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"Hat-Trick"
- Thread starter Topdoc2025
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This older thread has some description of how it works (page 2):
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MCAT Hat Trick Excel spreadsheet
The Hat Trick a great study tool/method from SN2ed's great guide, Breaking Down the MCAT: A 3 Month MCAT Study Schedule. Here's what it is, straight from the OP: Hat Trick: Get a hat and write every single MCAT PS and BS topic onto a piece of paper. Then, when you're ready to practice PS, put...
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The "hat trick" grew from a suggestion I posted many years ago about how some of my best students at the time would mix three topics together and try to generate a coherent passage and some corresponding questions. SN2ed, a prolific poster at the time, ran with it by making a plan how to use it. He was the master at doing it. The notion was that the MCAT test writers liked to mix subjects together, so drawing the topics randomly simulated the MCAT experience of random topic assembly.
This was developed long before the 2015 change to the MCAT, and I think for it to work today, you'd need to stack the deck with biochemistry topics. Start with a biochemistry topic, add a lab technique, and then add a random topic from physics, general chemistry, or organic chemistry. That would probably be best for PS. The three-topic randomization probably still works for the BB section.
Keep in mind that this hat trick was borne out of the necessity to have more practice tests at a time when there were so few available. Nowadays, there are so many resources that the hat trick might not be necessary. It's still a good mental exercise when you are doing something where you can't study in a typical fashion (like commuting or in the shower for instance), but it might not be the best use of actual study time.
This was developed long before the 2015 change to the MCAT, and I think for it to work today, you'd need to stack the deck with biochemistry topics. Start with a biochemistry topic, add a lab technique, and then add a random topic from physics, general chemistry, or organic chemistry. That would probably be best for PS. The three-topic randomization probably still works for the BB section.
Keep in mind that this hat trick was borne out of the necessity to have more practice tests at a time when there were so few available. Nowadays, there are so many resources that the hat trick might not be necessary. It's still a good mental exercise when you are doing something where you can't study in a typical fashion (like commuting or in the shower for instance), but it might not be the best use of actual study time.
