Is it normal to be seeing some of the content for the first time while doing content review?

[Danny L]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I go to a t20, so I don't feel suspect there is a problem with my school's science classes. However, I've noticed that there are a lot of stuff that I'm looking at in my review books is stuff that we never really covered in any of the pre med requirement classes (bio, gen chem, etc). It's mainly anatomy stuff and doesn't seem difficult to self-learn but is this/self learning typical when doing MCAT content review?

 

[YayPudding]

Absolutely normal. But bear in mind that there's no way any one MCAT exam can cover all of the material that could be included as there is so much.

 

[aldol16]

For the anatomy and physiology stuff, that's pretty normal because many schools don't have an anatomy/physiology class. For the other sections, it's okay to see some concepts you haven't covered, but if you have huge swathes of material you haven't covered, there's probably a bigger underlying problem.

 

[5words]

For the anatomy and physiology stuff, that's pretty normal because many schools don't have an anatomy/physiology class. For the other sections, it's okay to see some concepts you haven't covered, but if you have huge swathes of material you haven't covered, there's probably a bigger underlying problem.

Hey Aldo any tips on the CARS section?

 

[Ad2b]

Hey Aldo any tips on the CARS section?

not Aldo, but...

Have you purchased the CARS q-packs from AAMC? They are dense but will help greatly especially if you start understanding "why" the AAMC answered the way it did. Once you have that, the real deal is not much different (or harder).

 

[5words]

not Aldo, but...

Have you purchased the CARS q-packs from AAMC? They are dense but will help greatly especially if you start understanding "why" the AAMC answered the way it did. Once you have that, the real deal is not much different (or harder).

Yes .. I have the Q pack but I am saving those for my last month .. do you think I should get into them now? Planning on writing on March 31rst.

 

[Ad2b]

Yes .. I have the Q pack but I am saving those for my last month .. do you think I should get into them now? Planning on writing on March 31rst.

I would do CARS sooner than last month. Understanding CARS rationale will help in other sections which sounds strange.

 

[aldol16]

Hey Aldo any tips on the CARS section?

Read! That's the critical part. Read anything and everything. Make a habit out of finding some newspaper you like - I prefer NYTimes or WSJ or The Economist. Start reading articles daily. Your goal should be to read quickly but still be able to understand everything in the article. Reading comprehension is important and for CARS, you'll have to read quickly and efficiently. The rest of your CARS score will be determined by your analytical reasoning abilities, which is not something you can easily change overnight. So here, doing practice passages might be your best bet - as another poster has mentioned, the CARS QPacks is a good place to start. The first half of QPack 1 is difficult and sometimes not very well reasoned out, so don't be afraid if you don't do well there. It's normal. The second half is much better, as is QPack 2.