Restudying with same material

[GrantAlexander127]

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If this has been answered maybe I'm not bright enough to find the thread, however, I studied hard for the mcat. Got a 502. Got a 508 on the scored AAMC and like 504 on my best Kaplan practice test. It will be about 6 months that I will have gone (or more) before I begin to re-study with the same Kaplan material. Yes, I did just about everything Kaplan had to give. But I doubt I remember it at all. Is re-using the same material a poor choice?

Edit* I have the kaplan course. Im going to re-new it. It comes with so many PBQs, Practice section tests, and discrete questions. These are what i want to re-use. Maybe even practice tests.

 

[GrantAlexander127]

IMHO the issue was not the material unless for whatever reason it just didn't fit with your study style, in which case, sure pick a different one. The issue is most likely with how you used the material. So if I were you, same material, maybe supplemented with khan academy or ek just used differently to encourage critical thinking this time.

The material was helpful. It totally felt right. I went in thinking I would never need to take the test again. I was totally thinking in the direction your pointing. I was going to buy a TPR verbal because i got a 122 on CARS, to supplement. I need to figure out if its worth it to buy more science practice passages.

 

[laczlacylaci]

If this has been answered maybe I'm not bright enough to find the thread, however, I studied hard for the mcat. Got a 502. Got a 508 on the scored AAMC and like 504 on my best Kaplan practice test. It will be about 6 months that I will have gone (or more) before I begin to re-study with the same Kaplan material. Yes, I did just about everything Kaplan had to give. But I doubt I remember it at all. Is re-using the same material a poor choice?

Edit* I have the kaplan course. Im going to re-new it. It comes with so many PBQs, Practice section tests, and discrete questions. These are what i want to re-use. Maybe even practice tests.

Sorry to hear that you aren't so happy with your score. I bought a kaplan course too, and the more I am doing their tests, the more they suck. Try out NS diag and FL #1 to see if you want to purchase their exams. Their explanations have been super helpful and I have heard they are pretty representative of the real thing. I heard EK also offers good tests. Kaplan $2k down the drain for me 🙁, would highly recommend not wasting more $$$ on them.

 

[GrantAlexander127]

Sorry to hear that you aren't so happy with your score. I bought a kaplan course too, and the more I am doing their tests, the more they suck. Try out NS diag and FL #1 to see if you want to purchase their exams. Their explanations have been super helpful and I have heard they are pretty representative of the real thing. I heard EK also offers good tests. Kaplan $2k down the drain for me 🙁, would highly recommend not wasting more $$$ on them.

yes well for the Practice exams this time I'm going to expand out like your suggesting.. What I liked about kaplan was all the PBQs and the Q banks. you can take them almost as practice tests and they have a lot of content. But I think supplementing this could be helpful.

Edit* i won't waste any more on it! I'm going to get the course again for free I think.. Since i didn't get a score i liked. They seem to be generous about this.

 

[laczlacylaci]

yes well for the Practice exams this time I'm going to expand out like your suggesting.. What I liked about kaplan was all the PBQs and the Q banks. you can take them almost as practice tests and they have a lot of content. But I think supplementing this could be helpful.

Best of luck my friend!

 

[GrantAlexander127]

I would advice against using anything non-AAMC for cars but you know yourself better. I found old mcat exams verbal sections just the practice material I needed. I think your score indicates holes in content review or a break in connecting content to passages/questions. I say that because I have been there, I kept getting trapped in trick questions because I didn't know enough contentwise to eliminate answers that made no sense so start with. Like I would pick an answer about how the red blood cells of a sickle cell patient had a faulty nuclei instead of of realizing they didn't have nuclei at all. Things like that. I mean , read all the topics with kaplan books cover to cover, 2 times, three, and then see what practice tests you still need. You will notice a difference.

your on point right now. Next semester thats what I'm doing. Im re-reading those books and making flash cards. Then, the next semester is 100% practice tests and PBQs.. I think doing the CARS practice may help even if its non AAMC. I could be making a poor decision but with a 3.9 science and a 3.8 gpa I just shouldn't be scoring so low. The mcat is rough. I appreciate your help!!!

 

[betterfuture]

Some of Kaplan's material are good. Their PBQ's are insanely detailed and not anything like the AAMC. However, if you are just looking for more practice, I would think redoing them, if you don't remember them, would be good. Sometimes what I do, is I will go over a few topics and do corresponding questions - e.g. Acids/Bases, solution stoichiometry, etc., and then after a few weeks go by, I revisit the topics and redo the questions to see if I can still do them. Most of the time, I won't remember the question or answers.

The Kaplan CARS are not too bad. Again, some of their questions are just too detailed or not AAMC type. I got the chance to repeat the course and I still went ahead and did all the CARS I could since I wanted practice on speed reading and practicing getting the main ideas down. The Q Banks have a ton of passages that you can take as quizzes.

The science passages for Kaplan are not that great. They don't incorporate a lot of graphs/figures/data. They are still good practice if you want timing and content down.