how to study for retake?

[Sooperman]

Hi guys, I'm planning to retake my MCAT in January and I just wanted to know how I should study for it?

First of all, I plan to apply exclusively DO next summer, when I graduate. I scored a 9BS 7VR 9PS (25) on it in May, so it was mainly the verbal that screwed me up. I'm aiming for a 28-29. I used mainly kaplan and some princeton review to prep the first time. My question is what should I do differently? Should I keep doing content review or straight to practice? I just want to have a game plan to study this time around. Thanks!!

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[Sooperman]

bump

 

[Dianyla]

Ditch the Kaplan materials. Follow SN2ed's schedule & suggested materials guide, stickied thread in this forum.

 

[Sooperman]

Ditch the Kaplan materials. Follow SN2ed's schedule & suggested materials guide, stickied thread in this forum.

I would, but I'm taking 17 credit hours as of now and just don't have the time.

 

[YouNeverKnow22]

Ditch the Kaplan materials. Follow SN2ed's schedule & suggested materials guide, stickied thread in this forum.

There's nothing wrong with Kaplan

 

[PocketJacks]

But there are a lot of things right with TBR

 

[Sooperman]

But there are a lot of things right with TBR

I was going to use TBR Chem and Physics only. I think Kaplan Bio and Orgo plus my Bio background is enough for that. How should I start improving my verbal? Reading random articles from SciAm and Economist?

Also, I've used up all my AAMCs except #10 so what are the next best practice exams?

 

[PocketJacks]

Not sure for Verbal -- I never really know what to expect from that section xD. You can use the TPRH VW and EK 101 (unless you have already done so). Those seem to be the best practice sources according to this forum.

For Bio, I think EK is the best source -- Bio is more about critical thinking than memorizing content so there's no real point in using Bio content review books that go into too much detail. Same goes for Orgo (IMO) (although I think EK isn't enough for Orgo). TPR is definitely good enough for Orgo.

Although the books you use kind of matters, the most important thing is how you study. You should first try to understand why you didn't do so well in each section (content leaks vs critical analysis) then you should fix those problems. Going over the questions you got wrong on the practice exams is a good starting point.

For example, if most of your errors came from not knowing formulas or concepts, then you most probably have content leaks in that area. These are pretty easy to fix just review the relevant chapter until it clicks.
If most of your errors came from not being able to understand the passage or logically deduce an answer from the passage, then it's a reasoning problem. These are relatively harder to fix but it's not impossible at all. Just do a lot more practice passages (TBR passages are by far the best IMO). You should start "seeing" or developing a sense for the kind of reasoning involved in MCAT passages.

 

[Sooperman]

Not sure for Verbal -- I never really know what to expect from that section xD. You can use the TPRH VW and EK 101 (unless you have already done so). Those seem to be the best practice sources according to this forum.

For Bio, I think EK is the best source -- Bio is more about critical thinking than memorizing content so there's no real point in using Bio content review books that go into too much detail. Same goes for Orgo (IMO) (although I think EK isn't enough for Orgo). TPR is definitely good enough for Orgo.

Although the books you use kind of matters, the most important thing is how you study. You should first try to understand why you didn't do so well in each section (content leaks vs critical analysis) then you should fix those problems. Going over the questions you got wrong on the practice exams is a good starting point.

For example, if most of your errors came from not knowing formulas or concepts, then you most probably have content leaks in that area. These are pretty easy to fix just review the relevant chapter until it clicks.
If most of your errors came from not being able to understand the passage or logically deduce an answer from the passage, then it's a reasoning problem. These are relatively harder to fix but it's not impossible at all. Just do a lot more practice passages (TBR passages are by far the best IMO). You should start "seeing" or developing a sense for the kind of reasoning involved in MCAT passages.

Do you have any opinion on kaplan?

 

[PocketJacks]

I didn't buy the Kaplan books because after doing extensive research on these forums, I concluded that Kaplan wasn't on par with the other companies.

However, I'm not saying that it's impossible to get 35+ with Kaplan -- it's probably very doable. It's probably just relatively easier to do it with the other companies.

You should choose the source that you find the most "easy" to read/understand. I started with TBR but after a while I just found myself reading pages just to get through them -- wasn't really understanding or even trying to understand - it was just so dense and boring. I switched to TPR and found it amazingly better (formatting had a lot to do with it). I still used TBR for passages though.