MCAT 2020 PREP

[chi-squareT]

Hi guys! Hope you are enjoying your summer so far! I just had a few questions in terms of how to prep for MCAT while taking courses in school and will be taking 5 courses this upcoming fall. I am devoting 4 months for this test, and was wondering how to organize my time to studying for MCAT. Is it doable? How did you guys prepare for CARS section? I have bought NS and Uworld question bank, and have started doing 3 CARS passages everyday. 

Thank you for your help!

 

[Vivieeeeeee]

Just copy-pasting what I replied to you in private message in case there are more students wondering the similar question  Didn't know you are already doing 3 CARS passages every day - that's great! The only thing you can't cram for is CARS (and to some degree, physics, in my opinion)

- I also see you already bought your materials. I was providing a book list I used for reference as your message didn't talk about you already purchasing materials. I've seen people get 528 with books from different companies, so you will be fine. NS is regarded as one of the harder but useful CARS resources. However, if you haven't already, check out AAMC FL and section banks - those should be your first practice resources as they are official.

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Overall, I used TPR prep books.

For CARS I mainly used this practice book:

 

I supplemented it with Testing Solutions CARS (the 30 day thing). They have a reputation of being notoriously hard but the grind is worth it. I still fail on their passages but I think you will appreciate the upgrade in difficulty. Don't be discouraged by the passages - the test won't be nearly as hard, but you want to sandbag yourself for the process. However, I'd say do them in this order: AAMC --> EK --> then harder hit-or-miss stuff like TS or Next Step. 

I would also suggest you take the CARS techniques from TPR or any company with a grain of salt. They introduce a lot of fancy highlighting techniques which you probably don't have time to apply on the exam (but again, judge for yourself, maybe it works for you). The key to doing CARS is the ability to summarize and organize the author's train of thought. I would train myself to always mentally summarize each paragraph after reading it. I would also only highlight words of transition that indicate the flow of the article/the author's tone (but, therefore, nevertheless, however, it seems) Also, be careful of your timing - I never had issues with timing but I heard it's a common problem where novice CARS writers spend too much time. There are more tips online with regards to training your timing, but the best way is probably giving yourself 5-7 (forgot, in the TPR book they talked about how many minutes you should spend per passage based on the #questions)min and forcing yourself to move on once time is up, even if you haven't finished the questions - that will really give you a feel of how fast you should read and do questions.

I am not sure how strong your science background is. C/P was the easiest section for me because I was a chemistry TA at my university for two years. My general study process was go through the book and only write down things I didn't know well/sample questions I got wrong instead of making notes for everything (especially for the first few chapters, they're literally talking about what atoms are), key formulas + reactions etc. Physical chem is all about applying the right equations, so it's imperative you know exactly what every letter in the equation stands for. Likewise for physics. With orgo it's all about finding the pattern, adding X will always add Y to the reactant, and so on. I found making master sheets very helpful because that gives you an overview of the content. The only practice I had were FL's from AAMC. I felt confident with my ability so I didn't do extra homework, but if I had to point to resources I'd say the section banks - always do the official AAMC resources and then move onto third-party companies. I am not sure which third-party companies are better but R/ed/dit (premed101 censors this word) is a great source for these things on the MCAT sub.

Good luck and lmk if you have any more questions.

[gnatcatcher]

why do they censor **DELETED**

[Vivieeeeeee]

57 minutes ago, ilikebirds said:

why do they censor **DELETED**

HAHA

[FutureMDAlex]

You could maybe look at Med School Gunner's blog. He goes into how he approached studying. I think it would be useful

[chi-squareT]

@FutureMDAlex thank you so much for your response! could you provide a link for his blog? I'd really appreciate it! 

 

[Vivieeeeeee]

9 hours ago, chi-squareT said:

@FutureMDAlex thank you so much for your response! could you provide a link for his blog? I'd really appreciate it! 

 

https://medstudentgunner.com/

I'm assuming it's this one