How many is too many?

[gogopogo]

Hypothetically speaking

 

Say you've gathered up way too many MCATs (28-ish) and you have the choice.

 

Would you try to write as many as possible? Or, better to only focus on writing 2-4?

Obviously time is a factor, but you are still hypothetically in a position to decide how much prep time is needed (1yr+)

 

Any feedback is appreciated,

Thanks

[Mick]

1 year is a really long time... just make sure you don't burn out so that you don't care about it by the time the real thing comes along. I know it may sound absurd, but you really do have to time things so that your motivation and resolve peaks at the right time.

[Rock*]

The only right number of mcats to write is as many as it takes. If your MCAT scores aren't enough to get you in, you'll just have to retake it until you're satisfied with you score. I wouldn't suggest studying for it over the period of a year because you'll be guaranteed to burn out. Instead, do an intense study period over a shorter period of time. I'd suggest clearing an entire summer schedule and studying 8h/day full time for 3-4 solid months. It will yield much better results. Don't get a job--it'll stretch your time and attention span too thin and you'll lose a large advantage over the majority of other test takers who actually think they'll be at their best when they balance studying with working. The key is to focus on the MCAT only. You can leave the relaxing and hanging out with your friends for after the test or for when you're starting to overwork yourself.

 

I jumped 7 points from the low 30s to the high 30s by changing my study strategy this way.

[Devari]

Hypothetically speaking

 

Say you've gathered up way too many MCATs (28-ish) and you have the choice.

 

Would you try to write as many as possible? Or, better to only focus on writing 2-4?

Obviously time is a factor, but you are still hypothetically in a position to decide how much prep time is needed (1yr+)

 

Any feedback is appreciated,

Thanks

 

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking here, but I'll assume that you're asking about whether you should try to write the MCAT as frequently as possible until you get the score you need or if you should focus on putting as much effort as possible into one or two tests, i.e., a quantity vs. quality trade-off.

 

If this is what you're asking then definitely go for doing as well as possible in a single sitting. Taking the test over and over again isn't really going to help unless you're well enough prepared to score significantly above average on a single test day. Keep in mind that the scores for each test are standardized across an extremely large pool of test writers across each testing date. So you don't simply need to know a certain amount of material to get a high score, you need to know the material BETTER than the rest of the applicants writing the test on that date. So being underprepared and writing the test over and over really doesn't help you at all because on any given sitting you probably won't perform better than the rest of the test takers on average. Since the test is normalized at each sitting you need perform better than the other test-takers in a single sitting, which means you need to be very well prepared for that particular day.

 

The above concept might sound simple (and it is), but what many people seem to forget that the MCAT is a STANDARDIZED test and therefore you're really competing against the other people writing the test on that day. If you were simply competing against the difficulty of the test itself then taking the test over and over again in the hopes of getting a good score might be a viable strategy, but against a standardized population you need to be better than the other test writers on average. This doesn't mean that taking the MCAT more than once won't help you improve your score, it just means that if you want to score high on the MCAT on any given sitting you should be as well-prepared as possible.