The Kaplan Scandal

[Guest dr deelish]

As someone who's written the MCAT multiple times :\ (twice actually), I think I'm a pretty good source on MCAT books. Here's something for those of you thinking of purchasing a good book to study from for the MCAT.

 

The first time I wrote the test, I picked up Kaplan's Comprehensive Review .. it's about $100 at Chapters (my friend works at Chapters so I got 30% off ~ $70 ) .. It's a pretty awesome book, very good review of all the sections of the MCAT and it comes with 2 tests which were actually more challenging than the actual MCAT, so they were good to practice on. Overall .. very worth the money for the book.

 

Now because I only studied for a month .. I didn't end up with a hot score (30P). So I opted to write the test the next summer. This time, I purchased the Kaplan classroom books off ebay. Lo and behold .. the content of the Comprehensive review is the exact same as the content of Kaplan's Review Notes. If you are not taking the classroom course, it's pretty useless to purchase this set because the only additional perk you get with buying the book set is the Lesson book (there is no equivalent in the Comprehensive Review) but the Lesson book only makes sense if you are listening to the instructor give his/her talk (you need to fill in gaps and @#%$). But yeah. For those of you thinking of purchasing a good book to study from .. Kaplan's Comprehensive Review is gold. Purchase this book with a few AAMC practice exams (off eBay) and you are set.

[Guest Koppertone]

30P isn't that bad of a score! (Unless it was 15P 15B 0V )

 

Anyhow, I used the Comprehensive Review book as my sole source of studying (other than AAMC practice exams and a Princeton review practice exam book) and got 35R. After going through and highlighting the book once, I just made flashcards out of all the material I couldn't remember and reviewed those. It took a long time, but it was worth it in the end. So I definately give my support to this book.

[Guest caper81]

Thanks dr deelish for this info!!! Because I was about the buy the Princeton Review Book from amazon and the textbooks given by the PR prep course from ebay! Even though it is not Kaplan, I am asuming that PR works the same way as Kaplan. So do you or anybody else think this is the case too with Princeton Review books and their class prep course material?