How early is too early for MCAT Review? MCAT with Coursework?

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swim97

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I'll make it short to respect everyone's time.

Point 1. I scored around 600/800 on the SAT, and all of my coursework has been STEM. I'm worried about CARS.
Point 2. I will be taking coursework in the summer to boost my sGPA, while working, researching and volunteering, so i cannot cram the MCAT.

Given point 1 and 2, would an extended study plan, i.e >6 months be optimal? If so, if I plan on taking the MCAT next year, how should I prepare?

Any resources, or advice for MCAT Preparation, or recounts of persons taking unconventional paths are always appreciated.
 
swim97 said:
I'll make it short to respect everyone's time.

Point 1. I scored around 600/800 on the SAT, and all of my coursework has been STEM. I'm worried about CARS.
Point 2. I will be taking coursework in the summer to boost my sGPA, while working, researching and volunteering, so i cannot cram the MCAT.

Given point 1 and 2, would an extended study plan, i.e >6 months be optimal? If so, if I plan on taking the MCAT next year, how should I prepare?

Any resources, or advice for MCAT Preparation, or recounts of persons taking unconventional paths are always appreciated.
Click to expand...
Here was my 6 month plan at the same time as school. Started around August-ish last year. Hope this helps!

forums.studentdoctor.net

MCAT Advice from a 521 Non-Trad - its a marathon not a sprint

I have had 3 people ask for MCAT advice within a couple months of their test date. As a father who was also in the military reserves for the first 3 months of MCAT study time, I can tell you that I did not have massive amounts of dedicated study time. Mostly 2 or 3 hour sessions every other day...
forums.studentdoctor.net forums.studentdoctor.net

PS. I had a 610 SAT reading section and 590 on the writing section and hadn’t taken a non-science course in 4 years when I took the MCAT, so right where you were at.
 
swim97 said:
I'll make it short to respect everyone's time.

Point 1. I scored around 600/800 on the SAT, and all of my coursework has been STEM. I'm worried about CARS.
Point 2. I will be taking coursework in the summer to boost my sGPA, while working, researching and volunteering, so i cannot cram the MCAT.

Given point 1 and 2, would an extended study plan, i.e >6 months be optimal? If so, if I plan on taking the MCAT next year, how should I prepare?

Any resources, or advice for MCAT Preparation, or recounts of persons taking unconventional paths are always appreciated.
Click to expand...
Dont do 6 plus months. You'll burn out. I feel like 3.5 months is a good plan as long as you can dedicate 4 hours per day to the exam.
 
Agree about not doing 6+ months, you'll burn out and you'll most likely forget the early material you reviewed. I did exactly 4 months and that was the longest it should go.
 
MemeLord said:
Really depends on the person and the pacing. You say 3.5 months at 4 hours per day...I did six months at 2.5-3 hours every other day. I feel like shorter and harder would be more burn-out potential than long and easy going.
Click to expand...
then you risk forgetting the early material.
 
Detective SnowBucket said:
then you risk forgetting the early material.
Click to expand...
This statement goes by the assumption that the MCAT is a test of content knowledge. At least from my experience, it was a concept understanding and pattern recognition test rather than a content test. I had 2-3 months of dedicated content review (went over all content twice with zero focus on memorization, only concepts) then integrated concept reviewing in to studying the test itself. studying the actual test >>>> studying FOR the test at least as far as MCAT goes).
 
MemeLord said:
Really depends on the person and the pacing. You say 3.5 months at 4 hours per day...I did six months at 2.5-3 hours every other day. I feel like shorter and harder would be more burn-out potential than long and easy going.
Click to expand...
I did the long route, granted I was doing a long period of time with about 4 hours everyday due to unexpected events in life that made me delay my exam. I stopped studying seriously for the last month because I was so burnt out and during the last 3 weeks I took a 9 consecutive day break from studying for the exam.

I really can't recommend what I did to anyone. Caused me to burn out so bad.
 
MemeLord said:
This statement goes by the assumption that the MCAT is a test of content knowledge. At least from my experience, it was a concept understanding and pattern recognition test rather than a content test. I had 2-3 months of dedicated content review (went over all content twice with zero focus on memorization, only concepts) then integrated concept reviewing in to studying the test itself. studying the actual test >>>> studying FOR the test at least as far as MCAT goes).
Click to expand...
Not sarcastically but, how did that work for you? I went hard on the memorization route and it turned out well for me. (exactly 4 months at 4-5 maybe 6 hrs/day on non full-length days)
 
Detective SnowBucket said:
Not sarcastically but, how did that work for you? I went hard on the memorization route and it turned out well for me.
Click to expand...
I ended up with a 521, so not bad. I felt comfortable with every subject I encountered and understood the important information in just about every passage. I will concede, my lowest score was in P/S with a 129 due to lacking memorization. Three of the questions I missed were 100% 'gimme' questions in which you just had to identify the term associated with what was being described. I did not memorize these simple terms, vocally chuckled during my exam because I should have known these answers (being that they were eaaaasssy questions with simple answers) guessed and moved on.
 
