How Intense Was Your MCAT Prep? Is Mine Overkill?

[deleted407021]

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Hey y'all,

I've been following this study plan. I've been doing ok, but I'm starting to burn out. The plan calls for each EK review lecture to be read 3 times each, but I cut that back to once each since three times was ridiculously time consuming, especially considering I might be scheduled to cover 70-130 pages of text on that scheduled day. However, I'm still finding myself taking hours to review one chapter, regardless of my familiarity with the topic and I'm beginning to become rather stressed out. On top of that, the schedule suggests that one should review every practice exam taken and spend a minimum of 6-7 hours on just that; again, scheduled for one day, often with stuff on top of that. My gf thinks it's total overkill and I'm beginning to be skeptical as well. She actually pretty worried about me and thinks I'm perhaps obsessed with keeping with the schedule.


I suppose I need to vent a bit and I apologize, but I'd also like to hear perspectives of others who may have had similar problems and from those who were successful with the MCAT and how they prepped. Take a look at that schedule. Is it overkill?

Thanks!


- J Senpai

 

[DetectiveAlonzo]

I would wait and see what plans Kaplan or TPR or BR would have for MCAT prep. Well worth the money

 

[deleted407021]

I'll go ahead and say I'm scheduled to take the MCAT on August 22nd.

 

[ayylmao]

Hey, I think that schedule might be kind of crazy. Do you feel like you're actually internalizing the information after doing all that or just "covering" it and keeping up with it?

 

[deleted407021]

Hey, I think that schedule might be kind of crazy. Do you feel like you're actually internalizing the information after doing all that or just "covering" it and keeping up with it?

What makes you think that, exactly?

For the psych and bio stuff, I feel like I'm recalling it ok, not great and for the chem and physics it's worse.

 

[deleted407021]

I'm under the impression that this schedule may be designed with perfection in mind. As in total mastery of all the content. Perhaps that's unrealistic?

 

[Malcolm X]

It's not overkill.

how long have you been studying so far?

Believe me, MCAT studying seems very tough in the beginning and you go super slowly when covering material... but if you stick to your schedule with discipline, you will get much more efficient. The biggest challenge when you begin studying for the MCAT is to keep working hard in the face of adversity...

You will overcome this in a few weeks, and you will be able to retain information much quicker.

In my opinion, it may be better to read something one time super slowly and try to retain as much as possible rather than reading something 3 times just for the sake of reading it 3 times.


And no you won't retain 100% of the information... the idea is to retain 85-95% of each chapter, but be familiar enough to make informed decisions about the other 15-10%

 

[deleted407021]

It's not overkill.

how long have you been studying so far?

Believe me, MCAT studying seems very tough in the beginning and you go super slowly when covering material... but if you stick to your schedule with discipline, you will get much more efficient. The biggest challenge when you begin studying for the MCAT is to keep working hard in the face of adversity...

You will overcome this in a few weeks, and you will be able to retain information much quicker.

In my opinion, it may be better to read something one time super slowly and try to retain as much as possible rather than reading something 3 times just for the sake of reading it 3 times.


And no you won't retain 100% of the information... the idea is to retain 85-95% of each chapter, but be familiar enough to make informed decisions about the other 15-10%

I'm only reading through once, but it still takes ages. Prohibitively long, in fact.

 

[Malcolm X]

It took me the same amount of time when i studied... Maybe adjust your test date or study schedule so that you have time to thoroughly learn 85-90% of the material you need for the exam.

The Exam is not overly difficult to prepare for... and it's not overly difficult to do well on it.
But it requires tenacity when studying...

To me, it appears that you are going uphill to the TS right now and that's why you're complaining...

you have to overcome the EA of MCAT studying... the first few weeks is going towards the TS, the rest of it is going downhill from the Ts to the products...

Just keep working hard and doing your best, you will not be perfect at studying until you get more used to it. And the only way to get used to studying is by doing it repetitively everyday... no matter how hard it gets or no matter how much you wanna give up...



Also always feel free to use different resources to learn topics if your book is not giving you information in a way that you can retain.

the important thing is your learn everything, it doesn't matter how you go about learning it

 

[ayylmao]

What makes you think that, exactly?

For the psych and bio stuff, I feel like I'm recalling it ok, not great and for the chem and physics it's worse.

I mean what works for you might have just not worked for me. I had difficulty staying engaged through that study schedule. It's tedious imo.

 

[spenguin]

I think it might be overkill

I kept it simple, all I used was the EK subject books and then practice tests from everywhere (Kaplan, EK, AAMC)
When I went through the EK chapters, I would rewrite the main points in a notebook, summarizing important facts/formula/main ideas. This helped me stay actively engaged with the chapter while going through it. I also made a schedule of how many chapters I would finish each day and what subject I would do each day. I kept it reasonable but I strictly enforced it, not sleeping until I was finished.

I would stick with one company (EK or kaplan or whatever) unless there are certain concepts in the book that don't have good explanations, and even then, try your friends and youtube to figure it out before buying/looking at another book.

Try to spend a good chunk of your time doing practice tests. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU FINISH REVIEWING EVERYTHING TO TAKE PRACTICE TESTS. You need to do as many tests as possible. Save the more accurate/harder tests for closer to your exam date.

