Starting my MCAT studying - What to be familiar with beforehand?

[Docdoc123]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hey all,
I'm about to start my MCAT studying, and have the books coming in around a week or so. I would just like your opinion on what I should know beforehand to fasten or maybe make the process a bit easier? Simple algebra methods, general periodic trends etc? Are these taught in most Princeton Review/Kaplan books or do they expect us to know it already before reviewing from the books?

Also, one other question:

Basically, I'd just like topics or information on what the books already expect you to know from an intro standpoint. Do most of these MCAT books teach everything or do they just reinforce material? I haven't taken the second physics yet but am hoping I can teach myself using the most common TPR/Kaplan books?

Thank you so much!

 

[thegypsyqueen]

From the materials I have seen (Kaplan, TBR, and Exam Crackers) they pretty much reteach all of the concepts. If I were you I would still read your physic course textbook though as you will need to spend extra time if you plan to self teach that class.

 

[Andross]

Basically everything you have learned from your prerequisite science courses on a basic level with a few exceptions (I know Princeton review books teach more than you need to know.)

Notable exceptions are genetics, which you don't see too much on the exam, ecology, and some others that I cannot remember.

The exam tends to be really cell bio/ anatomy/biochemistry heavy on the biology side. As for the others, you need to remember a good deal of the concepts you learned from all your other science classes (o chem, physics, gen chem.)

Simple algebra is kind of important because you do a lot of math without a calculator.

 

[Nena01]

Hey all,
I'm about to start my MCAT studying, and have the books coming in around a week or so. I would just like your opinion on what I should know beforehand to fasten or maybe make the process a bit easier? Simple algebra methods, general periodic trends etc? Are these taught in most Princeton Review/Kaplan books or do they expect us to know it already before reviewing from the books?

Also, one other question:

Basically, I'd just like topics or information on what the books already expect you to know from an intro standpoint. Do most of these MCAT books teach everything or do they just reinforce material? I haven't taken the second physics yet but am hoping I can teach myself using the most common TPR/Kaplan books?

Thank you so much!

If you are trying to teach yourself physics concepts, I would recommend the Berkley Review Physics books. I think Kaplan and TPR already expect that you have taken the class. Their explanations are a short review of the material, not a thorough explanation of concepts. This is only from what I understand about those books. For my studying I only used Berkeley, and I know it had excellent explanations of physics and general chemistry.

 

[BeerZombie]

Only books worth getting are Berkley review.

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk

 

[Womb Raider]

Everything.

But yeah, re-familiarize yourself with the little math tricks. How logs work, soh/cah/toa, etc - mental math is a big deal on this test and you don't want to waste time by trying to remember these things. You need to know these like the back of your hand.

 

[SN12357]

Everything.

But yeah, re-familiarize yourself with the little math tricks. How logs work, soh/cah/toa, etc - mental math is a big deal on this test and you don't want to waste time by trying to remember these things. You need to know these like the back of your hand.

Strongly agree. You can get very screwed on the PS section if you aren't fast enough on the math. No one piece of the math is that difficult, but you have to get it all done in time.

 

[swolebrah]

hey if you dont mind, what material are you using to study for the MCAT?

I'm going to be finishing up my pre reqs for the MCAT at the end of next semester and going to be studying for it all summer long. I'm really stuck between paying for a summer course or just buying all the books and doing lots of practice tests.

 

[Docdoc123]

Basically everything you have learned from your prerequisite science courses on a basic level with a few exceptions (I know Princeton review books teach more than you need to know.)

Notable exceptions are genetics, which you don't see too much on the exam, ecology, and some others that I cannot remember.

The exam tends to be really cell bio/ anatomy/biochemistry heavy on the biology side. As for the others, you need to remember a good deal of the concepts you learned from all your other science classes (o chem, physics, gen chem.)

Simple algebra is kind of important because you do a lot of math without a calculator.

So I'm guessing this means the basic intro bio 101/102 stuff? And as for the chem 101 and 102, just know the basics also before heading into the actual MCAT books?

