How many FL's are you going to take? Is 24 too many?

[RokKidA]

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Yeah, so I am horrible at taking standardized tests cause my brain freezes and I get so nervous. I calculated that I could take 24 FL's through Kaplan, TPR, McGraw-Hill, AAMCs, and the Gold Standard for the april mcat. You think it's too many? (Yes, I may be crazy for considering this. 😀) I was wondering how many FL's you took or plan on taking for your MCAT!?

 

[BennieBlanco]

Yeah, so I am horrible at taking standardized tests cause my brain freezes and I get so nervous. I calculated that I could take 24 FL's through Kaplan, TPR, McGraw-Hill, AAMCs, and the Gold Standard for the april mcat. You think it's too many? (Yes, I may be crazy for considering this. 😀) I was wondering how many FL's you took or plan on taking for your MCAT!?

Many will tell you it is too much.

Do what you have time for, all the people asking for planning advice need to realize:

Prep depends on:

1. Desired score
2. Testing skill
3. Learning style
4. Current proficiency in the sciences
5. Weaknesses

It is impossible for someone to design a single plan that fits everyone.

Some people say, OH THIS IS TOO MUCH, or OH THAT IS TOO LITTLE.

It depends on the person. If you take advice from any one person, you sell yourself short. Analyze your strengths and weaknesses, your desired score, and then read threads like SN2's scheduling plan and 30+ thread. Then come up with your own plan.

Please do your own homework on this. 👍👍

 

[PiBond]

Yeah, so I am horrible at taking standardized tests cause my brain freezes and I get so nervous. I calculated that I could take 24 FL's through Kaplan, TPR, McGraw-Hill, AAMCs, and the Gold Standard for the april mcat. You think it's too many? (Yes, I may be crazy for considering this. 😀) I was wondering how many FL's you took or plan on taking for your MCAT!?

I wouldn't use McGraw-Hill. They're good for some things but MCAT isn't one of them. Consider using Berkeley Review CBTs as a substitute as they have some of the most realistic passages around.

24 FLs is quite a bit. You would need to have content review out of the way by February if you plan on taking each one and doing the mandatory post-game analysis. If you can legitimately review each test properly then I don't see a problem. Best of luck 👍

 

[BennieBlanco]

I wouldn't use McGraw-Hill. They're good for some things but MCAT isn't one of them. Consider using Berkeley Review CBTs as a substitute as they have some of the most realistic passages around.

24 FLs is quite a bit. You would need to have content review out of the way by February if you plan on taking each one and doing the mandatory post-game analysis. If you can legitimately review each test properly then I don't see a problem. Best of luck 👍

PiBond makes a good point.

I think before people plan they should do something:

Do a FL and review the entire FL, every question, every answer. Learn how to post game properly from this site. Then read a section out of a prep book and do the practice problems, time yourself.

Understand what you are saying. I think a lot of you guys making plans come out with statements like, I'm going to do ___ and ___. But you may not understand what amount of work that is involved in doing ____.

 

[TurkSurg]

Hey do you guys think TBR FL's are better than GS ?

 

[Evergrey]

I took 5, which was not enough. But I definitely think that 24 is well beyond what is needed, and you would risk burnout (or worse, suicide!!) by taking that many exams!

 

[Isoprop]

Yeah, so I am horrible at taking standardized tests cause my brain freezes and I get so nervous. I calculated that I could take 24 FL's through Kaplan, TPR, McGraw-Hill, AAMCs, and the Gold Standard for the april mcat. You think it's too many? (Yes, I may be crazy for considering this. 😀) I was wondering how many FL's you took or plan on taking for your MCAT!?

Obviously, if you don't have enough practice, you shortchange yourself of the best possible score you can earn on test day.

But the other end of the spectrum are the students who take a lot of full length exams without taking the time to review the exams and learn from mistakes. After each exam, a student should go through the exam in detail and look at mistakes and even figure out new approaches to problemsyou got correct. Practice exams are not as helpful if you don't take a good amount of time to review what you did wrong.

My advice is to do as many exams as you can where you are giving yourself enough time to analyze the exams. Aim for somewhere around 6-10 exams. Taking time to take and review 6 exams will improve your score faster than rushing through 24.

 

[Insulinshock]

I'll have done approx. 9-10 when it's all said and done. If I don't "get it" by then I most likely never will.

 

[Everglide]

Keep in mind you will (should) be spending more time doing post-test review/diagnostics than taking the actual test itself. Take as many FLs as you want but make sure to actually put in the work and hours after every practice test, I found that to be the most difficult part of MCAT studying.

 

[RokKidA]

I wouldn't use McGraw-Hill. They're good for some things but MCAT isn't one of them. Consider using Berkeley Review CBTs as a substitute as they have some of the most realistic passages around. [/QUOTE]

Thanks for the heads up on McGraw-Hill. I guess there is a reason why they are never mentioned on SDN.

There is a lot of really great advice. Your all right, it's not the number of tests that matters. Post-test analysis seems to be the most important factor in test-taking. I allocated 2 days after each test, but I think I will probably need more.

 

[rama kandra]

aamc + berkley review cbts for me. i have to order them, not sure if i should go for all 7 or the smaller sets.

 

[chicago88]

once u get past test 7ish on kaplan, consider yourself approaching the biggest headache ever. they get significantly harder and not necessarily the most practical use of time. i think it is good to be challenged and take some more difficult tests to be prepared for all sorts of scenarioe, as the mcat will certainly challenge u in a way more than the aamc's would, but there is definitely a threshold of challenge that i think is not necessary to surpass nor the best way usage of your time.