Identifying Weaknesses

[echoyjeff222]

I've seen quite a few guides saying you should focus on your weaknesses, but how am I supposed to identify the weaknesses in the first place? Do I just note down the concept that I missed a question on a practice exam or question on and write it down, or are there resources online that can help identify weaknesses more quickly?

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[orangeman25]

Aamc self assessment package does a good job identifying weaknesses for you

 

[echoyjeff222]

any other free resources? haha

 

[NervousNerd]

Good ol handy highlighter does the trick for me. My review books, as most do, has a section of drills in the back of each content chapter. If I don't get above 5/7 I am not comfortable with the topics yet and therefore do more review and problems.

Generally people get tied up in trying to find weaknesses in themselves where they are easy to spot. Maybe first take a practice test. Going through you'll feel where you lack. If you scores are low in PS, start there. Personally, physics is my downfall so I spend most time there. I do not focus as much on bio and ochem as I have scored constant in these topics.

That being said....do NOT slack or stop reviewing a topic because you aced it. It's amazing what you can lose with confidence and a month of no review.

 

[Jepstein30]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...he-mcat-study-plan-picking-resources.1045943/

I posted some of this there but I'll specifically answer your question here as well.

Self-Assessment is by far the best resource for this. Simply because it's comprehensive enough that it will cast a very wide net and also has a nice breakdown for you by topic.

Practice tests.. okay but not as great. The net is significantly smaller so while it can IDENTIFY weaknesses, don't take the lack thereof as an indicator of anything. What I mean is just because one practice test went great and you knew everything, doesn't mean you actually know everything. With the SA, you can state that with somewhat more confidence.

Practice passages are pretty good but to an extent. Problem here is that you aren't likely to focus on practice passages for a topic until after you recognize it as a weakness OR as you slowly trod through the content (and even then, you may miss it depending on which passages you do as they cast very specific nets). I would say these are good as long as you do a good variety of them (different resources, different difficulty levels, etc.).

For free.. well, there's not really many great free MCAT resources. You can try the question of the day but that's a miniscule net obviously. I would recommend printing out the AAMC topic guide and perusing it yourself to figure out what you should be expected to know. If you're in tune with how you did in the pre-reqs, you should be able to at least pick some places to get started weakness wise. If you're short on funds, I'd go SA + 3-4 practice tests (latter ones being the better).