Post your study materials for future MCATers!!

[apples_gary]

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I'll start. I've been studying for about a year now so the list is a bit long (but that's a good thing 👍 ). I budgeted myself for $350CAN ($300 in books, $50 in taxes) and went over a bit with my magazine subscription. I began studying in the summer following 1st year and never looked back. My wildest dream for this MCAT is a 40R and assuming everything goes perfectly (although nothing ever does) I'm hoping to go to University of Toronto Medical school.

1) Examkrackers Review books, with 1g FL - $150 amazon.ca
2) EK 1001 in Biology, Chemistry and Physics. EK 101 in Verbal Reasoining. - $120 from amazon.ca
3) Read Kaplan Premier Program review book in the bookstore, bought the book to do the 2 FLs, then returned the book
4) MCAT45 - borrowed from the library
5) Kaplan practise tests: with the 2 FLs - borrowed from library
6) Princeton Review Science workbook - bought from ebay for $30US
7) Practise material Kaplan gives you when you take their course - 11 FLs, all the subject, topical, section tests - ebay
8) AAMC 3-9
9) 3 FLs from the Golden Standard - borrowed from library
10) Writing Promps from AAMC website - I do one whenever I have time and let people in my university's writing center grade it. Done almost all of the prompts and read over lots of essays in the Kaplan Premier program book.
10) 10 actual, official LSAT; 10 more actual, official LSAT (only the Reading comprehension part) - from bookstore
11) Kaplan Premier program LSAT, PR Crack the LSAT, and Kaplan 180 LSAT (Mostly Reading comprehension) - bought from bookstore, then returned it once I'm done
12) The economist subscription for 6 months - $70CAN - subscriptions are good because it forces you to read
13) Looking at the list, I should've just redirected you to MCAT catalogue at amazon.com. LOL

I finished reviewing all the material in January (Kaplan + EK 6th edition), spend the rest of the school year doing practise questions, and spend the summer doing the 22 FLs I had (3days/ FL). You might be saying that this is overkill, but I'm tired of hearing people say that they did well because of luck, and scored 13 in sciences just by guessing, and that "you can't really study for VR" as some people claim on the 30+ study habits thread. I never win lucky draws or the lottery and I don't believe in luck. My 2 cent would be to spend 3 months on review and 3 month on practice and 1 month on Full Lengths, with about 3 hour of studying per day. Some people get a great score by only study for about 3 months, the reason being that they have a VERY solid foundation in basic sciences. Some people squeeze their MCAT studying time into 4 months by studying 8h a day, but personally I thought that was counter-productive because nobody's brain can retain that much material in one day and spendng so much time on 1 boring thing as the MCAT will make you hate it, thus you become less motivated to study for it.

One last thing: you can do anything you put your heart into, and nobody can deny you a 45T on Saturday's test except yourself.

By the way, I'm nuts, aren't I? Who the f*** studies so much?

 

[kaybam20]

I'll start. I've been studying for about a year now so the list is a bit long (but that's a good thing 👍 ). I budgeted myself for $350CAN ($300 in books, $50 in taxes) and went over a bit with my magazine subscription. I've just finished 2nd year but I don't want to spend $200 extra to take the MCAT twice. My goal's for Saturday's MCAt is a 40R and I'm hoping to go to University of Toronto Medical school.

1) Examkrackers Review books - $150 amazon.ca
2) EK 1001 in Biology, Chemistry and Physics. EK 101 in Verbal Reasoining. - $120 from amazon.ca
3) Read Kaplan Premier Program review book in the bookstore, bought the book to do the 2 FLs, then returned the book
4) MCAT45 - borrowed from the library
5) Kaplan practise tests: with the 2 FLs - borrowed from library
6) Princeton Review Science workbook - bought from ebay for $30US
7) Practise material Kaplan gives you when you take their course - 11 FLs, all the subject, topical, section tests - ebay
8) AAMC 3-9 - ebay
9) 3 FLs from the Golden Standard - borrowed from library
10) Writing Promps from AAMC website - I do one whenever I have time and let people in my university's writing center grade it. Done almost all of it.
10) 10 actual, official MCAT; 10 more actual, official LSAT (only the Reading comprehension part) - from bookstore
11) Kaplan Premier program LSAT, PR Crack the LSAT, and Kaplan 180 LSAT (Mostly Reading comprehension) - bought from bookstore, then returned it once I'm done
12) The economist subscription for 6 months - $70CAN

I finished reviewing all the material in January (Kaplan + EK 6th edition), spend the rest of the school year doing practise questions, and spend the summer doing the 21 FLs I had (3days/ FL) and taking my break with SDN. You might be saying that this is overkill, but I'm tired of hearing people say that they did well because of luck, and scored 13 in sciences by just guessing, and that "you can't really study for VR" as some people claim on the 30+ study habits thread. You can do anything you put your heart into and no one (except Jesus) can deny you a 45T on Saturday's test except yourself.

I am with you. However, No body and nobody can deny me a 45T tommorrow.

 

[Brandon81081]

test 3r (given to me by a friend)
test 6r " " " " "
test 7,8,9 $120
kaplan FL 1-5 40$
Princeton Review books ALL 7 (bought on ebay for 220$)
Hyperlearning DVD's $350
Gold Standard DVD's $250
Kaplan Mcat workbook 30$
Kaplan Mcat flash cards 12$
Science O-chem mechanisms pocket book $15.00
Audio Osmosis CD's 75$

OVer $1000 just on materials.

