I need advice — stuck around 490
I already took the MCAT once and scored a 485. I know that was very stupid to take it then. Since then, I’ve tried a lot of different things. I watched Eman videos, did Kaplan question sets, worked through UWorld questions, and completed the MilesDown Anki deck. When I started taking full-lengths again, though, my highest was a 492, and I’ve mostly been stuck around the 490 range. My goal was a 510.
I know I’ve made some progress since my first attempt, but clearly something still isn’t clicking. I thought I was improving a lot more than my scores are showing, and I’m starting to think I have much bigger content gaps than I realized.
My med school friend and my tutor both recommended that I drop my September exam and take it in January instead. Their advice was to actually take time off from work, go through the Kaplan books thoroughly and take notes, do UWorld alongside content review, and then spend the final month primarily on AAMC material while spreading out my FLs.
The problem is that I don’t really know what **thorough content review** is supposed to look like.
I’ve read chapters, watched videos, done Anki, reviewed questions, etc., but obviously the way I’ve been doing it hasn’t been enough. When you’re going through something like Kaplan, what are you actually writing down? How do you distinguish between something you just recognize and something you genuinely know well enough for the MCAT?
I also know consistency has been a problem. I work with clients, and some days can get extremely busy. I don’t want to keep blaming circumstances, though. If I’m going to push this exam to January, I want to completely change how I’m studying and do this properly.
For anyone who started in the **485–495 range and eventually broke 500/505/510+**, what specifically changed?
How did you:
Identify and fix major content gaps?
Go through Kaplan or another content resource effectively?
Take notes without basically rewriting the entire book?
Use Anki for actual retention rather than recognition?
Review UWorld/AAMC questions deeply enough that you stopped repeating the same mistakes?
Balance content review with practice questions?
Know when you were finally ready to start taking FLs regularly?
I genuinely feel pretty lost right now. I never thought I’d be the person asking for this much help, but clearly I need guidance. I don’t want to spend another few months doing a ton of work only to find out that I was studying inefficiently again.
If you’ve been in a similar score range and managed to turn it around, I’d really appreciate hearing exactly what you did differently.