How many hours?

[NRAI2001]

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How many hours a day do u guys study? Has it increased or decreased over the summer?

 

[bella_dottoressa]

i'm doing ~8 now; i just started in mid june though. i might bump it up out of sheer terror 🙂

 

[NRAI2001]

Wow thats a lot. I do about 2 hrs a day, which is not much at all, i should be doing more. It seems like people on this forum study day and night.

Do u think it is possible for me to study everythign i need to know for the mcat in the next month and a half? If so how many hours a day do u think are necessary?

 

[bonez318ti]

I think it all depends on your personal style of studying.

I can't imagine studying 8 hours a day for weeks at a time. I can only do it days before a final. I've found that if I really concentrate, I can get through one or two chapters of my kaplan or EK textbooks in about 2 hours.

Right now, I am taking the kaplan classroom course and I've been studying roughly 15 hours a week outside of classroom. To be fair, I just finished all of my basic science classes within the last year.. so the material is probably fresher in my mind as compared with people who took this stuff 3 years ago.

Just do what works for you.

 

[willthatsall]

Probably 3 or 4. I've gone down some recently, but I'm planning on boosting it back up about a month before.

 

[NRAI2001]

So i have essentially wasted my summer thus far (studying on my own no prep course to keep me inline) but do u think if i go hardcore from now on out i can be ready for the august mcat?

 

[bgreet]

3 to 4 hours a day 5 days a week. Sometimes I'll do a few hours on sunday too.

 

[rick james MD]

I'm studying about 3 hours per day outside of class. I will increase that with about a month to go. Good luck all.

 

[bella_dottoressa]

Yeah guys, definately don't go by me. I've always been somewhat of a compulsive studier, and more importantly I really am not the brightest girl out there; I've always had to work harder than most people I think for my grades. Plus, I really am fearful of the PS since I did horrible in gen chem freshman year and just never have really developed any intuition regarding it. MCAT is pretty much the only thing I'm doing this summer too which gives me the luxury to study quite a bit.

NRA, you can definately be ready; plenty of time. Get through the material and take an aamc test to see where you stand.

 

[Nakhrewali]

I study ~7-8 hrs/day Mon-Fri and ~4-5 hrs/day on the weekends. This is my second time taking the test and finding the review a lot more fun and lax this time around. I started studying around mid-June. The first month I'm just reviewing and nailing my **** down cold and then I'm gonna just do practice test sections until the test date. 😳

 

[paranitroxide]

I study about 3-5 hours per day. Personally I can not study if my brain does not want to. I started in mid june reviewed all the concepts for about a week and I have just been doing practice problems ever since. I have started to take full lenght exams as well (two in the last week).

Before the test, probably in a couple weeks I will review all my concepts again to make sure I correlate my knowledge with the way is been tested and then just finish off with a bunch of practice exams. 🙂

 

[Psycho Doctor]

what??????? how can anyone do that consistently? did you take the whole summer off from life to study?

i'm in school taking courses (orgo chem) plus doing a minimum of 30-40 hrs of volunteer work plus some other activities. 🙁

when theheck am i supposed to get studying for mcat and doing apps? i'm totally screwed 🙁

 

[Psycho Doctor]

i'm more like you but i guess it means i'll do horribly 🙁

 

[tl47]

Wow thats a lot. I do about 2 hrs a day, which is not much at all, i should be doing more. It seems like people on this forum study day and night.

Do u think it is possible for me to study everythign i need to know for the mcat in the next month and a half? If so how many hours a day do u think are necessary?

Wow wow wow! Just thought I would check how people are going on the MCAT. I'm impressed.

For those others who haven't studied much, with a month or so to go... fact is: DO NOT FRET! You will probably do okay... (depending what "okay" means to you)

Case in point: I took my MCAT in April 03, with 1-3 hours averaged studies. I was working full time (had to put in 16 hours often) then, so I did more on the weekends, and skipped many weeknights (too tired). I had no prior biological sciences (no premed, no postbacc). I only knew I had to take the MCAT late Feb (wasn't applying to US). So, I didn't have much time to prepare, only had MCAT books arriving in early March, which left me one month+ to study. I didn't get the 40+s 🙂, but I got a respectable 30+.