 

[WildTumor]

~ $1500

AAMCs
Kaplan
EK books (from friend but I paid for the mini-mcat and VR)

 

[megaman1x]

I'll start. I've been studying for about a year now so the list is a bit long (but that's a good thing 👍 ). I budgeted myself for $350CAN ($300 in books, $50 in taxes) and went over a bit with my magazine subscription. I began studying in the summer following 1st year and never looked back. My wildest dream for this MCAT is a 40R and assuming everything goes perfectly (although nothing ever does) I'm hoping to go to University of Toronto Medical school.

yessssss....a fellow Canuck

 

[supafield]

Full Princeton class and material
AAMC 3-9
EK Audio Osmosis
Read Kaplan Bio before my princeton books came...

 

[sowfeeah]

Full Princeton class and material - $1600 (I don't really recommend this. EK all the way)
EK books and Audio Osmosis - ~$150 (I borrowed them from a friend of the previous year. I relied on these more heavily)
AAMC 3-9 - I don't know how much these cost, but again, I took the PDF files from a friend.

 

[dr.kicia]

Kaplan course material (bought on ebay for 80 bucks)
EK full package (amazon 120)
EK 1001 series(100)
AO(40 on ebay)
Priceton review books from the course (130)
And i am going to get the new CBT AAMC stuff once it's released (around 150)

total 620...wooo hooo, savings of 1000 versus classroom prep course
We will see if it will work out though
I hope
To everybody in 2007 MCAT wars

 

[fearandloathing]

my list...
all kaplan full lengths 11 at testing center.
aamc 4- 9 fl
aamc practice items
ek 1001 bio phy chem o chem
ek complete set
princeton review practice tests
acro practice tests
columbia review practice tests
kaplan online tests
kaplan 11 vr tests in their book
the only thing i didnt complete was the kaplan online tests...
including the prep course and mcat admission and kaplan course i spent 2.5 k on the entire ordeal.( ps im broke so i cant even register for school starting in a week)
i was constantly scoring 33-37 on the practice tests .. but damn the anxiety of really taking it.
in all honesty i personally think for me the better route would have been to take the syllabus work out all the college text books according to the aamc syllabus and then take all the practices and make notes of the topics while doing so... it would have been a 6 month process but would have really paid off.

 

[MitJ]

11) Kaplan Premier program LSAT, PR Crack the LSAT, and Kaplan 180 LSAT (Mostly Reading comprehension) - bought from bookstore, then returned it once I'm done
Who the f*** studies so much?

That's not cool dude.

How'd the test go?

 

[TMP-SMX]

1) TPR Silver's. (Thought it was a great book).
2) Barron's (A lot of bio but everything else was very condensed. Good way to learn the bio in a different way than the other texts)
3) Kaplan comprehensive review. I used it for the April test, but I decided not to look at it again. It has everything in there but doesn't go very in depth. Good if you want to memorize things, but won't help you understand very much).
4) EK Audio Osmosis. If you can learn by listening this is a very good thing to have. It's also fun to listen to. They are very honest about what is and what isn't important for the test.
5) Kaplan flashcards. Helps to keep those physics formulas straight. Also helps to just review material.
6) Practice tests. AAMC are the best you can do.

So yes. I studied independently and think I did very well. (We shall see). Practice tests are the most important by far in terms of being prepared. Then looking at the answers. It is especially useful in verbal to understanding what is and what isn't an answer.

 

[apples_gary]

That's not cool dude.

How'd the test go?

Yea, but neither is nonconstructive crticisms 😛 I'm not too worried about PS and BS, because most people seemed to mess up on some parts of it, and the bell curve is probably going to be lenient. But VR seemed less challenging, and I think I'm gonna see a nasty curve for that section. i thought the preparation I put into this test was worth it and next year I'm going to start a free MCAT prep course at my school, with the help of some volunteers, (and you're all invited to attend!) if I get a good score on this test.

 

[Orthodoc40]

Examkrackers complete study package 5th edition
Examkrackers Audio Osmosis
Examkrackers 1001 series

Kaplan course books
Kaplan flash cards

(2) PR science workbooks which were bought 2nd hand.

Barons

 

[bananaboat]

had so much material....only used some of it

1) all TPR materials (excellent, and my major source): physical sciences review, biological sciences review, science workbook (key to my improvement in PS), verbal workbook.
2) EK lecture series textbooks (used only to review....first read through was with TPR)
3) EK orgo 1001 (used quite a bit)
4) EK bio 1001 (used heavily)
5) EK chemistry 1001 (hardly touched)
7) EK physics 1001 (hardly touched)
8) EK verbal 101 (did seven tests)
8) Nova's physics (hardly touched, didn't feel it was great as the reviews)
9) kaplan 2 full lenghts book (clean, never touched)
10) practice tests 3-9
11) ek full lenghts 1-3 (just did physical and verbal)
12) ek mini mcats (only ended up doing two of them, lack of time and weren't that reflective
13) TPR diagnostics 4941, 4951, 4961 (for refresher students like myself)

 

[Time Served]

kaplan books...all of em + exam crackers set (I borrowed them)

1) The kaplan high yield book puts concept in a tougher, application based perspective and I really think this book is essential to solidfy certain concepts
2) The Exam Crackers method of doing verbal is by far the best i was getting 7's and occasional 8's and not finishing ever, to consistently getting 10's and 11's and finishing the test with 4-5 minutes to spare HIGHLY reccommend their method...the EK 101 book is great, but I suggest doing passages from Kaplan or TPR and AAMC ones (this is a must, you have to get used to the 2 standard 10 question passages which show up on all actual AAMC Mcats)
3) Audio osmosis is not that bad either...some one sent me the boot leg files, good for working out or occasionally listening to in the car
4) NOVA physics review is pretty solid as well

Oh...i have a ton of mcat material i am willing to sell for a good price (all the exams, books, tons of topicals, lots of stuff) PM me if you are interested