EK "reviews" look sooooooooo fake

[Guest CandyTruck]

They're all 5 stars.... Honestly, are they that good? People who say EK is good all have something in common; they'll say stuff like "I only used EK, and I got a (36/37/38 etc)." Do you guys think that EK reviews are too exaggerated and "fake"?

 

I've read only Princeton Review so far, and the review itself looks exactly like the AP review book I used in high school. Hahaha... how would you rate Princeton Review? Oh, and also what do you guys think of Kaplan? Similar to PR? I've read many reviews about PR, Kaplan, and EK and it seemed like PR was good so I bought it, but then after I bought it I heard so many bad things about it..

[mavrik13]

I would give EK 5 stars out of 5. But now you don't know if my review is fake or not.

[Erk]

Well, I used several sources, but EK was the most solid and generally useful of them. I'd rate them very highly and recommend them to anyone.

 

I have a kaplan book and was not particularly happy with it. The practice exams in particular were not in line with the AAMC exams. They were much more difficult, which was somewhat useful in the long run but nearly turned me away from bothering with the mcat for some time. We're talking scores of 25 in the practices, versus 38 on the actual test a week later.

[kylamonkey]

I'd give it a great review. The books are well laid out, the passages are realistic. I have very few complaints, really.

 

I might be fake too, though.

[spiceandsausageburglar]

I'm not gonna give a rating out of 5, but, I will give you my perspective. I have used Princeton and Kaplan to study for the MCAT and now I use EK to teach it.

 

I teach using EK because it gets straight to the point so that you can quickly go on to do practice questions (which is the most important component of studying for the MCAT). The downside of EK is that if you have not seen some of the material before, there may not be enough information to help you fully grasp a given topic. So I suggest that if you need more detail for a given topic, you refer to Princeton which gives you plenty of background detail.

 

The reason why I dont encourage students to use Princeton all the time is bc they give too much detail, takes so long to read the material and that cuts down time from doing the questions. So best way imo is to use EK and refer to Princeton only as necessary.

 

Kaplan was okay too but its right in the middle between the two. Its a bit more brief than princeton but still got more details that necessary.

[domo]

I've only used the EK verbal book, but I can realistically say that it was the best review I did for that category. Much better than kaplan's verbal

[naspec]

The only thing that EK is missing is writing sample practice. For that I used a Kaplan book. But EK is really a great series. Like spiceandsausageburglar posted, it's very concise and to-the-point; they are written with the assumption that you've already taken introductory courses in the subjects being tested on the MCAT and only need a quick refresher of the content, while focusing most of its time on high-yield MCAT-specific strategies.

[thehumanmacbook]

The only thing that EK is missing is writing sample practice. For that I used a Kaplan book. But EK is really a great series. Like spiceandsausageburglar posted, it's very concise and to-the-point; they are written with the assumption that you've already taken introductory courses in the subjects being tested on the MCAT and only need a quick refresher of the content, while focusing most of its time on high-yield MCAT-specific strategies.

 

Is it much less effective if you HAVEN'T taken introductory courses in those areas? Just wondering because I still have to choose between basically memorizing EK and then heading off to the practice questions, or studying Princeton specifically.

[SolitaireAddikt]

I used both EK and Berkeley for my MCAT studying. Personally, I preferred EK while I was studying; I felt that it was a lot more concise than Berkeley, and had a good number of "basic" practice problems to help you understand a concept. On the other hand, it took me forever to get through Berkeley chapters, and I felt like the practice questions were too MCAT like. What I mean is that I would have preferred to have had two sets of questions- one set where you could solidify your understanding of a concept, and then another set where you could test your ability to apply these concepts to MCAT-style questions. I ended up tossing aside the Berkeley physics book after one chapter because I could hardly answer any of the questions at the end.

 

Looking back, I wish I had taken more time to do Berkeley Orgo (I did Berkeley Chem). I ended up relying on EK completely for Orgo, and when I wrote the exam I found questions on material that was covered in Berkeley but not in EK (I had skimmed through the Berkeley book).

 

Thus, to sum this all up; I found EK fantastic for solidifying my knowledge on concepts and not bogging me down in details, however I thought that Berkeley was better at MCAT style questions. I think EK alone is fantastic on it's own if you are pressed for time.