And it seems like math has been recommended as a refresher by a lot of people, should I just focus on the math subjects that one needs to be familiar with in terms of working stuff out in his head? (Logs, angles and degree rules?)

 

[Docdoc123]

hey if you dont mind, what material are you using to study for the MCAT?

I'm going to be finishing up my pre reqs for the MCAT at the end of next semester and going to be studying for it all summer long. I'm really stuck between paying for a summer course or just buying all the books and doing lots of practice tests.

I'm using TBR and some examkrackers books, I also have one TPR book lying around which I might use. How about you?

 

[SN12357]

So I'm guessing this means the basic intro bio 101/102 stuff? And as for the chem 101 and 102, just know the basics also before heading into the actual MCAT books?

And it seems like math has been recommended as a refresher by a lot of people, should I just focus on the math subjects that one needs to be familiar with in terms of working stuff out in his head? (Logs, angles and degree rules?)

Logs, basic trig, scientific notation, and lots and lots of basic algebra/equation manipulation.

Also if you're slow at hand calculations in general, practice doing the basic arithmetic by hand so it doesn't slow you down on the actual test.

 

[DrEnderW]

Everything.

But yeah, re-familiarize yourself with the little math tricks. How logs work, soh/cah/toa, etc - mental math is a big deal on this test and you don't want to waste time by trying to remember these things. You need to know these like the back of your hand.

That's great advice. It saves a lot of time if you know some quick ways to manipulate exponents and logs, division when there's decimals and exponents, and that kind of shenanigans you may be rusty with.

Even though I was a molec bio major, I needed a strong refresher on hormones and the female reproductive system. I didn't get much of that in undergrad and it seemed to been very high yield.

 

[DoctorLacrosse]

do the review books typically give practice problems that are doable by hand and in your head without a calculator to prepare you?

 

[Mr Roboto]

do the review books typically give practice problems that are doable by hand and in your head without a calculator to prepare you?

You shouldn't be using a calculator on any of your review for MCAT, thus any problem in the books is to be considered doable by hand/head.

One thing that I was not prepared for on the MCAT was the scratch paper/pencils the testing center passed out. Cheap ass #2's and canary yellow paper that obscured the pencil scratchings. Kind of minor and I still did well, but I would have done better with white paper and a mechanical. Wish I'd practiced how it would be in advance.

 

[Docdoc123]

You shouldn't be using a calculator on any of your review for MCAT, thus any problem in the books is to be considered doable by hand/head.

One thing that I was not prepared for on the MCAT was the scratch paper/pencils the testing center passed out. Cheap ass #2's and canary yellow paper that obscured the pencil scratchings. Kind of minor and I still did well, but I would have done better with white paper and a mechanical. Wish I'd practiced how it would be in advance.

Wow, really? Do you mean the contrasting colors between the two threw you off? I'm the same way sometimes but for different things, I guess I didn't really think about what you mentioned though.

 

[Docdoc123]

Logs, basic trig, scientific notation, and lots and lots of basic algebra/equation manipulation.

Also if you're slow at hand calculations in general, practice doing the basic arithmetic by hand so it doesn't slow you down on the actual test.

Will be going over that then, thank you very much for your elaboration!

Most people have basically only mentioned math, nothing to really review science-wise before tackling on the MCAT books other than intro/basic stuff?

Thanks again all, much appreciated

 

[deleted407021]

Does anyone know of any resources for getting proficient at algebra and arithmetic by hand? I swear I couldn't divide to save my life.

 

[Andross]

Does anyone know of any resources for getting proficient at algebra and arithmetic by hand? I swear I couldn't divide to save my life.

You'll never have to do long division. Generally rounding your values will give you the exact answer anyway. For example, a question might ask you to divide 29 by 5.7. Just round the answers to 30 and 6. The answer will likely be 5, or very close (generally, it is just 5 oddly enough).

As for algebra/arithmetic, doing lots of physics/chemistry problems generally can alleviate any issues you have there. I used to make frequent mistakes in arithmetic before I studied for the MCAT. However I did a lot of problems and gradually got better at them. Mental math is good, but if you can do it on paper and get it right, you'll do fine. Dirty math is key to the MCAT. You don't have to use exact values. Rounding can make things significantly easier and let you arrive to the answer faster.

