Self Study Method--Please post which books you prefer

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FIREitUP

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Well, i'm planning on taking the MCAT in April 2008, and after scouring these forums, I'm trying to find the best books used to self study.

Here is what I gathered, so far:

Kaplan Premier Program

ExamKrackers Complete Study Guide

Audio Osmosis

Berkeley Review - Recommended by RoadRunner17- if you have time

EK 101 Verbal

Nova Physics

I would like to make some sort of list for those of us who wish to self-study. Any help from those of you who have used a self-study method successfully would be greatly appreciated.
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If I could only buy from one company for self-prep, it would be The Berkeley Review. No contest. The books have everything useful you'll ever need for prep. Great review sections with plenty of detail, effective test-taking strategy with regards to the sciences, loads and loads of practice passages and excellent corresponding answer explanations. I am talking about an average of 1000 problems for each of the 4 sciences. So if you're a fan of over-preparing, this is your best bet. The way I see it, it's probably not possible to over-prepare for the MCAT so I recommend this to everybody.

One caveat however: if you're one of those late-starters/crammers/wingers, TBR isn't going to help much simply because there is a huge amount of problems to do. In this case, I would suggest Examkrackers' home-study set. Very concise and makes efficient use of your time. However, when they tell you that certain things won't be on the MCAT, take that with a grain of salt. There is a trade-off, as you may save time studying but you won't have as much a detailed understanding of some topics (for example, EK's Biology book spends only a page and a half, something like that, on renal function).

No matter what you choose, you will want Examkrackers' 101 Passages in Verbal Reasoning book to supplement any VR material you may have. You will also want to buy practice tests from AAMC.
 
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RoadRunner17 said:
If I could only buy from one company for self-prep, it would be The Berkeley Review. No contest. The books have everything useful you'll ever need for prep. Great review sections with plenty of detail, effective test-taking strategy with regards to the sciences, loads and loads of practice passages and excellent corresponding answer explanations. I am talking about an average of 1000 problems for each of the 4 sciences. So if you're a fan of over-preparing, this is your best bet. The way I see it, it's probably not possible to over-prepare for the MCAT so I recommend this to everybody.

One caveat however: if you're one of those late-starters/crammers/wingers, TBR isn't going to help much simply because there is a huge amount of problems to do. In this case, I would suggest Examkrackers' home-study set. Very concise and makes efficient use of your time. However, when they tell you that certain things won't be on the MCAT, take that with a grain of salt. There is a trade-off, as you may save time studying but you won't have as much a detailed understanding of some topics (for example, EK's Biology book spends only a page and a half, something like that, on renal function).

No matter what you choose, you will want Examkrackers' 101 Passages in Verbal Reasoning book to supplement any VR material you may have. You will also want to buy practice tests from AAMC.
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Can someone actually buy this package without taking their inclass course?
What would be the best place to buy it from? about how much would you say it costs?
 
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You can get The Berkeley Review's home-study books, which is what I am using, directly from the company. It's $50 for each subject (two books in each subject). Shipping is FedEx 2-day, so it's not cheap, but it's fast. Just google Berkeley Review to find their homepage, or click the link in the first post.

I got my books (sans Biology and VR, but I wish I had found the Biology books, but its too late for that) from someone selling them on NYC craigslist. You can also find someone on SDN selling their books.
 
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RoadRunner17 said:
You can get The Berkeley Review's home-study books, which is what I am using, directly from the company. It's $50 for each subject (two books in each subject). Shipping is FedEx 2-day, so it's not cheap, but it's fast. Just google Berkeley Review to find their homepage, or click the link in the first post.

I got my books (sans Biology and VR, but I wish I had found the Biology books, but its too late for that) from someone selling them on NYC craigslist. You can also find someone on SDN selling their books.
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ya thanks, too late now for this cycle but I was thinking if I were to retake the mcat again (I sincerely hope not, extremely onerous just thinking about it), it would be something to consider.
 
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I can't really recommend one over the other, since I've only ever used EK's materials (their books, not the Audio Osmosis CDs).

That said, I really liked how condensed the EK books were -- good if you have a background in science already (and bad if you don't). So nothing against the other methods, since I'm not familiar with them. But a strong vote for EK from my camp! 👍
 
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brianoflee said:
I can't really recommend one over the other, since I've only ever used EK's materials (their books, not the Audio Osmosis CDs).

