mcat test taking tactics

[medanthgirl]

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Hello out there,

Was wondering how much attention/effort you all give to studying and learning MCAT tactics, like how to "smell a wrong answer" as someone put in an earlier post. I don't think I'm going to be able to take an MCAT course, although I know they would address those situations there, so I was wondering how many of you just concentrated solely on the subjects and equations versus also adding in the test taking pointers/strategies/wording of MCAT.

Is it worth doing, or will the knowledge get you through? 🙄

 

[willthatsall]

They really focus on that less than you might think. Kaplan focused on reaching the answer in the quickest way, but not really on picking out right answers without knowing why. I saw more of that when studying for the SAT than the MCAT. I would just go with the material and get used to the passage based questions. And then pray.

 

[shad420w]

There is some truth behind smelling out the good answers. But this will only I think come out of knowledge of the subject and the common pitfalls for each topic. I don't think its wise to look at good vs bad answers in general. I.e. the characterisitics they give for a bad answer might purposely be what the right answer looks like. So using their rules, you might eliminate the right answer.

What I think is helpful is understanding the common mistakes or wrong paths for each specific subject.

For example, when ever I see a question on thermodynamcs or kinetics, I ALWAYS see where they are trying to get you to confuse the two. Like trying to make some statement about the kinetics of a reaction from knowing thermodynamic data. Or trying to trick as to where a hormone comes from. This kind of knowledge only comes from a lot of practice with MCAT material. That is why I think practice is the best way of sifting out the right answers

 

[VPDcurt]

strategies help quite a bit but I think the most important strategy is being able to manage your time during the exam. there isn't too much time to sit and think about an answer so knowing it right off the bat definitely helps. also, there are usually 2 answers that are obviously incorrect and thus can be eliminated rather quickly. there is usually a trick to finding the correct one once you've narrowed it down, but said tricks still involve a strong knowledge component. Just familiarize yourself with the format and timing of the exam once you have learned all of the material and you should be OK. Remember, a lot of the questions (in passages) come directly from the passage so being able to understand/comprehend what is going on in the passage is essential as well.