (well, unless you fail it, and that looks really bad..., and then you get the chance to take it again). Besides, isn't there so much more you could do with that extra three months if you don't have to take the MCAT again?

Where did you go to school?

Although sometimes an instructor doesn't work out as well as we had expected, we do everything to correct the problem as soon as possible. If an instructor is not working out, we don't wait until the end of the course to address it. I've brought in another instructor right away so students aren't wasting their time with a bad instructor.
 
:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

While I agree with your intent to knock Kaplan's guarantee, which is a crock if you read their fine print, I have to laugh at your opening line. They are easy to offer. If your course works, then you can make promises.

And all I can say is that your biology books and verbal books are great, but the course you used to offer at my school before canceling it sucked big time. But cudos to your company for doing the right thing and refunding everyone in the class their money when you knew the teachers were horrible.

Haha, I hope you're not just picking on semantics with XM Examkrackers. It WOULD be easy for us to offer a guarantee, but pretty worthless. I used nothing but the Comprehensive books the first time I studied for the MCAT, didn't take the in-class exams, didn't take any practice exams, studied for 3 weeks and got a 33. The second time, I used Audio Osmosis as well, studied for 5 weeks, 3 hours a day, actually studied Orgo and Verbal this time around (as opposed to the first time, when I was pressed for time) and got a 37. So I actually went up 4 points when starting with a 33, which is already a high percentile. I used nothing but EK materials and didn't take any practice exams and did this while I was so sick that I couldn't give more than 3 hours to study without getting burnt out.

So is that sort of improvement possible with our materials under poor conditions and with little time? Absolutely. I'm a happy customer. But would I suggest to my students that they do the same? No. Would I guarantee that they can do the same? Absolutely not. Why not? They'd be using the same materials and following my instructions.

As XM said, it comes down to the individual. As an instructor, I try to explain as well as I can how I study and my mental approach and outlook to studying/test-taking and then hope they go trust me and go home and do what I said to do. If they study with the TV on or don't read the explanations in the back of the book or beat themselves up when they get something wrong instead of having the confidence to aggressively attack problems/studying and be assured that what they don't understand now, they will soon...if they go about studying this way, would I be willing to say I was wrong for recommending EK materials or to give them their money back? No. This is why we don't offer guarantees, and because of the psychology of a "safety net" guarantee that XM already explained. I can't be there when my students study, I can't be in their head to observe their thinking, so I can only be the best instructor I can be. EK can't do those things either, so it can only offer the best instructors available (and I've had to replace poor instructors in the past, so I can confirm what XM said about that) and the best materials it can make. The studying, dedication, elbow grease, etc. have to be provided by the student.

Sometimes, when I'm tutoring a student privately, I can see what he/she needs, what's holding him/her back. For some students, it can be something as simple and easy to overlook as poor reading comprehension or focus while reading. These are the little variables that are hard to see unless someone has close contact with the student, and which cannot be incorporated into a nationally-run course, or accommodated with a guarantee. Students have to be honest and objective when looking at their strengths and weaknesses, and concern themselves more with seeking help for each of their obstacles rather than demanding their money back from their test prep company. I'm always sad to see students do poorly and struggle, but I've worked hard and done well and have seen many other students do the same with our courses/materials, and I've even worked hard to make this company and its instructors better, so if anyone claims that they did poorly because our company sucks and he/she deserves an apology/refund, I'm skeptical. I'm always eager for constructive criticism, because that helps us to grow and improve, but I'm never willing to let my reputation or Examkrackers' hinge on something that's not in our hands...namely, what goes on in the students' heads and homes. This is beyond something that a company says as its bottom line, and, as an instructor and not a manager of any sort, I have no vested interest to care about the bottom line over the success of my students.

I see this process as a bargain. By offering excellent materials and being open to criticism and suggestions for improvement, EK holds up its end. By being prepared and providing excellent instruction and, again, learning and improving in the face of feedback, I hold up my end. By seeking and responding to feedback and always working hard, the student holds up his/her end. The experience you cited is most unfortunate and I'm very sorry. As you can see, if EK realizes it hasn't held up its end (and, sadly, instructors are a variable that aren't as in our control as we would like), it will make amends as much as possible. A refund doesn't equal a good score or your time back, but it [usually over-] compensates the hit to your wallet and lets you know that we really do want you to do well and want you to point out our failings--so that we can improve always and help you more in the future.
 
Dear SDN members,

Thank you for checking out Examkrackers, offering your great comments and opinions, asking good questions and giving us some excellent suggestions during test prep week!

If you have any further questions, feel free to reach us at 1-888-KRACKEM!

Have a good weekend!
 
What percentage of EK students score a 30 or higher on the real MCAT?
 
Is it possible to buy access to the 5 CBT exams?
Thank you!
 
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