MemeLord said:
I ended up with a 521, so not bad. I felt comfortable with every subject I encountered and understood the important information in just about every passage. I will concede, my lowest score was in P/S with a 129 due to lacking memorization. Three of the questions I missed were 100% 'gimme' questions in which you just had to identify the term associated with what was being described. I did not memorize these simple terms, vocally chuckled during my exam because I should have known these answers (being that they were eaaaasssy questions with simple answers) guessed and moved on.
Click to expand...

There’s less memorization with B/B and C/P than with P/S?
 
MyOdyssey said:
There’s less memorization with B/B and C/P than with P/S?
Click to expand...
In my personal experience, yes. Biology/Chemistry/Physics (at least MCAT wise) are extraordinarily concept heavy. Understanding the process >>>>> memorizing minutiae for B/B and C/P. Whereas P/S will just straight up ask “What theory is being tested by the team in expiriment one”
 
MemeLord said:
In my personal experience, yes. Biology/Chemistry/Physics (at least MCAT wise) are extraordinarily concept heavy. Understanding the process >>>>> memorizing minutiae for B/B and C/P. Whereas P/S will just straight up ask “What theory is being tested by the team in expiriment one”
Click to expand...

What’s an example of how the process is tested instead of the minutiae?
 
MyOdyssey said:
What’s an example of how the process is tested instead of the minutiae?
Click to expand...
One example that is perfect is from the AAMC section bank: it asks you about which muscle cell types belong in which category (anaerobic, aerobic, fast twitch, slow twitch, yadda yadda). This is something you could have memorized, or you could look at the provided chart and understand that the ones with more mitochondrion likely provide more power and need more oxygen.
 
My general advice:
I agree that you should stick with a plan that works best for the kind of learner you are. One of my friends studied for a month and got a 522 on the MCAT, I studied for 4 months (1 mo teaching myself biochem, and the other 3 doing actual structured studying) and I got a 516- it really depends on the person.

I was also working full time (40hr/week) in the middle portion of my studying and it definitely slowed me down so I would recommend going on the longer side of studying if you're going to be working throughout all of it. That being said, if you're someone who doesn't hold information well, I would say try not to go on the super long side (>6 months) because recall might be pretty hard after that. This should be the case for everyone, but especially when studying for a longer period of time, you want to be super diligent in practicing retrieval cues - this is gonna make holding the info a lot easier. MemeLord is right though and the MCAT is not really a just a test of knowledge, its a test of how well you can read between the information they give you to expand on your basic knowledge. Basic knowledge that yes, you will need to strengthen diligently throughout this process. It's not about dry memorization, its about having a strong testing strategy.

CARS specific advice:
READ. Seriously, picking up your reading speed is the best way to tackle CARS. I did not use any kind of specific resources for this section besides reading anything I could get my hands on, including some practice sections in the Kaplan CARS book. CARS is about thinking abstractly under pressure and reading is the best way to do that. I wouldn't even recommend reading scientific journal articles, because CARS is just 90 minutes of out-of-left-field humanities sections. You want to be able to read over a passage and anticipate connections that they might expect you to make. It best also to read stuff you find boring as heck because that's what most of this section is lol

Plan:
You want to sit down and go over the courses you have taken and those you haven't (not clear from your post if you have any courses missing). Once you do that, you can plan based on how much time you want to study for which order you want to tackle things. I would hit the psych section last, and biology and/or sections you don't know or are weaker in at the start of studying so that you have the most time practicing retrieving that information.

I would say you're only too early to study if you aren't going into it with a schedule and a plan.

I've got an outline for 3-4 month plan, so let me know if you want that.

Some great resources
- reddit mcat subthread (really). Its super organized and has a lot of study materials and anki decks (which you should also get)
- use Kaplan material earlier in your studying and for content review (!!!) don't take a course, you won't have time, but you should use their review books and their question bank. Kaplan is much harder than the other services but Ive found that if you can withstand their abuse then more centered practice is easier. Take their practice exams first, then do the AAMC exams closer to your exam.
-AAMC materials (use them closer to the exam). I think they moved everything around after last testing cycle, but if they still offer the question bank, use that like two months out from your exam, and the section bank one month before.
- KHAN Academy: really good for if you're feeling burnt out and just need some passive review or refreshers. I used their videos both to actively study and just to keep myself engaged with material when I was doing mundane things, like cooking or cleaning.
 
Last edited:
Addition: Check out AK lectures and nerd ninja science for biochem and bio concepts. Those homies are fire and they made the information much more engaging IMO
 
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