Which prep books did you use?

[Cynicalbrit]

For people who have already taken the exam, please let us know which books you used for content review. If you liked them or didn't like them, please let us know in the comments.

Stating your score in the comments would be very helpful as well, along with which books you thought helped the most.

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[MedPR]

TBR and EK. I would recommend both to anyone.

Oh yea, and wikipremed and mcat-review were great online helpers.

 

[TriagePreMed]

Poor Barron's. They get no play.

 

[dannygarced]

I used EK, EK Verbal 101, Chad's Videos, Khan Academy and Wikipremed

 

[couldabeenadoc]

This poll could be misleading, since there's no way to tell who used 2 (or more) of the 6 sources listed, and in what combination.

FWIW, I plan on purchasing the EK series for my son, who will be sitting for the MCAT next Spring.

 

[Buttafuoco]

I used Kaplan. They're pretty meh IMO. The info is mostly there, but every chapter concludes with 10 or 15 standalone problems that have very little to do with the MCAT. A lot of their example problems and end of chapter ones have idiotic calculations too. Like so will expect you to do the arctan of 17 degrees of something like that.

Another really annoying thing is that in some of of the books is the way they're written. They have jokey comments every third sentence about how this concept is going to get MCAT points, and are absolutely filled with often bad analogies that don't clarify anything.

I definitely used Khanacademy to refresh some concepts in physics. Love his videos. The only thing I don't like about them is I wish he covered all of a college track in physics and calculus especially. But when I went through the EK 1001 series, I used his videos whenever possible to strengthen weak spots.

 

[unitix]

After having completed the MCAT, and studying for ~100-150 hours...Here are my takes.
All my material (excluding aamc tests came to about ~70$ because I bought used couple year old ones from amazon)
Kaplan MCAT premier
Kaplan MCAT45
Kaplan Pracetice Tests book
EK physics (needed to brush up)
EK 101 Passages

I have come to realize Kaplan is garbage. Its convoluted with too much information that'll only hinder your critical thinking ability for test day. The EK books by far did it for me..STRAIGHTFORWARD. So If I were to do it all over again, I would've went EK for every thing + AAMC tests*. Did Kaplan help? A BIT, but sure not worth it. They're just a money hungry company who reuse materials and who capitalize on fear. The premier was good to skim through and brush up on basic concepts, but don't do the tests/problems, they'll just f*ck you over.

 

[unitix]

I used Kaplan. They're pretty meh IMO. The info is mostly there, but every chapter concludes with 10 or 15 standalone problems that have very little to do with the MCAT. A lot of their example problems and end of chapter ones have idiotic calculations too. Like so will expect you to do the arctan of 17 degrees of something like that.

Another really annoying thing is that in some of of the books is the way they're written. They have jokey comments every third sentence about how this concept is going to get MCAT points, and are absolutely filled with often bad analogies that don't clarify anything.

I definitely used Khanacademy to refresh some concepts in physics. Love his videos. The only thing I don't like about them is I wish he covered all of a college track in physics and calculus especially. But when I went through the EK 1001 series, I used his videos whenever possible to strengthen weak spots.

Salman Khan is a god. That guys my hero.

 

[couldabeenadoc]

After having completed the MCAT, and studying for ~100-150 hours...Here are my takes.
All my material (excluding aamc tests came to about ~70$ because I bought used couple year old ones from amazon)
Kaplan MCAT premier
Kaplan MCAT45
Kaplan Pracetice Tests book
EK physics (needed to brush up)
EK 101 Passages

I have come to realize Kaplan is garbage. Its convoluted with too much information that'll only hinder your critical thinking ability for test day. The EK books by far did it for me..STRAIGHTFORWARD. So If I were to do it all over again, I would've went EK for every thing + AAMC tests*. Did Kaplan help? A BIT, but sure not worth it. They're just a money hungry company who reuse materials and who capitalize on fear. The premier was good to skim through and brush up on basic concepts, but don't do the tests/problems, they'll just f*ck you over.

Aside from EK's 5 subject review books & 101 verbal, would you recommend the 1001 books also?

 

[MedPR]

Aside from EK's 5 subject review books & 101 verbal, would you recommend the 1001 books also?

I used the EK Chem and Physics 1001 for concepts I wasn't great on.

 

[Dan1804]

Used Kaplan Premier, The Princeton Review, and EK Audio Osmosis for content review. The FLs that came with them, the AAMC MCAT guide, the Kaplan 45, and the AAMC retired exams for practice.