Weaknesses in Kaplan review?

[hkdude97]

Are there any weaknesses in the kaplan 7 book review for which I should refer to another review set for? Also, does it do a good job for reviewing statistics?


Thanks

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[Thekinginthenorth30]

Any 3rd party content set will prepare you for the exam...the biggest fault with Kaplan is a lack of passage based practice. You can supplement with khan academy (free resource), u world (free 2 week trial), aamc material, or if you have more time I would look into eks 101 passages or the Berkeley review for topics your weak in.

 

[DetroitDoc1993]

I thought Kaplan material was the most helpful for me personally. Their review books give you just the right amount of material where as (in my opinion) exam crackers is too brief. They do provide a lot of practice questions if you purchase their online material which I highly recommend because you also get all of the AAMC material with it. Also I don't know why you would need or want to review statistics because you don't really need that, but they do have a math review book that comes with it.

 

[stayathomemom]

I have this set. I've just started, about halfway through the physics book. My husband, who is a mechanical engineer who works extensively with fluids, took offense to some of the parts of the fluids chapter. The material wasn't technically wrong, but it was presented in a confusing and overly-complicated way. Not sure how it compares to other texts, though. Overall I am learning the material.

 

[DetroitDoc1993]

I mostly recommended kaplan for two reasons. The books are easier to get through and take less time than other books like Berkley review for example and even princeton I think. I guess Princeton is okay but I personally had a bad experience with Princeton so maybe I am biased. The other reason is that Kaplan's online material is great. They provide you with so many practice question and passage based questions more than you know what to do with and that is where kaplan succeeds the most if you ask me.

 

[hkdude97]

I mostly recommended kaplan for two reasons. The books are easier to get through and take less time than other books like Berkley review for example and even princeton I think. I guess Princeton is okay but I personally had a bad experience with Princeton so maybe I am biased. The other reason is that Kaplan's online material is great. They provide you with so many practice question and passage based questions more than you know what to do with and that is where kaplan succeeds the most if you ask me.

I see 2 units of passage based questions for each section; is that standard? (along with science videos, and 3 full length exams)

 

[WIMNFamilyMed]

I see 2 units of passage based questions for each section; is that standard? (along with science videos, and 3 full length exams)

It’s provably standard but I would get the AAMC practice exams (both 2) and the CARS question thing for additional practice. I didn’t like the Kaplan tests, they were more memorization than the true exam (and I’ve heard people score worse on those than the real thing and AAMC practice because Kaplan is trying to sell you more stuff)

 

[hkdude97]

I thought Kaplan material was the most helpful for me personally. Their review books give you just the right amount of material where as (in my opinion) exam crackers is too brief. They do provide a lot of practice questions if you purchase their online material which I highly recommend because you also get all of the AAMC material with it. Also I don't know why you would need or want to review statistics because you don't really need that, but they do have a math review book that comes with it.

is it the online material that comes with the purchase of the 7 book set? or is it different? also what do you mean by all of the AAMC material?

 

[hkdude97]

It’s provably standard but I would get the AAMC practice exams (both 2) and the CARS question thing for additional practice. I didn’t like the Kaplan tests, they were more memorization than the true exam (and I’ve heard people score worse on those than the real thing and AAMC practice because Kaplan is trying to sell you more stuff)

The Kaplan CARS question thing? and sorry, what do you mean by "AAMC practice because kaplan is trying to sell you more stuff", are Kaplan and AAMC associated?

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

The books are easier to get through and take less time than other books like Berkley review for example...

I'm interested to know what you felt slowed you down so much when you went through Berkeley Review chapters. Did you feel there were too many practice questions embedded in the text portion of Berkeley Review books when you used them? One difference between our text sections and those of other books are the twenty or so questions embedded within the reading section. Part of having so many questions is to emphasize how to use our shortcuts and tricks. I'm sorry if these questions took so much time, but going over questions is a significant part of improving. To do well on this exam requires working through as many questions as you can muster, even if it takes extra time.

 

[DetroitDoc1993]

I'm interested to know what you felt slowed you down so much when you went through Berkeley Review chapters. Did you feel there were too many practice questions embedded in the text portion of Berkeley Review books when you used them? One difference between our text sections and those of other books are the twenty or so questions embedded within the reading section. Part of having so many questions is to emphasize how to use our shortcuts and tricks. I'm sorry if these questions took so much time, but going over questions is a significant part of improving. To do well on this exam requires working through as many questions as you can muster, even if it takes extra time.

I was simply talking about my own experience and preference and what I used which helped me be successful. Nothing against Berkeley review. And as I stated before, it's the questions that are important which is why I emphasized doing questions plus the AAMC material. I know questions are what is important that is what I said and why I said you need to get through content review quicker because the mcat is less about content review and more so about doing many practice questions. Kaplan also has questions for review at the end of the chapters and within the chapters they have different kinds of understanding questions. In my personal opinion Berkley books went into too much detail as opposed to exam crackers for example which are not detailed enough so that's why in my opinion Kaplan was a happy medium.

 

[WIMNFamilyMed]

The Kaplan CARS question thing? and sorry, what do you mean by "AAMC practice because kaplan is trying to sell you more stuff", are Kaplan and AAMC associated?

1-AAMC has their own practice exams - 2 full length. There’s also a CARS question bank or something through the AAMC which is 120 questions so it’s like 20 passages or so.

2-Kaplan gives low scores on their practice exams so you spend more money on more prep materials