Studying for MCAT

[anyusernamenottaken]

Hey guys/gals,

I was seeing if you guys could give me some advice on what to study for the mcat. My current planwas to use EK; however, I feel like my background isn' strong enough in some areas. For example, it has 20 pgs on metabilism and I don' think I learned about glycolysis, cytric acid cycle, or ECT in undergrad. I was wondering if you thought going through every single MCAT channel video in kaplan online course would be sufficient to fill in the blanks left by EK. I' m trying to avoid reading the kaplan books as Ive tried reading all of them, but was getting caught up on memorizing every single detail, since I had no clue what would be tested or not and felt EK would be more consise. My worry is that EK may leave me with gaps thwt I don' know I don't know

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[treatem-and-streetem]

The MCAT is very conceptual and creates a lot of questions based off normal mechanisms gone awry. Glycolysis (gluconeogenesis, glycogenolysis, glycogensis, ketogenesis, pentose phosphate pathway) TCA, and ETC are going to be taught the same in any book since they don't change and are relatively straight forward. I think Khan Academy is a pretty useful resource to fill in gaps. Any review book has it's strengths and weaknesses. The MCAT is about critical thinking, reading comprehension, and data analysis.

 

[NextStepTutor_1]

Hi @anyusernamenottaken -

What (& how) to study for the MCAT is a huge question! A lot could be said about this, but the #1 best way to get a sense of the level of depth at which the MCAT tests science content is to do realistic practice exams and to carefully analyze the balance of outside knowledge vs. passage-based knowledge needed to answer the questions.

Another resource to consider looking at is the AAMC content outline. If you Google "AAMC what's on the MCAT" you will be able to find a link on the AAMC website to a 128-page PDF that describes what's on the test and presents a series of Foundational Concepts that give you some background on how these content areas can be used to better understand biological systems. It's a long read and you still have to make some choices about exactly how many details to study, but it's a great window into the high-level content of the test and what the test-makers want you to focus on.

Hope this is helpful, & best of luck!