Introducing myself

[Chemmed116]

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Hi everyone!

I've recently graduated from Austin Peay State University with a Bachelors in Science Chemistry degree. I am currently doing a gap year working as a scribe at family medicine clinic to improve my application: MCAT and healthcare experience. I am planning on doing the DO route and retaking the MCAT, since my first MCAT take (June 2013) was a 19.

My MCAT study method: EK books and then AAMC practice tests. It's improving some, which it will take some time. But I'm still pushing it and still motivated! I wish you all the best of luck in this upcoming application cycle! 🙂

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

EK will not prepare you. TPRH for bio and organic. Berkeley for chemistry and physics.

 

[Mad Jack]

Hi everyone!

I've recently graduated from Austin Peay State University with a Bachelors in Science Chemistry degree. I am currently doing a gap year working as a scribe at family medicine clinic to improve my application: MCAT and healthcare experience. I am planning on doing the DO route and retaking the MCAT, since my first MCAT take (June 2013) was a 19.

My MCAT study method: EK books and then AAMC practice tests. It's improving some, which it will take some time. But I'm still pushing it and still motivated! I wish you all the best of luck in this upcoming application cycle! 🙂

EK is not adequate for someone who has already taken the MCAT and ended up with a score of 19. It's study material that is meant to refresh the minds of people who already are quite well-versed in the material. AlbinoHawk is totally right on the materials. I'd also add in EK 101 Passages if your verbal was crap, along with reading the Atlantic, WSJ, or another paper with a good number of lengthy opinion pieces for an hour every day to get you used to digesting long articles.

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

EK will not prepare you. TPRH for bio and organic. Berkeley for chemistry and physics.

spot on, I absolutely second this.

EK is only for verbal, they have th EK 101 which is good, and I like EK's "strategy" for verbal which is basically to just face it head on and not play around with stupid strategies that waste your time. Also has the nice guide to doing logarithmic math in your head which is super useful.. Otherwise for real content, get away from EK.
hit those practice tests under as close to the real thing as possible (same time for breaks, etc).

Push through, my first AAMC was I think 17, and the last 3 or 4 I took were low 30s. Ended up getting a balanced 28 on the real deal, which isnt outstanding, but it will get me into a school. The scores really went up like 1-2 points at a time, just keep pushing ahead and you will get there. DO NOT take the real thing until you are consistently getting around the score you desire, that is when you will know you are ready.

Welcome to SDN ^_^

 

[Chemmed116]

EK is not adequate for someone who has already taken the MCAT and ended up with a score of 19. It's study material that is meant to refresh the minds of people who already are quite well-versed in the material. AlbinoHawk is totally right on the materials. I'd also add in EK 101 Passages if your verbal was crap, along with reading the Atlantic, WSJ, or another paper with a good number of lengthy opinion pieces for an hour every day to get you used to digesting long articles.

I'm starting to agree too especially with the EK physics and orgo portion. I feel that the EK does not explain it very well. I'm having a hard time finding TBR books available, but I'm thinking about looking into the TPRH. I do have the EK verbal 101, and so far I'm doing ok. The passages are a little intimidating.

 

[Chemmed116]

spot on, I absolutely second this.

EK is only for verbal, they have th EK 101 which is good, and I like EK's "strategy" for verbal which is basically to just face it head on and not play around with stupid strategies that waste your time. Also has the nice guide to doing logarithmic math in your head which is super useful.. Otherwise for real content, get away from EK.
hit those practice tests under as close to the real thing as possible (same time for breaks, etc).

Push through, my first AAMC was I think 17, and the last 3 or 4 I took were low 30s. Ended up getting a balanced 28 on the real deal, which isnt outstanding, but it will get me into a school. The scores really went up like 1-2 points at a time, just keep pushing ahead and you will get there. DO NOT take the real thing until you are consistently getting around the score you desire, that is when you will know you are ready.

Welcome to SDN ^_^

What are your study materials for content review in Physics, chemistry, bio, and orgo?

 

[Roxas]

I thought EK wasn't too bad for bio. TPR Bio was a great book as well but I mostly used EK bio and did ok.

 

[Mad Jack]

I'm starting to agree too especially with the EK physics and orgo portion. I feel that the EK does not explain it very well. I'm having a hard time finding TBR books available, but I'm thinking about looking into the TPRH. I do have the EK verbal 101, and so far I'm doing ok. The passages are a little intimidating.