Lastly: take breaks. Spend a couple hours a week doing something fun. And get some exercise. These both help prevent burn out and keep you in a good place mentally.

(I took the old MCAT and did relatively well, the new test might have some new material but the study habits are the same for both)

 

[INOHELP]

aww sounds bad.

Remember, the MCAT is not testing hard stuff.. You are only being tested on the first year of your required science classes. What makes this test hard is the fact that most of the questions requires you to think in a different way. I remember running into problems where I couldnt think of how t osolve the question, but was able to cancel out the impossible answers, and got the question correct. It's a critical thinking test, so I think if you can have basic understanding, rest is doable by thinking.

Try to dumb down everything as much as possible.

 

[oOKawaiiOo]

It's doable.

I quit 2 jobs and took significant time away from my girlfriend to study for the MCAT, ~12 hours/daily. My girlfriend, at the time, thought I was insane and unrealistic. I'm a slow reader and learner so I allocated more time, whenever I could, into my schedule. Yes, I had a boring life from Sunday to Friday, but I still had time to go clubbing every Saturday night to relax.

Yep, I was that guy who sat at the end of the bar, reviewing all the note cards I've made on my iphone, drawing out processes or diagrams on white papers I hid in my pocket, and drinking a beer. I also went out on lunch and dinner with my mom every Wednesday, and I reviewed all of my notecards and explained to my mother what I had learned. Not only did it helped retained information, but also found weaknesses and voids I didn't know about. All in all, you can do it. Eliminate your distractions while you study (Turning off your cell phone, deactivating your facebook, deleting/hiding all of your games, and staying away from pretty girls) The latter was an issue for me; I always studied with a wall in my face and walked with my face down.

 

[Monkitty]

I'm not a fan of following someone else's schedule. At this point you should know how you learn best and if you don't, we'll the MCAT is a good time to learn. Just do what feels best for you. Need to re-read more than once? Do it. Take chapter tests at end of chapter or all at once at end? Do what works best.

I ended up reading all the EK books 3 times, sans Biology (2x). I had been out of undergrad for about a decade at that point and my post-bacc for 4 years, so I needed a lot of review to refresh things. I also worked through all the 1001 questions. Honestly those were probably the best thing I did. They got me used to MCAT thinking and applying these skills I had forgotten. I did end up studying seriously for about 3 months, so approximately 100 days.

That's what I needed because I knew what my weaknesses were and how learned. I'd recommend not trying to stick to that rigid schedule so much. Use it as a guide and adjust it to fit your needs.

 

[deleted407021]

Thanks for the responses y'all. I'll be working on adjusting it more to my needs.

 

[Gandyy]

There is actually no such as thing as Overkill Studying for the MCAT.

Its not like college. College you can study a week before your "hard" science classes and get a 3.7 or higher.

MCAT........... you can study and know everything about everything and still make a 22. You have to practice, study, memorize, apply, and then practice more every single day.

Then you MIGHT do ok on the MCAT. Its a monster.


This is just my experience though.


I'm not saying getting a high gpa in undergrad pre-med is easy with all the other stuff going on in that part of your life. But FOR Me the MCAT was literally 5 times harder.

Of course part of the reason for my failure the first time was due to serious illness and family issues.

 

[keels99]

I think the amount of time you require to study is completely dependent on the specific person. I've known some people who studied for 6 months, others who didn't study at all, and they made around the same score. The best thing you can do is assess your strengths and weaknesses early so you don't spend time going over stuff that may be redundant from your pre-reqs.

 

[Oh_Gee]

There is actually no such as thing as Overkill Studying for the MCAT.

Its not like college. College you can study a week before your "hard" science classes and get a 3.7 or higher.

MCAT........... you can study and know everything about everything and still make a 22. You have to practice, study, memorize, apply, and then practice more every single day.

Then you MIGHT do ok on the MCAT. Its a monster.


This is just my experience though.


I'm not saying getting a high gpa in undergrad pre-med is easy with all the other stuff going on in that part of your life. But FOR Me the MCAT was literally 5 times harder.

Of course part of the reason for my failure the first time was due to serious illness and family issues.

literally? how so

 

[Gandyy]

literally? how so

I shouldn't have put literally in there. My point is that it was lot harder than studying for school. But my strengths lie in classes and studying for the long term rather than studying for a giant test for 6 months.

 

[cliquesh]

This is random advice. But as a pre-med, I read a lot for the mcat and did very few questions and I got a 30. As a medical student I did a lot of questions and got a 250 on the usmle. As a resident I did a lot of questions and got in the 99th percentile on my inservice exam. The moral of my story is: I think questions are the best thing you can do it prepare for a standardized test.

 

[pcn33]

When I studied I initially thought I was being too hard on myself and taking time away from too many other things, but near the end, I realized that I absolutely needed to make those kinds of sacrifices to get the score (35+) that I did. If you want to think of studying for the MCAT as a 100 step process, then step 1 is memorizing all the knowledge that won't be given to you on the test. The rest is learning how to apply that knowledge. If you want to do ok, then you don't have to study like crazy. If you want to do great, there is no way around a significant commitment of time and effort to studying.