MCAT studying with a emphasis on content review; success or failure?

[the shretiology]

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I am taking my MCAT in June 2017 and am currently in the process of reviewing content. My approach is to make anki cards of most information within the Kaplan books, but I find that it takes an extremely long time to finish each chapter if doing this [I have currently gotten through 3 chapters of bio, a few chapters of CARS, and am working on the 1st behavior sciences chapter]. On the other hand, if I do not do this, I find it difficult to answer the discrete practice questions within the Kaplan books. When I do review the flash cards, I feel confident answering these discrete questions and am often correct.

I notice many people emphasize cramming the studying into a short amount of time to retain the information, however, I have found success stories of people who have content reviewed over a long period of time with use of Anki.

What are your thoughts? Blast through the content and get to the question packs or extensively review the content? I have always been a thorough studier and I want to be well equipped with the tools of scientific knowledge for this test - should I ditch this tactic for the MCAT?

 

[sjcha]

Seeing that your test date is 6 months away. I think you have plenty of time to do both, extensively. How long do you study per day? Do you have any other commitments?

Everyone is different in how they study. You need to find what works best for you. With that being said, it's very important to practice MCAT style questions. You don't want any surprises on test day. It's also very important to know the content. If your approach is to do ALL content review before any practice, you can split it up (i.e. 3 months for content review and 3 months for practice). The good thing about Anki cards is that once you do complete your content review, you can still review ~100-200 cards per day while you practice.

Edit: to save some time, you can always skim/lightly review information that you already know. Your Anki cards for said material don't have to be quite detailed or you may not even need to make any.