Just order the TBR books via mail. They are worth it. I scored a 35 using nothing but TBR and EK even though I was many years out of taking chem and was terrible in physics.

 

[Chemmed116]

I thought EK wasn't too bad for bio. TPR Bio was a great book as well but I mostly used EK bio and did ok.

I thought the EK bio wasn't too bad either. I just did not like the EK physics and orgo because they did not explain enough detail to grasp it.

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

I'm starting to agree too especially with the EK physics and orgo portion. I feel that the EK does not explain it very well. I'm having a hard time finding TBR books available, but I'm thinking about looking into the TPRH. I do have the EK verbal 101, and so far I'm doing ok. The passages are a little intimidating.

Practice really helps. The more full practice passages you do the easier they get. You start to catch onto their sneaky crap and it becomes more obvious. Just use your gut instinct and narrow down the answers. The MCAT is not like undergrad where you are trained to find the best answer. Your job is to learn how to find the LEAST WORST answer, because all of the answers could usually be correct if you squint real hard and think about it long enough (which is what they want you to do and will cause you to fail it).

Gut instinct
Speed
Narrow down answers to the one that doesnt feel like complete BS

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

What are your study materials for content review in Physics, chemistry, bio, and orgo?

My study materials were mostly TPR. While I had, and sometimes used Berkeley for physics, the fact that they are not necessarily passages and are stand alone problems turned me off. However, Berkeley were more challenging. I think especially for physics its good to start mixing properties together. Dont just do electricity problems, then kinetics problems, then gravity problems. Find problems/passages that have all 3 parts in them. THAT was the SOB that got me on my physics section haha. Bio, orgo, and chem I thought TPR did a good job.

I would say spend relatively little time on content review and spend more time on practice problems. Review your answers and through constant reviewing of these problems you will have seen like all of the content that could be on it (assuming you do enough practice problems). My plan was to content review for like 2 months, then practice problem for like 6 weeks. That was really dumb because after like two weeks of thick content review you already forgot some of what you learned weeks before haha. By the time you get to actual thick practice problems you basically feel like you need to review again. So the best advice I can give is to use practice problems AS a tool for reviewing material.

I spent too much time on content review and not enough on practice problems. Had it been the other way around I guarantee you I couldve gotten a mid 30 score. It was not until a week or two after I took the test that I became aware of this. But you live and learn, I will do this for step 1 instead haha

 

[Roxas]

Practice really helps. The more full practice passages you do the easier they get. You start to catch onto their sneaky crap and it becomes more obvious. Just use your gut instinct and narrow down the answers. The MCAT is not like undergrad where you are trained to find the best answer. Your job is to learn how to find the LEAST WORST answer, because all of the answers could usually be correct if you squint real hard and think about it long enough (which is what they want you to do and will cause you to fail it).

Gut instinct
Speed
Narrow down answers to the one that doesnt feel like complete BS

It's amazing how true this statement is

 

[Chemmed116]

My study materials were mostly TPR. While I had, and sometimes used Berkeley for physics, the fact that they are not necessarily passages and are stand alone problems turned me off. However, Berkeley were more challenging. I think especially for physics its good to start mixing properties together. Dont just do electricity problems, then kinetics problems, then gravity problems. Find problems/passages that have all 3 parts in them. THAT was the SOB that got me on my physics section haha. Bio, orgo, and chem I thought TPR did a good job.

I would say spend relatively little time on content review and spend more time on practice problems. Review your answers and through constant reviewing of these problems you will have seen like all of the content that could be on it (assuming you do enough practice problems). My plan was to content review for like 2 months, then practice problem for like 6 weeks. That was really dumb because after like two weeks of thick content review you already forgot some of what you learned weeks before haha. By the time you get to actual thick practice problems you basically feel like you need to review again. So the best advice I can give is to use practice problems AS a tool for reviewing material.

I spent too much time on content review and not enough on practice problems. Had it been the other way around I guarantee you I couldve gotten a mid 30 score. It was not until a week or two after I took the test that I became aware of this. But you live and learn, I will do this for step 1 instead haha

I totally agree about the content reviewing. I would tend to forget some of the things after weeks of content review. When I did many of the EK bio passages I'm starting to understand how to grab details from the passages or putting the clues together for the questions that are asked. I'm starting to notice that I tend to grasp the materials more when doing more passage based problems.

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

I absolutely think that is the way to solidify the knowledge. You wont remember some random piece of info from some random page. But you will remember that sneaky problem that got you over something you should know, you will not forget that piece of information for a long time.