How did you cope with MCAT-style questions?

[Swiss Medical]

Hello MCATers

I need your help concerning the types of questions being asked, particularly the vague style.involved. How did yo handle this in your respective study schedules. I was looking at a McGraw Hill review book for the mcat and they had a practice test in the book, but when I tried skimming the passages and answering the questions, I realized that the questions that I actually knew how to answer was stuff I learned previously...and NO, it was not a series of epiphanies, but a little intuition, which I cannot continue to rely on.

EDIT:

For those of you concerned that I am barely a freshman, I am taking it after my sophomore year...

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[ridethecliche]

1) Don't waste study material that far before you're going to take the test.
2) Intuition is extremely important for this test. Often you'll get the right answer by using previous knowledge and intuition. Working everything out will take too long.
3) Look at number 1.
4) The best thing you can do now is read challenging material (economist, philosophy, etc). Look at SN2ED's thoughts on this.
5) Look hard at number 1 and don't worry about this till 4 months before when you're actually going to start thinking about taking the test!

 

[PingPongPro]

Take my advice and you will be exponentially more successful.

1) Don't visit SDN too much during the school year. You will inevitably waste so much time here that you might regret. Consider how many hours you can instead allocate to an extracurricular to bolster ur app.

2)You havent taken your prereqs so u won't know most of the stuff. Really try hard in your prereqs and that will be the best primer for MCAT success.

3)MCAT is a game/skill/art, whatever you want to call it. The test is very intuition-based. But it will be polished up when you really prep for it. Don't worry about forcing yourself to read hard material or whatever, because if you hate doing it, there is probably very little value in reading "x" magazine every day.

 

[Donald Juan]

2)You havent taken your prereqs so u won't know most of the stuff. Really try hard in your prereqs and that will be the best primer for MCAT success.

I second this. These classes are your best preparation, so don't ever set the books down because you've studied enough, or because you know the professor is going to drop one of your exams and you already have all A's. Keep working hard on them.

Also, I would recommend to try and tutor your prereq classes when you are finished with them. Reviewing that material weekly will help you out immensely. You probably shouldn't waste too much time with mcat review books at this point, all they have is the same information as your textbook, just cut down a bit with some tips and tricks for the mcat.

 

[salim271]

One thing I'd like to add, always study with MCAT in mind. Organic chemistry is basically all understanding what's going on in reactions. Its literally electron pushing to the right answer. Sure, there are terms and such to memorize and understand but the basis is always understanding the material, so when taking the class really try and get into why mechanisms and reactions work the way they do. You'll find yourself quickly predicting how mechanisms are going to run with just a glance at the starting materials, and memorizing long ones will take minutes because you arent really memorizing them, you're understanding them.

You should do the same for your other classes, but ochem is where I feel you can benefit the most towards MCAT, because if you learn it once, its like a bike. I also suggest if you arent great with math (like a math genius) then dont blow off trying to understand the mechanics of physics and chemistry in the mathematical applications. It will come back to haunt you when you're looking at equations and you really have no clue how or why they work, because all you did was memorize them without learning the underlying concepts.

Oh yeah. Volunteer, clubs, and tutor. ^_^

 

[Swiss Medical]

Thanks guys. Anymore?

 

[SN2ed]

I have more than 4 months until my test, is there anything you suggest?

There are two things you might want to consider. First, aim for mastery of the material in all of your pre-reqs. Don't go simply for the A. Know the material cold. Next, is reading various materials. Here's my suggested reading list:

Wall Street Journal
New Yorker
Economist
Random science journals

For philosophy articles, I suggest you go to your library or bookstore and pick up a compilation book on Western or Eastern philosophy.

Remember to read the boring articles as well as the interesting ones. Chances are your MCAT verbal passages won't be the most exciting read. After you're done reading, try to discern the main idea and the author's opinion.

 

[Swiss Medical]

bump.