How do you start Studying?

[SiakTiDoc]

Hey all!
This sounds like a rather dumb question, but how exactly did you guys start studying?
I've been getting missed answers, from friends and other boards. I read and was told by some to take a practice test first to see where I'm lacking, but I already know for a fact that my score across the board will be pretty rough (I remember some general concepts, but nothing in too much detail).
Or should I go straight to content review?
My MCAT date is around April, so I have time. I did try to study ahead of time (for gen chem, but I forgot a lot of material along the way due to my current courses). So any tips to help retain content would be great as well!

Thanks everyone!

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[MCAT-MVP]

Hi @SiakTiDoc

You have lots of time to prepare for the MCAT, so it's good that you are starting to prep early.

Some MCAT practice questions are harder and other questions are easier than what you will see on the actual MCAT. So you may know more information than you think. The AAMC questions are the best to judge how well you know the information for the MCAT.

If you know you need review the content then I would search around for a MCAT prep book and start reviewing the content if you have not already. Do not worry about going into details about the content. It is good to know some details, but reading the passages effectively will yield you a much better result for the MCAT than just knowing every small detail in a Biology book.

If you need help following a study plan you can look at MCATJelly's study plan on SDN.

If you need a one-on-one tutor I would highly recommend InstaEDU or wyzant.com. InstaEdu is great if you need a temporary tutor for a few quick questions and you can get help within minutes. Wyzant is better if you need to work one-on-one weekly or daily with a tutor online or in person. Both of those platforms have MCAT trained tutors.

Hope that helps!

 

[SiakTiDoc]

Hi @SiakTiDoc

You have lots of time to prepare for the MCAT, so it's good that you are starting to prep early.

Some MCAT practice questions are harder and other questions are easier than what you will see on the actual MCAT. So you may know more information than you think. The AAMC questions are the best to judge how well you know the information for the MCAT.

If you know you need review the content then I would search around for a MCAT prep book and start reviewing the content if you have not already. Do not worry about going into details about the content. It is good to know some details, but reading the passages effectively will yield you a much better result for the MCAT than just knowing every small detail in a Biology book.

If you need help following a study plan you can look at MCATJelly's study plan on SDN.

If you need a one-on-one tutor I would highly recommend InstaEDU or wyzant.com. InstaEdu is great if you need a temporary tutor for a few quick questions and you can get help within minutes. Wyzant is better if you need to work one-on-one weekly or daily with a tutor online or in person. Both of those platforms have MCAT trained tutors.

Hope that helps!

Very interesting point, for some reason I never realized that there are different difficulties within questions haha.
Is there a way to access sample AAMC questions? I've mostly gone through random in chapter book questions for EK/TBR and they were either hit or miss (more miss in the psy department), which was very daunting, and made me want to stray away from practice tests.

Got any advice to help retain the information? I know it's good to have lots of time to study for it, but I'm not too sure how well that will work out when midterms come around.

And thanks so much for tutor links! I'll be sure to bookmark those!

 

[MCAT-MVP]

Very interesting point, for some reason I never realized that there are different difficulties within questions haha.
Is there a way to access sample AAMC questions? I've mostly gone through random in chapter book questions for EK/TBR and they were either hit or miss (more miss in the psy department), which was very daunting, and made me want to stray away from practice tests.

Got any advice to help retain the information? I know it's good to have lots of time to study for it, but I'm not too sure how well that will work out when midterms come around.

And thanks so much for tutor links! I'll be sure to bookmark those!

Here are some AAMC MCAT Questions.

It is kind of hard for me to give specific help because I have not been working with you in your MCAT prep. However, if you need help memorizing list or process you could try looking up a mnemonic for the what you need to learn.

Glad you liked the tutor links. You can also read reviews of the tutors and pick the one you want and you can cancel anytime.

 

[TheGuru789]

What worked for me was dedicating a lot of time to content review with TPR and EK books. I did content review for about 2 months and the only practice problems I did were the end of the chapter questions for comprehension. After that then I did another month and half doing full length practice tests and other practice problems.

 

[HopefulUnderdog]

What worked for me was dedicating a lot of time to content review with TPR and EK books. I did content review for about 2 months and the only practice problems I did were the end of the chapter questions for comprehension. After that then I did another month and half doing full length practice tests and other practice problems.

Did you take notes on each chapter during content review? I am trying to do the same as you currently and I find that taking notes seems a bit inefficient?

 

[frosted_flake]

Did you take notes on each chapter during content review? I am trying to do the same as you currently and I find that taking notes seems a bit inefficient?

I was wondering the same thing. I want to start content review in June, but I feel like I will be wasting my time taking notes over things I already know, and stressing about the things I have long forgotten... Please let me know what you decide to do if you don't mind!
I am debating a thorough read vs. quick skimming + notes.
I am interested to see what others are doing

 

[SiakTiDoc]

What worked for me was dedicating a lot of time to content review with TPR and EK books. I did content review for about 2 months and the only practice problems I did were the end of the chapter questions for comprehension. After that then I did another month and half doing full length practice tests and other practice problems.

Thanks for sharing! I tried doing the same and it worked pretty good, that is until I took a break and went back to the material and forgot it
I'm planning on doing the same thing, but within each in chapter question I was planning on working out the problems in the book and explaining how I got to each problem next to the question.

 

[SiakTiDoc]

I was wondering the same thing. I want to start content review in June, but I feel like I will be wasting my time taking notes over things I already know, and stressing about the things I have long forgotten... Please let me know what you decide to do if you don't mind!
I am debating a thorough read vs. quick skimming + notes.
I am interested to see what others are doing

If you have the time, my friend told me to skim through it once for a feel for the topics. Then go back and take dedicated notes. I tried doing that, but I found out I wasn't good at it ( I was like re-writing the text book lol).
I'm most likely going to do this for the Behavioral science review though.

 

[frosted_flake]

If you have the time, my friend told me to skim through it once for a feel for the topics. Then go back and take dedicated notes. I tried doing that, but I found out I wasn't good at it ( I was like re-writing the text book lol).
I'm most likely going to do this for the Behavioral science review though.

I felt like I was re-writing the review books as well thinking "well, I am pretty sure I know this, but just incase I might forget it, I will write it down."