I understand that the curves are a little skewed compared to the AAMC FLs, but how accurate is it in terms of content?
How accurate are the Kaplan FLs in regards to the actual MCAT
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I personally wouldn't use it. I've taken kaplan FL 1 and 2, and compared to the real MCAT, I would say Kaplan tests sections are different:
Physical- Kaplan is less concept based, and I found it had more calculations and weird numbers to work with etc. than the real thing. so if you use kaplan tests, you would find the real test calculations easier, but would be caught off guard by conceptual, "qualitative" type questions. I found the physical questions more like the berkley review physics and gen chem books , the physics book especially was just like the real thing to me. The general chem questions on the real thing felt very close to the AAMC gen chem questions, they had the same style.
Verbal- I think the kaplan passages are both shorter and ask more detail oriented questions than the real thing. Use AAMC passages. The real thing is more about inferences, main ideas, authors opinions. Very few questions that you can directly find the answer in the passage verbatim, which Kaplan has many of these.
Biological- as far as resources I've used, the biological section on the real thing was somewhat different than any resource I used. The few organic questions that did show up felt like the ones you see in the AAMC. Most of the passages were like the SDN favorite, the AAMC 11 ebola experimental passage. So when you take that practice exam, pay close attention to how that passage and its questions require the use of passage info. You will see that on test day. Also the discretes were incredibly random, specific questions, I really don't know what advice to give on those, except know your stuff. I felt like I was in a game of Biology themed Jeopardy or something. Kaplan is alright in that aspect, but it lacks the experimental type passages that you need to be comfortable with for test day.
Physical- Kaplan is less concept based, and I found it had more calculations and weird numbers to work with etc. than the real thing. so if you use kaplan tests, you would find the real test calculations easier, but would be caught off guard by conceptual, "qualitative" type questions. I found the physical questions more like the berkley review physics and gen chem books , the physics book especially was just like the real thing to me. The general chem questions on the real thing felt very close to the AAMC gen chem questions, they had the same style.
Verbal- I think the kaplan passages are both shorter and ask more detail oriented questions than the real thing. Use AAMC passages. The real thing is more about inferences, main ideas, authors opinions. Very few questions that you can directly find the answer in the passage verbatim, which Kaplan has many of these.
Biological- as far as resources I've used, the biological section on the real thing was somewhat different than any resource I used. The few organic questions that did show up felt like the ones you see in the AAMC. Most of the passages were like the SDN favorite, the AAMC 11 ebola experimental passage. So when you take that practice exam, pay close attention to how that passage and its questions require the use of passage info. You will see that on test day. Also the discretes were incredibly random, specific questions, I really don't know what advice to give on those, except know your stuff. I felt like I was in a game of Biology themed Jeopardy or something. Kaplan is alright in that aspect, but it lacks the experimental type passages that you need to be comfortable with for test day.
I've taken Kaplan FL 1-5 and have gone through most of the AAMCs and in my experience Kaplan FLs were ok in representing the science sections. Yeah, Kaplan's PS is calculation heavy, but they do a good job of coming up with harder passages which the AAMCs don't do a good job of showing.
Obviously Kaplan isn't going to be as representative as the AAMCs but if you need something to work with before using up the precious AAMCs, Kaplan will be fine for the sciences.
Obviously Kaplan isn't going to be as representative as the AAMCs but if you need something to work with before using up the precious AAMCs, Kaplan will be fine for the sciences.
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Kaplan FLs are good resources for PS and BS practice, but just don't take the scores too seriously. Only rely on AAMCs for predictability.
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Been told this by countless people who are in med school now. One of them was scoring in the high 20s low 30s in kaplan full lengths. And averaged in the mid 30s on the AAMC, got a high 30 on the real thing.
Very on point in terms of content hence the curves are so generous. Honestly, the BS seemed like a joke in comparison to the Kaplan FL's. PS is my worst section so we'll see how that went. Kaplan VR is not representative so just use them as practice in reading more.
