Help Needed with my schedule!- July 31st MCAT

[Jack-Kennedy35]

Hello Everyone,

My primary was recently verified and MCAT is scheduled for July 31st, with a score turnaround of August 18th. I was previously studying for the mcat in March and was going to take it in May but I couldn't due to COVID. I took a small break and only recently did I pick up my studying again. I've been sticking to content and am reviewing the subjects and am now scheduled to be done with review by June 30th, which leaves about 30 days until my exam date.

1.) Is 30 days enough time to focus strictly on practice? - AAMC QPACK, SECTION BANKS, EXAMS? I feel that I've only stuck to content so far and haven't done a whole lot on the practice front.
- Can someone please walk me through what's the best way I can "learn" how to take the MCAT rather than just memorizing everything I see. Should I be focusing on certain things and look out for certain aspects while practicing? Especially for Chem/ Physics.
- Should I purchase UWORLD right now, or do i not have to get into right now? I have all TBR books for practice problems too.

2.) My score turnaround time is August 18th and as you all know, many medical schools will be offering secondaries without an MCAT score and my primary has been verified already. I'm assuming that this cycle, many secondaries will start coming in towards the end of July and early August as they'll receiving our apps on July 10th? Please correct me if this is not the case. If I am ready to submit all of my secondaries before or on August 18th, is this late for this cycle? On time?

@MedSchoolTutors

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[Blueprint Med School]

Is 30 days enough time to focus strictly on practice? - AAMC QPACK, SECTION BANKS, EXAMS? I feel that I've only stuck to content so far and haven't done a whole lot on the practice front.

I honestly can't answer that. For some people, 30 days is enough, and some people do even less. For others, 30 days isn't anywhere near enough, and they might spend 2-3 months doing practice. I personally finished all the AAMC material in about 3 weeks. However, 30 days is more than enough time to finish the AAMC material and really review it. After you take your first AAMC FL exam, you should have a better idea of where you're at.

Can someone please walk me through what's the best way I can "learn" how to take the MCAT rather than just memorizing everything I see. Should I be focusing on certain things and look out for certain aspects while practicing? Especially for Chem/ Physics.

As you do the AAMC material, you'll start to see what is emphasized and what is irrelevant the the MCAT. Past that, I know Kaplan denotes which subjects are more important and which are irrelevant in their books. In order to get the most out of your AAMC material, make sure you review every question you do, not just the ones you got wrong. When you review them, see if your mistake was a content error, or if it was a thinking error. If it was a thinking error, think about your thought-flow that led you to the wrong answer, and then think about what you could have done differently to get it right.

Should I purchase UWORLD right now, or do i not have to get into right now? I have all TBR books for practice problems too.

Depends on how much time you're willing to spend per day. If you're willing to do 10 hour study days, then I'd recommend UWorld.

My score turnaround time is August 18th and as you all know, many medical schools will be offering secondaries without an MCAT score and my primary has been verified already. I'm assuming that this cycle, many secondaries will start coming in towards the end of July and early August as they'll receiving our apps on July 10th? Please correct me if this is not the case. If I am ready to submit all of my secondaries before or on August 18th, is this late for this cycle? On time?

If primaries are being transmitted on July 10th, then med schools might begin sending out secondaries just a few days later. But yes, most will probably come in late July. Even during a regular cycle, submitting all secondaries on August 18th wouldn't be the end of the world- you wouldn't be among the very first applications to be reviewed, but it wouldn't be late enough to really hurt you. That means for this cycle, August 18th will be fine. In general, you should really only be concerned about a late application if it's past Labor Day.

Hope this helps,

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors