How to get the most out of practice materials

[kyldishgambino]

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Hi,

I just about finished with content review, so I am planning on taking a full length every week from the end of December till my test on March 24th. I was wondering if anyone had a good, systematic approach for how to review all of my practice materials. I was planning on taking them, then taking a break (waiting until next day for FL) and then re-reading all passages and questions, while utilizing the 7sage blind review technique. I would then keep a list of things I learned so I don't make the same mistake twice, and re-read this list at least once a week. This is my plan, but if anyone has input, it would be much appreciated, thanks!

 

[OnePodRanger]

Sounds good. I do believe reviewing both the wrong AND right answers when you finished your FL is the best way to recognize and understand your mistakes and test habits. Also, I recommend you to create a study schedule of practice and content review relating to those questions every week. The MCAT is all about practice and learning the exam itself.

 

[kyldishgambino]

Sounds good. I do believe reviewing both the wrong AND right answers when you finished your FL is the best way to recognize and understand your mistakes and test habits. Also, I recommend you to create a study schedule of practice and content review relating to those questions every week. The MCAT is all about practice and learning the exam itself.

Thanks for the input, much appreciated

 

[NextStepTutor_1]

Hi @kyldishgambino -

Sounds like you have a very good plan in place already. Just a couple additional thoughts to build on @DrTempoOne's suggestions. In general, you want to think in terms of post-review action plans -- that is, what can you do now to improve next time? That absolutely can and should include content review as needed & follow-up practice, but it can also include literally anything that will help you do better, including timing/process tweaks, like when and how you look at the clock and adjust your timing. I once had a student who felt like it really helped to close her eyes and take a deep breath or two to "reset" before doing a new passage, so that kind of thing is absolutely on the table too.

The 7sage blind review technique is great, but there are a few differences between the MCAT & the LSAT that are worth considering. One has to do with math questions. Be sure to review calculation questions carefully, with an eye towards both streamlining your process through efficient set-up and estimation and towards getting creative about how to prevent repeated "silly mistakes". For instance, I once found myself typing up an explanation in which I had to square some velocity term in scientific notation -- let's say (2.0 x 10^2)^2 -- as part of some larger physics expression, and got 2.0 x 10^4 (instead of 4.0 x 10^4) because I only applied the exponent to part of the scientific notation expression. A very silly mistake to be sure! But if I found this happening when I was doing practice problems, one solution might be to always write the exponent larger, like (2.0 x 10^2)^2, as a visual reminder to myself to not lose track of it. "Silly mistakes" cost you as many points as much more thoughtful/interesting mistakes, so you want to be attentive to any patterns you see and be proactive about ways to make it less likely to repeat those mistakes under stress.

Another thing to pay particular attention to is the whole passage-based nature of the MCAT. For all passage-based questions, you have to ask yourself whether you need to consult the passage and, if so, what you need to look for and how to deploy it. When things go right, you may be able to go through that process on autopilot, but sometimes things go wrong and students look for passage info re: a question that actually depends on outside knowledge, assume that they need outside knowledge when something is actually given in the passage, apply passage information inefficiently or incorrectly, and so on...so just rehearsing the process of what you have to do to get a challenging passage-based question right can help.

Hope this is useful & best of luck studying!!

 

[kyldishgambino]

Hi @kyldishgambino -

Sounds like you have a very good plan in place already. Just a couple additional thoughts to build on @DrTempoOne's suggestions. In general, you want to think in terms of post-review action plans -- that is, what can you do now to improve next time? That absolutely can and should include content review as needed & follow-up practice, but it can also include literally anything that will help you do better, including timing/process tweaks, like when and how you look at the clock and adjust your timing. I once had a student who felt like it really helped to close her eyes and take a deep breath or two to "reset" before doing a new passage, so that kind of thing is absolutely on the table too.

The 7sage blind review technique is great, but there are a few differences between the MCAT & the LSAT that are worth considering. One has to do with math questions. Be sure to review calculation questions carefully, with an eye towards both streamlining your process through efficient set-up and estimation and towards getting creative about how to prevent repeated "silly mistakes". For instance, I once found myself typing up an explanation in which I had to square some velocity term in scientific notation -- let's say (2.0 x 10^2)^2 -- as part of some larger physics expression, and got 2.0 x 10^4 (instead of 4.0 x 10^4) because I only applied the exponent to part of the scientific notation expression. A very silly mistake to be sure! But if I found this happening when I was doing practice problems, one solution might be to always write the exponent larger, like (2.0 x 10^2)^2, as a visual reminder to myself to not lose track of it. "Silly mistakes" cost you as many points as much more thoughtful/interesting mistakes, so you want to be attentive to any patterns you see and be proactive about ways to make it less likely to repeat those mistakes under stress.

Another thing to pay particular attention to is the whole passage-based nature of the MCAT. For all passage-based questions, you have to ask yourself whether you need to consult the passage and, if so, what you need to look for and how to deploy it. When things go right, you may be able to go through that process on autopilot, but sometimes things go wrong and students look for passage info re: a question that actually depends on outside knowledge, assume that they need outside knowledge when something is actually given in the passage, apply passage information inefficiently or incorrectly, and so on...so just rehearsing the process of what you have to do to get a challenging passage-based question right can help.

Hope this is useful & best of luck studying!!

This is really good advice- I really appreciate it