When should I start taking AAMC practice exams?

[flodhi1]

My exam is May 20th (Friday 8:00 AM), I know this question might have been asked before but I have certain circumstances that are forcing me to take AAMC practice exams earlier. I am really struggling with the VR (5-6) even though I have completely finished EK and many other sources but doing pretty descent on both the PS and BS (11+). Initially I was going to take 8 Kaplan full lengths, 4 Princeton exams and all AAMC exams (Like a total of 20 exams?) but I realized that it might be a waste of time. So instead of taking 2 exams a week and leaving only 20 days (starting May 1st) to cover all the AAMC practice exams I decided that I should spend an EXTRA month on AAMC practice exams. So I thought I should just finish 4 Kaplan full lengths and than start taking only AAMC practice exams 1 per week starting April 1st and nothing else. My intentions are to start practicing AAMC exams as early as possible so I can get used to the AAMC passages and their type of questions! especially the VR! What do you guys think? Do you think I can see an improvement in VR just from doing the AAMC practice exams and doing some hardcore post review of the exams? and do you think it's better to start AAMC practice exams April 1st or May 1st? I really appreciate your help!
This is the current schedule good or bad idea?

Date Exam #
14-Mar KPFL1
18-Mar
21-Mar KPFL2
25-Mar KPFL4
28-Mar KPFL3
1-Apr CBT-4
4-Apr
8-Apr CBT-5
11-12-Apr
15-Apr CBT-7
18-Apr
22-23-Apr CBT-8
25-Apr
29-Apr CBT-9
2-May
6-May CBT-10
9-May
13-May CBT-11
20-May Actual exam! yayy

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[ridethecliche]

You should do something like EK 101 for verbal prep.

 

[flodhi1]

You should do something like EK 101 for verbal prep.

I have finished EK

 

[ridethecliche]

I have finished EK

If verbal is really your weakness, then you need to figure out how to improve it from a 6 to atleast an 8 or a 9.

AAMC has a book that might be of use. In addition, TBR's tests have decent verbal from what I've read. Those might be worth a shot.

In all honesty, it sucks but if you need verbal practice, then you need verbal practice. Maybe you can get the TPR hyperlearning book used as well?

 

[flodhi1]

If verbal is really your weakness, then you need to figure out how to improve it from a 6 to atleast an 8 or a 9.

AAMC has a book that might be of use. In addition, TBR's tests have decent verbal from what I've read. Those might be worth a shot.

In all honesty, it sucks but if you need verbal practice, then you need verbal practice. Maybe you can get the TPR hyperlearning book used as well?

Right but what do you think about my original post? good or bad idea? and don't you think practicing AAMC exams every week will help me get an intuition for the MCAT verbal?

 

[ridethecliche]

Right but what do you think about my original post? good or bad idea? and don't you think practicing AAMC exams every week will help me get an intuition for the MCAT verbal?

I think you should take atleast 1 aamc a week, but save the higher numbers for the 2-3 weeks up to your exam.

FWIW, I'm taking TBR's right now till close to the end of april, then I'll do the rest of the AAMC's.

The aamc's are good verbal practice, but you don't want to have to do those because they're your only source of verbal practice. Can you get the tbr exams or anything like that?

 

[flodhi1]

I think you should take atleast 1 aamc a week, but save the higher numbers for the 2-3 weeks up to your exam.

FWIW, I'm taking TBR's right now till close to the end of april, then I'll do the rest of the AAMC's.

The aamc's are good verbal practice, but you don't want to have to do those because they're your only source of verbal practice. Can you get the tbr exams or anything like that?

I have the Princeton exams every single one of them! I don't know if that's what you're asking? See the thing is that initially I started EK and I was doing horrible with lots of practice I started building an intuition to the type of questions EK asks. So I went from a 50 % to a 75-80 % However after that I started doing Kaplan Verbal which totally threw me off because they had an absolutely different style of questions/ passages and dropped to a 60 % and with more practice even dropped down further back to a 50 % SO I'm back at square one. So I'm thinking that I should just FOCUS ONLY on AAMC verbal and build an intuition for them. As you can see I'm leaving AAMC 8,9,10 and 11 for the last one month of the exam which I think is enough? my fear is that I don't want to cram all 8 exams in the last month and not have time to recover (as in review errors and build up my strengths), plus I really want that MCAT VR intuition that I gained and than lost after doing EK and Kaplan respectively