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Before You Start – Planning for the MCAT
1. Read this guide; it will save you time and money. Time because you can skip the online courses, and money because the best MCAT materials have great resale value.
2. Make a plan and then follow it religiously – even if you’re not autistic. See how much time, and for how long, you can devote to studying for the MCAT each day. I used this , which I designed for 75 days.
3. You are likely to forget information that you’ve studied too far in advance. Don’t start studying a year in advance unless you absolutely have to. See the (don’ts section).
4. Contact your pre-health committee head and ask them for any free resources your college might have (e.g. practice tests, prep books, etc.). Here are some free that contain a lot of the most important concepts, formulas, terms, physiological systems, and approaches you need to know:
5. Plan on spending about 3-6 months to prepare for the MCAT. Prepare mentally, because this will be a challenge that could prove you worthy of becoming a doctor. Most people score best with anything from 2.5 to 6 months of rigorous preparation, it really depends on your personal circumstances and level of knowledge. If you have to work full-time you won’t be able to study an additional 8 hours per day. Even studying a year in advance might be a good choice for you personally, but then you have to make sure to rehearse a ton of information as the test approaches.
6. Register early for the MCAT because you need to apply early for medical school. The scramble for spots gets harder the later you apply!
7. Sync your routine to the time of the day that you are going to take the MCAT. Mine looked like this: 6:30am get up, drink coffee, review yesterday’s topics for an hour, eat breakfast, begin with verbal at 8:00am, study until lunch-break at 12:30pm, study until dinner. After dinner I spent time hanging out with friends and also usually went for a run. This way you will be alert and familiar with the MCAT sequence.
8. Quit your job (temporarily) if you can. You need to work as little as you can afford, and study as much as possible while still being productive (you will discover that this equation is key). Studying for the MCAT is going to take 4 – 9 hours of your time daily. This is a full-time job. Some people will say you don’t need to quit your job, and depending on your job you might not want to. It’s your decision and you must make your best choices, but in order to get your maximum MCAT score, you need your maximum effort.
People prefer different materials but the most used materials are published by Examkrackers (EK), (TPR), Kaplan, and (TBR). Definitely buy the holy grail, because they cover the essentials while still being concise. Additionally you should also get the TPR complete package, or TBR complete package (except for verbal). These will be your primary study materials.
In any case supplement your primary study materials with and all of the 1001 practice materials: , , , and for pure practice. Examkrackers will enable you to practice excessively, which is absolutely critical. Practice questions will either make or break you.
9. Purchase no matter which primary study materials you are using. It has amazing reviews for mastering your strategy for the verbal section of the MCAT, and it contains real MCAT passages.
13. Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of 13, a number commonly associated with bad luck.
Recommend materials:
30. Bring on the flash cards. Learn all the concepts – that means understand them, and also memorize the necessary facts, names, formulas, and reactions. Put away the ones that you have learned. The EK books will tell you what is absolutely necessary to memorize and what isn’t. This was extremely helpful to me.
31. Keep all your flashcards in the same pile and shuffle frequently. Topics are almost always intertwined on the MCAT. This will help you learn how to bridge information.
49. The MCAT has the following 4 sections in chronological order: Verbal Reasoning, Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, and 2 thirty-minute Essays. Do not worry about saving your undergraduate textbooks to prepare for these. MCAT prep books are designed to teach you what you need to know and sift out the less important information.
81. Don’t read a question over and over again, expecting to all of the sudden understand it differently. Paraphrase it and ask the new question to yourself silently.
84. Do not intensify your studying as your exam day approaches. In fact, you can actually hurt yourself and your MCAT score outcome if you don’t wind down and take at least one day off before the MCAT. Make sure you are well rested. Ideally you will be done with all of your studies one week before the exam so you can just review some materials for a a couple hours per day during that last week.
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