How to effectively use AAMC material

[kyldishgambino]

I'm about 6 weeks from my test date so I am going to start using my AAMC bundle. What is the best way to go about this? I want to be able to review my answers and learn from what I got wrong but the q packs and section bank are 120 questions, and I think it would be a waste to take them all at once, should I go through the qpacks as if it was the real thing? (breaking them down into 59 question sections for 95 mins each) or should I do them with the "Show answer" setting and just do the questions one by one and treat it more as a content review type thing?

Also, what about for CARS? it sounds pretty silly to me to go one by one with CARS when I should be using these resources as realistically to the real mcat as possible.. but it will take me at least 3 days to do 120 cars questions, so once I finally get to see the answers, I don't think I will remember my through process very accurately.
ALSO- section bank or Qpacks first??
Thanks- any input is much appreciated.

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[kyldishgambino]

bump

 

[theonlytycrane]

Question by question, tutor mode, review each answer as you go. Q-packs first for a warm up (easy stuff) then section bank (do it twice). Keep a journal of things you missed.

For CARS do 3 passages a day (timed) and review your answers immediately afterward. This takes about 1 hour.

If you want to do something timed, use the official guide questions.

Then do the sample test (easier) and the scored tests timed.

This should fill up your 6 weeks. If you have more time, do EK tests.

 

[kyldishgambino]

Question by question, tutor mode, review each answer as you go. Q-packs first for a warm up (easy stuff) then section bank (do it twice). Keep a journal of things you missed.

For CARS do 3 passages a day (timed) and review your answers immediately afterward. This takes about 1 hour.

If you want to do something timed, use the official guide questions.

Then do the sample test (easier) and the scored tests timed.

This should fill up your 6 weeks. If you have more time, do EK tests.

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you very much

 

[NextStepTutor_1]

Hi @kyldishgambino -

Re: having the "show answer" section enabled, just make sure that you're not consulting it too quickly. You'll get a lot more from the question if you really push hard to solve it as if there was no answer key, and only then review it. On the other hand, you'll get a lot less from a question if you click on "show answer" as soon as you run into difficulties with it and just read through the explanation and conclude that it makes sense -- that's a much more passive review strategy that does a lot less good in the long term. Of course you know yourself best, but I personally have no shame admitting that the "show answer" option can be a little bit too much of a temptation 🙂. Logistically speaking, a middle ground would be to use the various attempts you have to chop up the QPacks/SB into chunks that you can bit by bit.

Good luck in your last 6 weeks!!

 

[kyldishgambino]

Hi @kyldishgambino -

Re: having the "show answer" section enabled, just make sure that you're not consulting it too quickly. You'll get a lot more from the question if you really push hard to solve it as if there was no answer key, and only then review it. On the other hand, you'll get a lot less from a question if you click on "show answer" as soon as you run into difficulties with it and just read through the explanation and conclude that it makes sense -- that's a much more passive review strategy that does a lot less good in the long term. Of course you know yourself best, but I personally have no shame admitting that the "show answer" option can be a little bit too much of a temptation 🙂. Logistically speaking, a middle ground would be to use the various attempts you have to chop up the QPacks/SB into chunks that you can bit by bit.

Good luck in your last 6 weeks!!

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to try going through the whole passage before going back and then looking at the solutions.