The keypoint is this: everyone will study differently, so don't fret if you are feeling behind, and have consistently placed 1+ hours/day. The few advice I would give:

1. Don't think you can study EVERYTHING on the MCAT. Actually, you only need to know the very basics of the sciences, and learn to apply what you already know. Much of the things you need to know are in the passages themselves, and by process of elimination you will do well.

2. I won't fret over Kaplan or Examkracker's questions too much. Do them if you have them and have the time. But make sure you base your judgment solely on the Practice MCATs. Get the ones online if you can (USD80 is a good investment). Make sure you analyse your score, the online system does a good job telling you which subject and area you need to work on. I did mine under exam condition and timing, at a public library's quiet study room. (Brought lunch to eat in the rest area). The actual exam was very different from the practice exams in my opinion, but somehow, my score was within the expected range (the trend was upwards for me 😉... more I did, better I got!)

3. In all exams: the amount you memorised and studied is only half the equation. It's also a matter of how much you recall and how well you utilise what you recall. Make sure to stay calm, stay happy, get well rested and mentally prepared for the exam. Examkrackers has a good forum actually. The "Jon" guy has pretty good advice under the "MCAT Zen" week. But of course, not everyone can use the same strategies... what works for me might not work for you! I spent the last two weeks on the MCAT practice exams, and did one almost every other day (one day break in between). And did it all the way to the end, so I didn't really follow everything they said either.

Good luck! Hope everyone does well! Medicine is definitely a pretty fun field as well 🙂.

 

[DieselPetrolGrl]

got a job
taking ochem 2
driving sibblings/helping with family stuff - kindof having problems of managment/ feeling unappreciated - like no one understands how much this test means to me
and taking kaplan course - out of class trying to go for 1-2 hrs every nigh but right now really feeling exhausted
need to use 4th to study bc will have family gone and some lonely peace and quiet
bah bah bah bahhhhh

 

[imsotired]

started studying early June (taking EK course)
for 2 weeks, studied 6-8 hours a day 7 days a week
for the last 2 weeks, studied 4 hours a day
took a total of 3 practice tests (AAMC 5R, EK 1g, AAMC 4R)
and not seeing as much of an improvement as I would like

we only have 6 more weeks left 😱 so let's hit the books!

 

[SleepPsych72]

I typically study about 3-6 hours everyday. So far I've covered a lot of ground but it is unfortunate that I have had to sacrifice my whole summer. I really do not want to take this thing two times. I am also taking the Kaplan course. I couldn't imaging studying for this test without some type of prep course to fall back on. My friends even stopped calling me. I missed Prince concert, Alabama concert and several crawfish boils so far in an effort to stay up to date with my studies. Sure hope it pays off!

Good luck everybody were more than half way there now!

 

[silkworm]

About 3-4 hours a day, half of which is devoted to SDN browsing. It's so much easier to talk about studying the MCAT than actually studying the MCAT.

 

[dukejen04]

just graduated and for the first time since i was 15 (went away to a science and math school), i'm living at home and not working.

i alternate days- i spend one day reviewing a kaplan "unit" (3-5 chapters of something) which usually takes me around 6-8 hrs and the next day i do all of the AAMC practice passages and topical tests (which take me 4-5 hrs total).
I don't know how it's working for me so far, but i take my first full length on saturday, so we'll see. at this point i've reviewed only 1/2 the material, so i'm shooting for around a 30. if i don't get it, i may have to restrategize!

also, i've found my time depends on how actively i have to learn it- it's been 3 years since orgo and physics, and 4 years since chem (took AP in high school, never took gen chem again)- so taht **** ain't fresh. i like to think i'm a bio beast, so that's not as difficult.

 

[bella_dottoressa]

Off the topic, what IS that EK Zen week??

 

[imsotired]

it's basically like review week and they give you last minute tips.