Will ONLY doing practice exams be enough?

[BaseballFan1]

If I take the MCAT in September, and do maybe 15 or more practice exams before then learning everything I missed, wouldn't that be sufficient?

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[iceman132]

Depends on how well you know the material.

I'm sure that would be fine for the verbal section.

 

[BaseballFan1]

Depends on how well you know the material.

I'm sure that would be fine for the verbal section.

Thanks. I feel like instead of spending countless hours going through pages and pages and pages of biology, chemistry, physics, etc...

Why not just go straight to the practice exams. When I miss a question, then I'll review the concept I didn't know. And if you do enough practice exams, let's say 15, you certainly would have learned a lot, hopefully enough to do well on your 16th (the real MCAT exam).

 

[V5RED]

It sounds like an attempt to take the easy way out to me.

Maybe you will do well, but why not put in a serious effort to the test and do your best?

 

[BaseballFan1]

It sounds like an attempt to take the easy way out to me.

Maybe you will do well, but why not put in a serious effort to the test and do your best?

No that's not true. I'm definitely not looking for an easy way out. I just believe it could be a more effective way of studying. That's why I'm ask you guys.

And generally, I've always learned best by doing rather than watching. So doing practice problems for anything has always been better for me than listening to a lecture or reading a text book.

 

[sydneyy]

No that's not true. I'm definitely not looking for an easy way out. I just believe it could be a more effective way of studying. That's why I'm ask you guys.

And generally, I've always learned best by doing rather than watching. So doing practice problems for anything has always been better for me than listening to a lecture or reading a text book.

why not do BR/PR practice passages from each topic then? you'll be able to identify weak topics and just need to study those.

 

[ridethecliche]

You're wasting practice exams if that's what your plan is.

If you take 2-3 and get a 34 average, then yeah maybe it's a good idea for you to concentrate on your weak points, but not otherwise.

 

[ghostman]

I think a EK or Kaplan guide would be useful. EK is relatively short and condensed. Each practice test only touches on a subset of knowledge that you are expected to know. After 15 exams, yes, they may touch on everything, but only briefly.

Try one exam as a diagnostic. If you don't get over a 30, then invest in some guides.

 

[NurWollen]

OP, you're plan sounds pretty good to me... obviously if you're getting 21's the whole time with no improvement you'll need a new strategy, but you're plan is basically she advice I got from a third year med student. He said that the review books are good but that nothing will prepare you better than practice exams. Pratice practice practice he said, and not just practice... he said you need to take a practice test, then review what you got wrong, and so on, just like you are suggesting.

 

[ridethecliche]

OP, you're plan sounds pretty good to me... obviously if you're getting 21's the whole time with no improvement you'll need a new strategy, but you're plan is basically she advice I got from a third year med student. He said that the review books are good but that nothing will prepare you better than practice exams. Pratice practice practice he said, and not just practice... he said you need to take a practice test, then review what you got wrong, and so on, just like you are suggesting.

I think you misconstrued the advice.

Studying and practice are not mutually exclusive.

There are only so many tests and you should save the aamcs for 'towards the end'. The TBR exams are good, as are some of the kaplan ones. I would start with kaplan, then do TBR, then all the aamcs. Maybe throw in an aamc every 2-3 weeks till you finish 7 so you can relate the aamc style to the other exams.

I think you're still going to need to go back and study the stuff you got wrong and then drill that stuff down.

It could work. But you really shouldn't do it if you're not scoring high from the get go.

 

[Rocher]

I think this would be a bad idea. You would have to assume that the 15 practice tests are going to cover every subject on the test. While this may be true, I don't think it's worth the risk. There are going to be little nit picky details that you wouldn't have seen recently unless you studied thoroughly. Real life example: on my actual MCAT, I had to know a formula for magnetism that hadn't been on any of the practice tests that I took.

I agree completely that there is no better practice than taking tests, but only after you've already studied all of the material. I studied using the EK books and Nova physics, doing the questions in the 1001 questions books, and taking 7 or 8 practice tests. I got a 32.

 

[bambam02]

If I take the MCAT in September, and do maybe 15 or more practice exams before then learning everything I missed, wouldn't that be sufficient?

This isnt a college test where you can get your hands on old practice exams and be asked the same questions over and over again.

After you take like 2-3 practice exams, your gonna find yourself studying alot more than taking exams... just the way I see it playing out.

 

[BaseballFan1]

Thanks for all the replies. Right now I'm done with 3 Barron's MCAT practice exams.

I've done a lot better than I thought I would taking the exams simpliciter.

I've also learned a lot of things.

1) A lot of the material you cannot study for. How do you study for graphs and charts and questions based on them except for practicing them over and over?

2) The material that is based on your knowledge is really difficult to remember by just studying from books or hearing in a Kaplan lecture. Nucleosomes contain histones & DNA. I'll never forget that seeing it on my practice exam. But chances are I wouldn't remember it from a Kaplan lecture or reading it in a textbook


My 2 cents.

