How to study for MCAT one year in advance?

[Trisphorin]

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[YellowDiamond]

I would suggest working hard and doing well in your remaining biology, organic, and physics classes. Try not to merely memorize the course material but to understand the underlying ideas. This will get you much further than cracking open a review book when not even having had half of the coursework done that is tested on the MCAT. You could possibly start to try to read scholarly articles more frequently if you feel you may have trouble with verbal. Since you are planning it in late August, 3 months of prep (May - Aug) should give you more than enough time to brush up on rough spots and take plenty of full-lengths.

 

[FuturaDocta]

Buy a review book, such as the kaplan (get the color version!) or the Exam Krackers. I think either one is good. Then, once you feel comfortable with the material, take a practice MCAT exam every three days (or whatever keeps you from buring out). You may want to skip over some of the material, like organic or whatever you are about to take during the school year. For those, you just have to work really hard in the class to do well on the mcat.

 

[SN2ed]

Reinforcing what YellowDiamond said, there are two things you should be doing. First, gaining mastery in your pre-med classes and not simply going for an "A." Secondly, you should read various articles, boring ones, to help prepare you for verbal. I suggest you pick up some humanities passages since people generally struggle with those.

There is no reason for you to crack open your review books until the summer. This is especially the case because you'll be buckling down during that time.

 

[Trisphorin]

Reinforcing what YellowDiamond said, there are two things you should be doing. First, gaining mastery in your pre-med classes and not simply going for an "A." Secondly, you should read various articles, boring ones, to help prepare you for verbal. I suggest you pick up some humanities passages since people generally struggle with those.

There is no reason for you to crack open your review books until the summer. This is especially the case because you'll be buckling down during that time.

thanks for the advice. i have been reading the online version of wall street journal lately. do you think that's a good source of mcat style passages?

 

[SN2ed]

Whenever you read an article, make sure you get the main idea and the author's opinion.

Besides the WSJ, here are some other good ones:

Economist
New Yorker
Random science journals (check your school's library)
Moral Issues in Global Prespective: http://www.amazon.com/Issues-Global-Perspective-Christine-Koggel/dp/1551111861

Pick up the Moral Issues book used. There's no reason to get a new copy. This book is great because it contains a wide range of philosophy topics, including some famous essays. It's also a good idea to pick it up because people are usually weak in humanities passages.

Lastly, make sure you read the boring articles as well. Most of the time, the MCAT passages aren't exactly interesting....

 

[LoveWalk]

Preparing for the MCAT one year in advance...

Do well in classes and then take a few tests to understand MCAT format so that its not a complete shock to you come test day

As for preparing for verbal

Don't be like most other premeds and read only what is required of you---Read any sort of publication that interests you---don't read the wall street journal if it bores you---

if you enjoy it, however, More power to ya!