Also some things to know. One thing I learned while studying was how to take a logarithm (not ln, just log10) which might be important on a problem. For example, we try to find out the value of log10(240).

We turn the 240 into scientific notation -> 2.4x10^2.

Then we can separate the 2.4 and the 10^2 within the log -> log(2.4x10^2) = log(2.4) + log(10^2)

If you know your logarithms, you know that log(10^x) is just x so.... log(10^2)=2.

Now just take the log(2.4). It isn't a really meaningful quantity, so you can just round it to 0.5 (it is between 0 and 10)

So log10(240) ~ 2.5. The actual value is 2.38, but you will get it right on the MCAT using this trick if it ever comes up.

Generally you will see this come up in the physical science section where they give you a Ka and they want you to calculate its pKa, which is just -log10(Ka)

 

[deleted407021]

Thanks, Andross. That gives me a good idea of how to prepare.

 

[akaMondo]

I'm going to weigh in here and vote Kaplan. I used the Kaplan books for my MCAT prep and I got a 37 on the MCAT. I had AB or B's in most of my weed-out pre-reqs, so it's not like I had mastered the concepts coming in. I started with BR and the math was hilariously over the top - long division, multiplying ridiculous numbers, etc. etc. I switched to Kaplan to avoid burnout, and I liked the books better. They were more colorful, easier to read, way less dense, and still summed things up really well for me. I went through those books and took notes on every chapter, and put those notes in a binder. And then I memorized that binder. That binder came to classes with me, on the bus, to my lab, to my retail job, to the freaking bars with me. That binder was glued to my side until I memorized every single formula or trend or concept I would need on test day. My boyfriend had to pry that binder out of my hands the day before the exam so I would stop pouring over it. I basically just used Kaplan to draw out any information I'd need, then I committed that to memory and trusted myself to apply it on test day.

The only practice problems I did were end of chapter review and Kaplan's "high yield" problems at the end of each book. I did one section of the free AAMC practice exam just to get the format down like 2 days before the exam. And looking back, I'm glad I didn't practice much. I know that's an odd approach, but frankly, all of the Kaplan "high yield" and the PR's big book of problem problems involved a lot of math and many steps, and I found that on test day questions were much more concise.

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

^ so you did no passage practice?

 

[Andross]

^ so you did no passage practice?

I did tons of practice passages. That is what I focused on most. I bounced around 6-10 on my VR score trying different methods of going through the passages. Princeton review said do 6 out of the 7 passages and guess on the last one. Didn't work for me as I would score 6-8. In the end, what worked best was just to do all of them. I just rushed through all the passages on scored an 11 on the actual exam. I ended up having to do my final 2 passages in 10 minutes (5 min per passage). I had practiced 5 minute drills, so I had no problem with that.

 

[kyamh]

Don't just study in a totally silent space all the time. I prefer to study in silence and without other people around and it ended up hurting me on the test. You are in a room with about 50 other students. One guy sitting near me kept sighing, another girl kept shuffing her chair around loudly, another person was audibly mumbling. A test examiner walks up and down behind you every once in a while and that threw me off. Either learn to concentrate in a non-silent environment, or practice using earplugs from the get-go.

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

Yeah, I study in a med school library and it's usually packed with students. I do use earplugs though and plan on using them come test day.

 

[Mr Roboto]

I used Exam Krackers and loved their material. Really though all the top companies are going to be helpful to you, what's most important though is FINISHING the material. Skipping around through a bunch of stuff won't produce as good of results. And of course, be warned—no practice VR and physics passages are as hard as the real ones.

Wow, really? Do you mean the contrasting colors between the two threw you off? I'm the same way sometimes but for different things, I guess I didn't really think about what you mentioned though.

The pencils were really cheap so they didn't write very well on the cheap paper. I found it hard to read the pale gray lines on yellowish paper, slowed down my calculations.