That said, I really liked how condensed the EK books were -- good if you have a background in science already (and bad if you don't). So nothing against the other methods, since I'm not familiar with them. But a strong vote for EK from my camp! 👍
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i'm kind of wary about studying the EK books for I have heard that there is a limited amount of information in them. I don't know how good it is for someone like me (took bio and gen chem freshman year). what do you guys think?
 
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I've been using the EK books mainly for review, and my textbooks as supplement.
Been using TPR for passage questions.
The rest I've been just doing Kaplan and AAMC practice tests (on PDF, not timed though)
the 101 EK verbal books are great.



The textbooks that I've found that were pretty good are:

Zumdahl chem text for gen chem

Essential Cell Biology by alberts, bray, hopkin, johnson, lewis, raff (8 authors)
IT's highly recommended. I used it for cell bio, and almst everyone in the course was totally in love with this book.

Orgo: LG Wade orgo

Physics, I recommend the Giancoli book, most used by high school students
 
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FIREitUP said:
i'm kind of wary about studying the EK books for I have heard that there is a limited amount of information in them. I don't know how good it is for someone like me (took bio and gen chem freshman year). what do you guys think?
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The essential information's there, but that's pretty much it. There's very, very little descriptive information, when compared to a full-length textbook. So if you've had exposure to the sciences before, and are only looking for a review (or if you're very short on time), these are the books for you. But if you don't feel comfortable with your science background, or just want something that's more descriptive, then by all means go with something else. You want to find something you'll feel comfortable studying from -- after, you and your books will be spending lots of time together 😉
 
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FIREitUP said:
i'm kind of wary about studying the EK books for I have heard that there is a limited amount of information in them. I don't know how good it is for someone like me (took bio and gen chem freshman year). what do you guys think?
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It's probably better to ask yourself what information you retained from bio and gen chem. The information is limited, but I think EK teaches you what you need to know to answer 95% of the free-standing/discrete/etc. questions (and also 95% of the prior knowledge questions in passages as well). Knowing more information may certainly help you, if you land a lucky topic, but it's not something I would bank on and studying to glean information from the passage is probably a much more useful skill.

The challenge with EK is that if you really remembered nothing, you will find it difficult to learn fresh from the books (though there's always google/wikipedia/your old textbooks if you get stuck).
 
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estairella said:
It's probably better to ask yourself what information you retained from bio and gen chem. The information is limited, but I think EK teaches you what you need to know to answer 95% of the free-standing/discrete/etc. questions (and also 95% of the prior knowledge questions in passages as well). Knowing more information may certainly help you, if you land a lucky topic, but it's not something I would bank on and studying to glean information from the passage is probably a much more useful skill.

The challenge with EK is that if you really remembered nothing, you will find it difficult to learn fresh from the books (though there's always google/wikipedia/your old textbooks if you get stuck).
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it's not that i remember nothing, its that certain sections (like genetics and myosis) I do not remember. Also, I don't remember how much of gen chem, but hopefully i retained enough that I will be able to use EK.
 
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estairella said:
The challenge with EK is that if you really remembered nothing, you will find it difficult to learn fresh from the books (though there's always google/wikipedia/your old textbooks if you get stuck).
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I second the claim that Wikipedia's a great place to help fill in the blanks. All standard Wikipedia caveats apply, of course. But I was on that site quite a lot while studying for my MCAT 🙂
 
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brianoflee said:
I second the claim that Wikipedia's a great place to help fill in the blanks. All standard Wikipedia caveats apply, of course. But I was on that site quite a lot while studying for my MCAT 🙂
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I love Wikipedia, and it bothers me when people say that it is an unreliable source of information because it's freely editable by pretty much anybody. But if you go in there and try to edit something, you'll probably make someone upset, and they'll just change it back to how it was before. The people that have created those pages are so adamant about maintaining their accuracy, it's pretty trustworthy (although every now and again you'll run into an inaccurate statement). It also contains links at the bottom showing you where they got all of their information - if you question something, you can always go straight to the source.
 
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Kaplan FLs, so far ive done 1-5, and the questions are alot harder and require more collaboration of passage info and outside info. AAMC

Physics-Nova and EK
Bio-EK kaplan
Chem-EkKaplan
Orgo Ek and kaplan
 
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EK + AAMCs worked for me (I hope)

edit: audio osmosis sucks, don't buy it
101 and 1001 Q books are good tho
 
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