MCAT Study Plan Advice

[notApenguin]

Hi everyone, I just finished doing a basic study plan for myself and I was hoping to get some advice on it.

Basically, I wanted to spend 2-3 weeks gathering information using my lecture notes as a foundation, and the review books to determine what information is most important/what important information I am missing from my notes. From there I'd spend 3-4 weeks memorizing all the content before doing practice problems/practice exams for 4-6 weeks.I am aware that many study plans involve doing content review and practice problems simultaneously, but I think I would retain information best if I try to get all the content down first before doing practicing. However, I probably would do Verbal passages during my memorization phase since there is nothing to really memorize for it.
Does anyone see any major flaws in this guideline, or anything else of concern?

Also I wanted to use the following study materials:
Verbal: TPRH Verbal and Examkrackers 1001
Biology: Examkrackers Bio
Gen Chem: TBR
Organic Chem: TBR
Phyiscs: TBR
Practice Exams: AMCAS Practice Exams
- My only concern is if each of these review books contain a sufficient amount of practice problems. Should I use what I have listed for content review and find additional books for practice problems, or will each book suffice to accomplish both goals?

Thanks.

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[Wumbology101]

Those are literally the same exact books I am using, but I also got the EK1001 books for GC, Orgo and Physics. I'm also borrowing TBR bio for the practice passages at the end of each chapter (I found that the EK bio passages didn't really mirror the real bio section very well). I am (roughly) following SN2ed's 3 month schedule [http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/breaking-down-the-mcat-a-3-month-mcat-study-schedule.623898/], and you can follow the schedule with or without the additional EK1001 books. You can certainly do without the 1001s but I need all the help I can get with those 3 subjects. TBR has plenty of in-chapter example practice problems and then practice exams/passages, and some discretes following each chapter. Also, the EK1001 questions aren't passage based and don't mirror MCAT questions. They are designed to reinforce your understanding of different topics.

So, basically to answer your question, you should be fine with the materials you have, unless you're like me and are weak in PS. Depending on how much time you have, you may want to consider finding another source for practice bio passages because EK bio only has a few in-class discrete questions and a 30-min practice test for each chapter. They are good for reviewing but aren't really like the MCAT bio passages.

As for using your lecture notes, I would recommend using EK and TBR as your primary source of review, then referring to your lecture notes if you need more clarification/reinforcement. I've found that I didn't even need to reference any of my lecture notes because my courses went much more in depth than is necessary for the MCAT.

I probably rambled a lot (I've been putting off review physics for quit some time now...) but hopefully this helped. If you have any questions for me let me know.

 

[polyatomic]

I understand your reason for wanting to review the content before actually doing practice problems. This is something I did when I studied for the MCAT. I spent 2-3 weeks just looking at the chapters and taking note of what I might need more help with. It was nice, relaxed and slower paced. Then I dove into a phase where I did a faster-paced content review (of the stuff I reviewed in those 2-3 weeks) and did practice problems simultaneously.

This way I was looking at the content twice over, and at the same time my study pace was very doable because the information wasn't new to me the second time around, I had seen it before.

I actually wrote up and put the study schedule I made for myself onto my website. The one where I review pure content beforehand is called the "extended version". There are more details on the regular version in another post that's linked. If you want some guidance, you can find it here: http://www.mademd.com/2013/12/mademd-mcat-study-guideschedule.html

Your books are good. I wouldn't personally recommend the EK 1001 series. When I used them I found them either too easy or too abstract. Also, the style was very dissimilar compared to the MCAT (they are all discrete questions while the MCAT is mostly passage based). I ended up ditching the books part of the way. But that is my own opinion.

I'd also suggest getting the TPRH Science Workbook -- it was phenomenal and I thought the passages (especially bio) were much more similar to the MCAT than other prep books. It'll also give you problems. You can read more about this here: http://www.mademd.com/2013/06/mcat-study-material-best-books-for-test.html

Let me know if you have any other questions or if I can clarify anything!