Thoughts?

 

[ridethecliche]

Barron's exams suck.

 

[Silverfalcon]

1) A lot of the material you cannot study for. How do you study for graphs and charts and questions based on them except for practicing them over and over?

2) The material that is based on your knowledge is really difficult to remember by just studying from books or hearing in a Kaplan lecture. Nucleosomes contain histones & DNA. I'll never forget that seeing it on my practice exam. But chances are I wouldn't remember it from a Kaplan lecture or reading it in a textbook

I'll answer them:

1) You need to understand graphs and charts very well, especially for BS. You can learn to be better at them if you work in research lab or take seminars to understand primary literature.

2) Facts about nucleosome is easy. Granted, you are not going to be asked how many types of histones are there, but at the same time, you should be able to know what histones do, so that even though you may not remember directly what nucleosome was, you learn to answer questions.

Your "method" isn't bad, but with all honesty, you should keep time at the end to do all content review because you do not want to miss easy questions.

 

[BaseballFan1]

Barron's exams suck.

That's what I'm hearing. Are they easier than the real MCAT?

I hope not! I started a thread asking about this but no one answered.

I do have a friend who did Barron's GRE & scored very high so that's why I chose Barron's practice exams to start. I will move to Kaplan & AAMC practice exams soon.

 

[BaseballFan1]

I'll answer them:

1) You need to understand graphs and charts very well, especially for BS. You can learn to be better at them if you work in research lab or take seminars to understand primary literature.

2) Facts about nucleosome is easy. Granted, you are not going to be asked how many types of histones are there, but at the same time, you should be able to know what histones do, so that even though you may not remember directly what nucleosome was, you learn to answer questions.

Your "method" isn't bad, but with all honesty, you should keep time at the end to do all content review because you do not want to miss easy questions.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Tep]

You will likely miss sizable chunks of material studying this way. You're essentially shooting a shotgun at a target and hoping to cover the entire thing. Even after 10-15 tests, there's a good chance you'll still miss material.

Moreover, where do you plan on finding enough recent tests? Every test prep company emphasizes different parts of the curriculum; taking non-aamc tests will only skew your study focus. On the other hand, there are only four aamc tests that are representative of the current MCAT.

You mentioned not being able to study for a specific graph- that's the whole point of the MCAT. It doesn't test you're ability to regurgitate data, it tests your ability to apply concepts that you thoroughly understand to new situations that you likely haven't encountered. Studying each specific test will not build the solid foundation you need to deal with these types of questions.

IMO this method will set you up for failure and depend largely on luck to yield a high score.

 

[raltima07]

I think this would be a bad idea. You would have to assume that the 15 practice tests are going to cover every subject on the test. While this may be true, I don't think it's worth the risk. There are going to be little nit picky details that you wouldn't have seen recently unless you studied thoroughly. Real life example: on my actual MCAT, I had to know a formula for magnetism that hadn't been on any of the practice tests that I took.

I agree completely that there is no better practice than taking tests, but only after you've already studied all of the material. I studied using the EK books and Nova physics, doing the questions in the 1001 questions books, and taking 7 or 8 practice tests. I got a 32.

Exactly - I had a random crazy passage on two things that Kaplan had said no likelyhood of being on the test.

You will likely miss sizable chunks of material studying this way. You're essentially shooting a shotgun at a target and hoping to cover the entire thing. Even after 10-15 tests, there's a good chance you'll still miss material.

Moreover, where do you plan on finding enough recent tests? Every test prep company emphasizes different parts of the curriculum; taking non-aamc tests will only skew your study focus. On the other hand, there are only four aamc tests that are representative of the current MCAT.

You mentioned not being able to study for a specific graph- that's the whole point of the MCAT. It doesn't test you're ability to regurgitate data, it tests your ability to apply concepts that you thoroughly understand to new situations that you likely haven't encountered. Studying each specific test will not build the solid foundation you need to deal with these types of questions.

IMO this method will set you up for failure and depend largely on luck to yield a high score.

Exactly - you are counting on luck here

 

[chidoman]

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[littlefaster]

This method worked for me, but I felt like I knew the material well from undergrad and I'm a good standardized test taker. I took 2 practice exams and focused on my weaks areas. I also skimmed through the AAMC's list of possible test topics and took note of anything I didn't think I could answer from memory. However, this was all done in two weeks because I procrastinated a lot. I think that if I had given myself more time I would've studied more traditionally.

Taking 15 practice tests is going to be a very time consuming way to learn the material because of how frequently subjects are re-tested on each exam. You may never see some of the more infrequently tested subjects on your practice exams, but one or two of them could very well show up on the real deal.

 

[omgyou8myrice]

You're underestimating how difficult the questions can be. Unless you're extremely smart, and I'm guessing you aren't purely based off of probability, you're going to get a lot of questions wrong. Individually studying for each question you get wrong is going to take forever.

 

[chidoman]

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[Im Learning]

This is why I'm considering this approach.