How to study for hours? MCAT?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

supastudier2000

Full Member
2+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2019
Messages
30
Reaction score
4
Hi Guys,

A couple of days ago I took an exam for (pre-med) Biochem. Some of the topics covered were glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, electron transport chain, ATP synthesis, breakdown of pyruvate, Calvin cycle and light reactions, glycogen degradation and synthesis. This is roughly 4 weeks of material, our class meets 3 times a week for 65 minutes each time. Long story put short... I literally learned everything 1 and a half days and I got an 96% on the exam. The class average was a 71%. How I did it? Day 1: 5am - 2pm went through my text book and lecture slides and made anki flash cards while processing the information. Took a break. 2:30pm-9:30pm went through ALL of my anki cards. Sleep. Day 2: 5am - 8am went through my Anki again. 9am - 2pm did all the homework and found my weaknesses/ misunderstandings and corrected them: 3:30 Took the exam. Post exam: was exhausted, took a nap

So why do I have to Cram? - I never go to class and I am always behind and why?... I have this bad habit where i dont break up studying between classes, what i mean by that is if i have 2 exams 2 weeks away, lets say exam A on tuesday and exam B on friday. I will spend ALL of my time studying for exam A for 2 weeks, I wont touch material for exam B at all until I am done with exam A. I think this is due to the anxiety of Not doing well on exam A.

So my Question is: Is it possible to achieve this kind of productivity and NOT get burnt out? The stress and pressure almost made everything more "efficient" there was no scrolling through tiktok when waking up, No snap chatting people randomly, I ate fast, showered fast. I walked with speed and purpose. Normally I can focus for 1-2 hours but under pressure and stress, I was focusing on a task for 7-8 hours at a time. How is this even possible? I've never experienced anything like this before! Is this what they call flow state? How are people able to study for 8-10 hours for the MCAT every single day? (without being stressed out.) I think that without a stressor i definitely do not have the stamina to study for 8-10 hours a day. How do I train myself to study for 8-10 hours at a time? (Im sure this skill will come in handy in medical school :))

Thank you in advance for your feedback and advise

Members don't see this ad.
 
Wow, I really relate to this post. For my MCAT, I basically crammed it all in about 5 weeks, studying ~10 hours a day. I procrastinated my studying, and then when I had 5 weeks left, I was finally motivated to study and went hard. To answer your question, yes- you will (probably) get burnt out studying like you are. It might not take 5 weeks, it might not take 5 months, but the premed journey is a marathon, not a sprint. If you don't burn out as a student, you might burn out as a physician.

What I found to be helpful was first, to stop studying for one test at a time. Spreading out your studying over longer periods of time has benefits in that 1) you feel less stressed, 2) reinforcement over periods of time has been shown to help in forming long-term memories, and 3) it's just more efficient. Cramming for one test is a slippery slope, because you allow yourself to fall behind in everything else, and now you're just playing catch-up for the rest of the semester.

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors
 
Hi Guys,

A couple of days ago I took an exam for (pre-med) Biochem. Some of the topics covered were glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, electron transport chain, ATP synthesis, breakdown of pyruvate, Calvin cycle and light reactions, glycogen degradation and synthesis. This is roughly 4 weeks of material, our class meets 3 times a week for 65 minutes each time. Long story put short... I literally learned everything 1 and a half days and I got an 96% on the exam. The class average was a 71%. How I did it? Day 1: 5am - 2pm went through my text book and lecture slides and made anki flash cards while processing the information. Took a break. 2:30pm-9:30pm went through ALL of my anki cards. Sleep. Day 2: 5am - 8am went through my Anki again. 9am - 2pm did all the homework and found my weaknesses/ misunderstandings and corrected them: 3:30 Took the exam. Post exam: was exhausted, took a nap

So why do I have to Cram? - I never go to class and I am always behind and why?... I have this bad habit where i dont break up studying between classes, what i mean by that is if i have 2 exams 2 weeks away, lets say exam A on tuesday and exam B on friday. I will spend ALL of my time studying for exam A for 2 weeks, I wont touch material for exam B at all until I am done with exam A. I think this is due to the anxiety of Not doing well on exam A.

So my Question is: Is it possible to achieve this kind of productivity and NOT get burnt out? The stress and pressure almost made everything more "efficient" there was no scrolling through tiktok when waking up, No snap chatting people randomly, I ate fast, showered fast. I walked with speed and purpose. Normally I can focus for 1-2 hours but under pressure and stress, I was focusing on a task for 7-8 hours at a time. How is this even possible? I've never experienced anything like this before! Is this what they call flow state? How are people able to study for 8-10 hours for the MCAT every single day? (without being stressed out.) I think that without a stressor i definitely do not have the stamina to study for 8-10 hours a day. How do I train myself to study for 8-10 hours at a time? (Im sure this skill will come in handy in medical school :))

Thank you in advance for your feedback and advise
You're exactly like me to a "t".

Have you ever been evaluated for ADHD? Being diagnosed helped me put a name to the problem and work on ways to counter it

While you can get away with this in undergrad, it will bite your butt in med school where the quantity of material is far greater

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
 
You're exactly like me to a "t".

Have you ever been evaluated for ADHD? Being diagnosed helped me put a name to the problem and work on ways to counter it

While you can get away with this in undergrad, it will bite your butt in med school where the quantity of material is far greater

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
I have not been diagnosed with ADHD, in my own personal opinion, I dont think I have it.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I have ADHD so just take this with a grain of salt. It's partially habit and having clear goals. Best student I know from undergrad, works twice as smart as me and works four times as hard, even admits it was hard for her to study at 100% for a long time, it's a problem that everyone has.

You can't do flashcards at full speed for more than 2 hours, your brain will just kind of melt.

What works for me is I'm gonna clear "X" deck today and make it a routine to accomplish those goals. I intersperse my studying with other things. I don't study super long, but I get more than my times worth. Know when it's just not going anywhere and you need a day off or whatever. You're just going to have an off day from time to time.
 
I have ADHD but have never been medicated for it - I tried studying for the MCAT the way high scorers tend to recommend (fixed schedule, 7-8 hours a day, etc) and it sucked and i got nothing done for like a month. For one thing, I really don't think it's necessary to study for 8-10 hours every day to do well. It matters much more to study efficiently and make good use of your time - 2 hours of active review is WAY more useful than 8 hours of just reading Kaplan. After you've filled in any large content gaps you may have - like, once you can do a practice test without having large swathes of questions that you can't answer purely because of facts you don't know - I recommend switching entirely to Uworld and AAMC practice material and doing pretty much solely active review. Again, you DO NOT have to study for 8-10 hours a day if you can't focus for that long. The max time I studied per day was like 5-6 hours toward the very end of my studying.

I tried doing purely content review (taking notes on Kaplan and nothing else) for a month and a half before I realized nothing was sticking that way. The study cycle that worked for me was as follows: skim a Kaplan chapter and take brief notes, focusing on things I knew I would have to memorize -> do relevant Uworld questions, referencing my notes when necessary and noting down what specific concepts I still didn't know -> return to Kaplan, review the pertinent concepts again -> do the Uworld questions I missed, this time without referencing my notes. Basically my goal was making sure I could apply concepts to passages while also identifying content gaps. This took me like 3-4 hours a day max. After a few weeks of this I added AAMC material for additional practice. For reference, I got a 524 on the real thing.
 
Top