Kaplan Topic Test helpful?

[WonderBoy]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hey guys,
Has anyone here that used Kaplan's topic test found them useful? I am taking TPR but I am thinking about buying the Topic tests. Do you guys think it worth the money? Thanks.

 

[Spang]

Imago:

I'll give you my two cents since you asked. I took the Kaplan course and watched all the lectures while following along in the review book.

I then bought a TPR book, you know the really thick one, Hyperlearning, that has a separate section for each subject and study that almost exclusively.

The best part of the Kaplan class was the full-length practice tests which I took every weekend before the MCAT. The TPR material is much better than Kaplan IMO and the topical tests that Kaplan has are WAY harder than the MCAT and not an economical use of your time. They require much more computation and indepth analysis than any question on the real MCAT.

The last two weeks I studied the note cards from Kaplan and took several more full length test.

For comparison, I got a 23 on my first Kaplan diagnostic and got a 11,10,10,Q on the real thing. That's not a stellar score I know, but trust me I'm no brain surgeon and only did that well through brute-force studying!

Best of luck,

Spang

 

[spacecadet]

I took them all, but I wouldn't recommend buying them. They are really way too hard and detailed. My instructor told me that getting a 50% on them is excellent.

IMO, you'd be better off taking more practice tests than doing the topical tests. The Kaplan section tests were good if you can find those.

 

[Whisker Barrel Cortex]

The topical tests are not intended to be exactly the same as the MCAT. You must read and learn the concepts required to answer these questions to get the full use out of them. I took all of the physical science ones when I was taking Kaplan and my phys sci score went up from a 9 on my midterm exam to a 13 on the real MCAT.

The topical tests are harder than the real MCAT but the concepts you will learn will be very useful.