Don't just study in a totally silent space all the time. I prefer to study in silence and without other people around and it ended up hurting me on the test. You are in a room with about 50 other students. One guy sitting near me kept sighing, another girl kept shuffing her chair around loudly, another person was audibly mumbling. A test examiner walks up and down behind you every once in a while and that threw me off. Either learn to concentrate in a non-silent environment, or practice using earplugs from the get-go.

Totally agree with this. I studied in silence, then on test day the guy next to me kept sucking snot into his nose noisily instead of just blowing it haha. So distracting.

 

[akaMondo]

^ so you did no passage practice?

Not really. I took the AAMC 3 FL for free on their website like 3 days before the exam. I didn't do it timed, I kind of messed around and dropped in and out. I really just used it to get a feel for the format of the exam, and I went through and look at my wrong answers to get into the logic of the exam. I trusted myself on the rest. I scored 7 points higher on the real MCAT than AAMC 3. So I guess I made the right choice? Risky move, but to me, that's all the practice passages were going to teach me. Format. Content is different on every test, and if I had all the content down, I'd be equipped for any test they threw at me.

 

[akaMondo]

^^ I should say that my only regret is not practicing at all for verbal. I got a 10, so didn't bomb it, but with practice I think I probably could have ended up with a point or two more.

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

Wow, sick BS score, what was your prep like for that portion of the test?

 

[akaMondo]

Wow, sick BS score, what was your prep like for that portion of the test?

I'm a life sciences major, so that helped. In addition to that, I just did as stated above. I used Kaplan organic chem and biology books. I read them through twice, once just reading and the second time taking notes the way I take notes for classes. After my two readthroughs, I spent about 3 weeks (for both PS and BS) memorizing what I needed to from my own personal note binders, whether it be equations or concepts or whatnot. I took a different approach to the MCAT, really. Everyone advocates practice, practice, practice. I reviewed, reviewed, reviewed and made sure I knew the content inside and out. If I knew the content better than the back of my hand, I trusted that I could apply it on test day.

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

I review a ton too lol. I read through the TBR books, then on review days, I read through the corresponding EK chapter after reading my notes. I do a lot of passage practice though. How was Kaplan? I have a bunch of their review books at home, but I opted for EK and TBR, with TPRH for Bio.

 

[Docdoc123]

You'll never have to do long division. Generally rounding your values will give you the exact answer anyway. For example, a question might ask you to divide 29 by 5.7. Just round the answers to 30 and 6. The answer will likely be 5, or very close (generally, it is just 5 oddly enough).

As for algebra/arithmetic, doing lots of physics/chemistry problems generally can alleviate any issues you have there. I used to make frequent mistakes in arithmetic before I studied for the MCAT. However I did a lot of problems and gradually got better at them. Mental math is good, but if you can do it on paper and get it right, you'll do fine. Dirty math is key to the MCAT. You don't have to use exact values. Rounding can make things significantly easier and let you arrive to the answer faster.

Also some things to know. One thing I learned while studying was how to take a logarithm (not ln, just log10) which might be important on a problem. For example, we try to find out the value of log10(240).

We turn the 240 into scientific notation -> 2.4x10^2.

Then we can separate the 2.4 and the 10^2 within the log -> log(2.4x10^2) = log(2.4) + log(10^2)

If you know your logarithms, you know that log(10^x) is just x so.... log(10^2)=2.

Now just take the log(2.4). It isn't a really meaningful quantity, so you can just round it to 0.5 (it is between 0 and 10)

So log10(240) ~ 2.5. The actual value is 2.38, but you will get it right on the MCAT using this trick if it ever comes up.

Generally you will see this come up in the physical science section where they give you a Ka and they want you to calculate its pKa, which is just -log10(Ka)

Much, much thanks to you for this lengthy post, as well as the others who have posted! Much appreciated!

 

[Docdoc123]

I review a ton too lol. I read through the TBR books, then on review days, I read through the corresponding EK chapter after reading my notes. I do a lot of passage practice though. How was Kaplan? I have a bunch of their review books at home, but I opted for EK and TBR, with TPRH for Bio.

