Week off?

[Goofy Goober]

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So I test on the 25th and I am horribly burnt out. I have taken 4 AAMC exams so far and can potentially take one more. Should I take the week off or should I push through? My scores have been pretty good, I'm just scared they'll drop if I take a break. Any advice?

 

[labtech312]

I took a week off in the middle of my prep time for the test, and it did wonders for me. With you being so close I'd say you could take a couple days of relaxing, and maybe the only thing you do is keep up on anki cards. Some time to let your brain regenerate could be good if your scores have been consistent and you are confident. Fighters do their hard training 6-8 weeks before the fight, then the week before the fight they let their body recover and break a light sweat each day just to stay sharp. Maybe something along those lines (obviously applied to studying) is what you should be shooting for in the days coming up to the test.

 

[Dr Meow]

I'd say take a break but keep going with Anki.

I scored a 508 which isn't impressive but consider where I started from.
I started studing for the mcat back in 2013 on the old mcat scale (4-15 per section). I scored something like in the range of 4(verbal), 8 for the other 2 sections for a total of around 20. That's a very ****ty ****ty percentile after studying for about 3 years. I gave up on med school solely due to my mcat score until I was so fed up with working as a lab technician in 2019 that I tried once more but this time with a lot of Anki. THIS TIME, in 1 month, I was able to bring my score up to 508 from a 20 (~491 converted to new score). In 1 month, I went up 17 points.

Stay with Anki. I has been my go to method to memorize ANYTHING, not just for med school. I used anki till the day before the exam.

 

[Blueprint Med School]

If you're feeling really burnt out and you're happy with where your score is at, I'd suggest taking down the hours but keep studying until the two days before your exam. Maybe spend around half the time you normally would to keep content fresh in your mind. The day or two before your exam you can take off but a full week without doing anything would mean risking forgetting some material.

 

[JimKimSlim]

Relax. You deserve it. Just don’t drink too much

 

[Calizboosted76]

Take a few days off aside from some mild anki or flash cards.

 

[GreenDuck12]

I’m posting this mostly for future folks who might be contemplating similar things. I view the MCAT as being like a marathon with test day being the day of the race. Before any race, athletes tend to taper things back a bit to rest and build up reserves for test day to maintain the gains they have made to that point. Your goal the week before the test is to solidify the improvement you’ve made, not try to substantially increase your score. To that end I think it is reasonable to cut hours down if you are within your target range. Do target areas that are continued weaknesses or things that will cause you spiral on test day if they come up. Do continue with light passage practice, particularly CARS and graph heavy passages. Do continue with flash cards for concepts and things you have repeatedly missed. Do NOT focus on small factoids that are unlikely to appear as a stand-alone question (remember, the MCAT tests concepts and trends). Do NOT increase hours spent studying - if by the week of the test you are scoring below your target range, it’s time to push the test back.