r/Mcat

Tested on 4/10, I am so grateful to this community! I feel these strategies are what increased my score in the last few practice FLs rather than learning more content.

C/P and B/B

1. GLANCE at diagrams and read the caption before you start reading the passage to prime yourself.
2. C/P and B/B read the passage with the intention of asking, "what are these aamc people trying to even ask me" then when you get to the questions you will be more ready to think up the formulas or facts you need to answer them. One example is SB 2 passage #12.
3. Even if a Physics question is conceptual, while answering it, write down the formula and plug in your own "test" numbers to help you answer it.

CARS

1. Read the first 2-3 paragraphs of a cars passage for understanding. Then stop, read question #1 and identify key words in the stem. Either answer the question if you feel you have the info you need or finish reading the passage and then answer it.
2. Do NOT change your answer unless you are 100% sure it is wrong. Most of my answer changes were correct to incorrect or incorrect to incorrect; both unproductive

P/S

1. Use process of elimination very carefully. Some answer choices will be 1/2 right or almost all right with 1 word used incorrectly. That makes those wrong. If A, B, and C are all 1/2 right and D has words you don't know, D is the answer!

Overall

1. Use your notepad. Always work out any confusion thought processes on notepad. Yes even for cars I was writing down stuff.
2. As always, pick the answer that is most unambiguously correct!! If there is an answer you like better but it is half correct it ain't the answer. holds true especially for cars.

Take breaks, study hard, and have fun!

edited for typos

I'm like super in need of help with cars. I was cooking hard for a while on CARS in JW, but I fell off and notice that I struggle REALLY badly on reading passages. Does anyone have any advice or resources I could use to help me improve how I read CARS passages and actually absorb what the author talks about in the passage?

I try to do the mapping method but I end up typically writing something too generic to really use it later... Any help is appreciated! 🥲

Especially if you have adhd. His section guides, equation and summaries are more than enough to give you the knowledge base to do well on the exam. The rest comes from practice.

Trust Nate. Dude is not doing this for the money!

I finally got a chance to read through everything and I must say that i would recommend reading through his chapter summaries rather than Kaplan for efficient content phase (less time on content means more time
doing practice)

I’m not affiliated with mcatalyst

Hi guys,

Which are the highest yield metabolic pathways that we need to know for the MCAT?? Should I only know Glycolysis, Gluconeogenesis, TCA, and ETC?? I am not aiming for a 528... I am only aiming for at least a 500-505... Please let me know exactly what I need to know in order to save time instead of memorizing every single little detail for stuff that won't even show up on the exam. I am referring to Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex, Fatty Acid Oxidation (Beta Oxidation) and all of the rest.

FULLY HYDRATE, INHALE OMEGA 3'S, GO TO BED EARLY AND STOCK UP ON YOUR STIMULANT OF CHOICE!! One day left we can do this!!

To anyone who currently has the UW question bank, they added 2 new full length practice exams for free. I completed both of them, and they are both really good practice. Not super representative since they are far tougher than AAMC, but still great for stamina. AND THEY ARE NOT TAKEN FROM THE EXISTING QBANK. Some dummies have been saying that they reused questions, but it is literally all new questions on there. I would highly recommend doing them for practice.
P.S. Anyone who said that they reused questions from the Qbank, post a screenshot and prove it. Don't just throw out false statements and discourage people from doing the FLs.

Anybody got some last minute niche info that could possibly save us on test day 👍🏻

studying for this test is just so overwhelming and i feel really dumb half the time. i’m a good student, but this exam keeps stressing me out and the clock is ticking down, and i’m gonna have to take it soon. compared to others here, i haven’t done half of what they’ve done and comparing myself to them is lowkey making me feel defeated. all this to say, i’m so scared and stressed for this test.🥲

Drop some 50/50 psych terms and definitions maybe there’s some we don’t know!!!! We got this

I feel like what a "bad day" of studying means differs between people, but for me personally, it's just when I feel like my attention span is at a zero after the third of fourth hour. Though, I wanna study some more, but my brain just feels so tapped out for right now 😭

not ready for my 5/30 test (haven't even finished practice/CR), lower FLs, but I've already postponed 3 times. parents need me to take it cause I'll never be ready even tho I told them ik im gonna retake right after and pointlessly spend $700 for the retake/study materials (im on FAP rn). i think there is still time left to reschedule but they said im taking it and i already told them id do it. they also tell me "i can do whatever i want" but it was so so hard studying for this test previously with them distressed/reminded of my mistakes of delaying. id ignore it but still tend to be discouraged. ik if i dont take it next week at least, then that cycle will repeat. I get their frustrations ive studied way longer than others (over a year) and honestly wasn't always disciplined or consistent so Ik I did it to myself. But luckily i do have hope i could do better in the retake. It's still worth taking just for the experience right? i do sometimes have test anxiety issues so maybe it will help?