Hey Johnny, I'm literally using the same exact setup as you! TBR books, with TPRH "science" workbook, is that the same book as yours? Although I do not have the EK sets since I have TBR, I only have the 1001 passage books from them as review for when I finish up studying. May I ask about your decision to go with TBR AND EK?

Thanks again!

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

I use TBR to get the detailed portion of the chapter to study, since the MCAT has been geared towards specifics as of late, (or so it seems) then I use EK to cement the basics on review days. I basically do TBR chapters, do a couple questions on EK 1001 (not really in order, just based on what I need to review). I actually use EK 1001 for additional note taking if I don't get a particular concept. I do around 5-6 TBR chapters after initial read-through, then on review days, I pretty much pick out more passages from TBR, 1-2 from TPRH (saving these till the end) and I run the 30 min In-class exam from the EK books. Then I do post-game analysis on what I did. Review days usually take longer. I'm planning on giving myself 2 weeks after content is done (hopefully by end of Nov) to cement my weak points before tackling the AAMC FLs, TBR CBTs, and whatever else I can get (starting around Dec 11-ish), while doing TPRH SW on non-FL days. I'll probably take an FL once ever 2-3 days, then amp up 2 weeks before test day and take one every other day.

 

[Docdoc123]

I use TBR to get the detailed portion of the chapter to study, since the MCAT has been geared towards specifics as of late, (or so it seems) then I use EK to cement the basics on review days. I basically do TBR chapters, do a couple questions on EK 1001 (not really in order, just based on what I need to review). I actually use EK 1001 for additional note taking if I don't get a particular concept. I do around 5-6 TBR chapters after initial read-through, then on review days, I pretty much pick out more passages from TBR, 1-2 from TPRH (saving these till the end) and I run the 30 min In-class exam from the EK books. Then I do post-game analysis on what I did. Review days usually take longer. I'm planning on giving myself 2 weeks after content is done (hopefully by end of Nov) to cement my weak points before tackling the AAMC FLs, TBR CBTs, and whatever else I can get (starting around Dec 11-ish), while doing TPRH SW on non-FL days. I'll probably take an FL once ever 2-3 days, then amp up 2 weeks before test day and take one every other day.

Ah, what/when are your review days like? Are you following the study schedule posted on this website that is more commonly known? As I understand, you read a few TBR chapters and follow that up with EK 1001 questions to reasses your readings. After 5-6 chapters, you follow that up with a review day with a few more problems from both books and the 30 min exams? Do I have that right? Just was kinda confused on " do around 5-6 TBR chapters after initial read-through" haha

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

passages* I meant haha

 

[Aerus]

The exam tends to be really cell bio/ anatomy/biochemistry heavy on the biology side. .

Anatomy on the MCAT?

wat

 

[Andross]

Anatomy on the MCAT?

wat

Yeah. Know how the kidney, lungs, and heart work at least as those are frequently tested. Also you'll need to memorize some common hormones that they will quiz you on like ADH and aldosterone which affect the kidneys for example.

Hard to say what will appear on the exam because you need to have a basic understanding of all the major bodily systems, and their associated proteins/hormones. For example, digestive enzymes were frequent on the practice exams that I did (pepsin, chymotrypsin, etc) and the differences between them particularly like where they were secreted.

It might be a good idea to get an MCAT review book on this if you never took anatomy/physio

 

[Aerus]

Yeah. Know how the kidney, lungs, and heart work at least as those are frequently tested. Also you'll need to memorize some common hormones that they will quiz you on like ADH and aldosterone which affect the kidneys for example.

Hard to say what will appear on the exam because you need to have a basic understanding of all the major bodily systems, and their associated proteins/hormones. For example, digestive enzymes were frequent on the practice exams that I did (pepsin, chymotrypsin, etc) and the differences between them particularly like where they were secreted.

It might be a good idea to get an MCAT review book on this if you never took anatomy/physio

Physiology and Anatomy are different things, you know. 😛 Physiology is the study of bodily functions, which definitely appears A LOT on the MCAT. Anatomy is the study of bodily structure....yeah that stuff you won't need to know. You'll never be asked "Where are the gastric branches of the anterior vagal trunk?" on the MCAT.