i know this has been said on here before but i just have to complain and ask for guidance.

does anyone else find the end of chapter kaplan questions to be unbearably hard? i take detailed notes of the entire chapter and then get a stupid 0% on the additional practice questions. is it a skill issue or are they just ridiculous?

also, i test in a month and i still have the biochem and psych textbooks to go through. i feel hopeless. these textbooks took me wayyyyy longer to read than i thought. this content review is unbearable. i’m going to just take the exam since it’s my first time and i feel it’s good experience regardless of preparedness.

anyways yeah…the questions seem ridiculous and reading the actual content is killing me slowly. anyone have any input or advice? thanks everyone

Test on 8/21; I've covered all of bio and about 5 chapters of each section besides psych/soc (200ish cards from pankow). Do I bother finishing the content review, or do I jump into UWorld now? I really feel like I'm kinda wasting my time by finishing content review, so I at least want to incorporate it but I'm not sure how to do that. Do I just leave the chapters I haven't covered, and go through the Uworld blocks with chapter correlations that's pretty popular? (I don't have the link but someone made one 2 years ago). Also took a JW FL and want to study the concepts I missed, but I don't know how to do incorporate that. I also get bored of anki and find practice questions more stimulating, so I think doing it would also help me focus. Does anyone have a suggested strategy I could follow? I could really use some structure. Or should I do my absolute best to finish content review by June, and hammer through UWorld the whole of that month?

1. Content review for the MCAT should not waste your time. I am a firm believer of reenforcing content with practice questions. That being said, I would 1000% recommend Uworld. I also absolutely love the Uworld textbooks. They are very comprehensive and sometimes even include more than you have to know, which will help you on the exam! I recommend reading through the chapter and completing the corresponding practice questions on Uworld afterwards. This will help make sure that you aren't just passively reading text.
2. I realized that when I spent a ton of time learning a new topic, I would forget some of what I learned weeks before. USE SPACED REPETITION. I wish I started Anki earlier. I was an Anki hater to the core😭 It will help you stay sharp on everything you learn. Pankow for P/S and JS for BB and CP.

Practice practice practice and you will do amazing!!! I truly hope this helps someone.

to be honest i am relearning and it’s helping to do milesdown anki.

but i had the same problem when i did my own anki deck for anatomy class. its like i see a few words in the right places and i memorize the answer. its like im doing a matching test lul.

at the same time milesdown deck has the most important words in a different color so ig the milesdown person thought of people like me.

I'm retaking the test and hoping for a 15-18 point jump because it is my 4th retake and in case schools take the average, I need to be on the safe side. I managed to get 127s in the sciences with a 122 cars (yikes) in all my attempts. I have to admit I never properly studied for the test for reasons I'm unable to disclose, but I do know that my previous studying wasn't my best effort and for my past attempts, I only studied fulltime for one month.

I have to work fulltime because I support myself and I'm wondering, given 40 work hours per week, would a massive jump like this be possible if I take the test by the end of the summer? I'm a lot more motivated than before, but also a lot more scared given the number of attempts and the stakes on this attempt. How can I best structure my studying? I do believe I need to brush up on content well as I have forgotten a lot. I find that when I'm familiar with the content well, I tend to score decently high in practice so I don't have a strategy problem, and in the past, I never properly finished all the content going into the exam. I'm most worried about cars, would there be a cars tutor available who can help me point my mistakes (hopefully at a reasonable price?)

Lastly, this isn't as important as my other queries, but does anyone have tips on how to get over my previous attempts and not feel absolutely incompetent because of them? I performed decently throughout my undergrad and masters, but I can't stop feeling like its impossible for me to conquer this test because I'm too dumb for it given my history with it. In my last retake, I found myself stuck in a self-fullfilling prophecy loop and convinced myself I was too dumb and that I can never study for this test, and indeed, I struggled a lot with my mental health and got diagnosed with GAD and MDD and ended up performing the exact same as my second attempt. I'm really scared I'll continue doing the same this time around and I unfortunately don't have a good support system going into my take as I'm not close with family.

Any advice helps. Thanks in advance.

hey everyone! i’m supposed to be testing this friday may 22 but i woke up yesterday with a sore throat. im still kind of sick and i don’t know what to do. i’m thinking of getting a ERR (fever and almost passed out and i don’t think i could sit through an 7 hour exam ) and pushing my test back to next week because i feel like i haven’t been able to study how i wanted to this last week. i’m just scared im going to take it a week later or later and regret my decision