MCAT Study Method

It's about time that I posted as much of my personal strategy that I can in this thread. To be honest I'm kind of ashamed that I haven't yet! Without further ado, here is Vihsadas's Personal MCAT Strategy (err...mostly, I think.):

1) Your individual scores and composite score:
PS: 15
BS: 14
VR: 11
WS: S
Composite MCAT: 40S

2) The study method used for each section

As a general note, practice will always be the most important part of your MCAT preparation…for any section. You should make time to do as many practice exams as you possibly can and to do practice problems as you are doing your content review. For the MCAT, you need to become comfortable with the testing format, the types of questions, and the manner in which concepts and information is tested. Being familiar with these aspects of the exam can only come through long and thorough practice of MCAT material. If you are diligent and really put forth maximal effort into practicing the material, you will start to gain an intuition about MCAT questions, and how to approach them. Accordingly, the number one mistake made by MCAT studiers is to only review the material in great depth, and to neglect actually taking timed, full-length practice MCAT exams. In fact, you must do both.

PS:
Understanding Concepts and Developing an Intuition – The best way to approach this section is to be extremely curious about the concepts presented. When you are reviewing a particular concept you should constantly be asking yourself “WHY?” Doing so will refocus your thought process from one of memorization to one of understanding. In fact, you must understand why all of the equations are the way they are, and why they make logical sense. One way to facilitate this process is to try and work through what you think should happen without worrying about the numbers at first. Often, students have memorized an equation and will just settle for plugging values into an equation in order to try and arrive at an answer. Unfortunately, this process often bogs the student down in number crunching at the expense of understanding what is actually going on. The latter is extremely important for the MCAT.
Thus, when you are doing physics and chemistry problems, the first thing you should do is think about the general result you would expect from the situation given. Only when you have understood what should happen conceptually, should you begin number crunching. For instance, if you are dealing with an acid base buffer problem and the question asks, “What will the pH be after I add X amount of Y substance?”, the first thing you should do is ask yourself, “Would I expect the pH to increase a little or a lot, stay the same, or decrease a little or a lot?” Once you think through the concepts, you’ll be more confident in your numerical answer as well as have an understanding of why your numerical answer is correct. After all, the MCAT is a thinking test. If you do not understand the concepts you simply will not be able to confidently answer a fair number of problems on the real exam. That being said, even though I have stressed the importance of concepts, you still must also know all of the relevant equations, and be comfortable with manipulating those equations. Both concept understanding and skill in formula manipulation are necessary for success on the MCAT PS.

Additional Note: When we say we are doing "Content Review" in terms of PS, this includes doing practice problems along with your content review to absorb the material. For physics and chemistry, an integral part of learning to understand the material is to work through problems to make the logical process more concrete in your mind. Thus, do sectional tests, practice problems and practice passage (but not timed, full lengths!) when studying.

Learning to be Highly Proficient with Simple Math – This is a point that is grossly overlooked both by students themselves and test prep companies. In my opinion, the most important factor that separates the average speed test taker from one who can finish the PS section with 10-20mins remaining is the ease at which the latter uses estimation methods, tricks with formula manipulation, and answer elimination techniques to reduce the amount of scratch work necessary to complete a problem. On my real exam, I used no more than ¼ a single-sided page for scratch work on the PS. Because I was intensely comfortable with order of magnitude estimation, decimal estimation, log estimation, dimensional analysis and conceptual knowledge I could eliminate answer without too much written math. Sure, you could use the formulas to explicitly solve each problem, but using estimation along with formula manipulation will save you whole minutes on the real exam. In previous posts I have highlighted one example of this:
Estimation trick for pH and log calculations

In addition, you must be completely comfortable with orders of magnitude estimation. You should be able to figure out just from estimation what the order of magnitude of the answer should be. This will aid you in eliminating one or two answers right away. One way to start to get good at this is to treat every number in scientific notation:
If X = n x 10^-4 and Y = p x 10^8, then Y/X = (p/n)x 10^(8 + 4).
You must be completely fluent in order of magnitude manipulation like this. Definitely practice it.

You should also become familiar with estimating the decimal values of weird looking fractions and the fractional values of weird looking decimals. For instance, .3145/.6021 might look difficult, but it’s approximately = ½. This kind of estimation is usually sufficient for the MCAT, and GREATLY simplifies the manipulation of formulas and numerical calculations.

Dimensional Analysis – Using the units of physical quantities to your advantage is also often grossly overlooked by students. One way to check your math is to manipulate the units of the quantities you are using while you are manipulating the math.
The following post sufficiently explains one very MCAT relevant way of how you should be able to use dimensional analysis on the PS section of the MCAT:
An example of how dimensional analysis can really save you one the MCAT.

An additional way dimensional analysis can be helpful is if you forget the formula for something. Let’s say that you forgot that one of the formulas for electric potential (Volts) is Volts = Electric field * distance. Let’s say that you know that Voltage is expressed in Joules/Coulomb and Electric field is Newtons/Coulomb. Then, you remember that Work (Joules) = Force (Newtons) * Distance (meters). Therefore, if I multiply Newtons/Coulomb * Distance I get Joules/Coulomb, which is the correct units for electric potential. Usually, this trick will lead you to the right answer!
A word of warning, however, about this last point: Sometimes there will be an extra constant factor needed to arrive at the correct answer. Therefore, only use this technique when you really forget the correct formula and be wary for extra constants! Example:
Let’s say that you know the units of energy are [E] ~ kgm^2/s^2. Knowing that, it would be reasonable to guess that one correct formula for energy would be E = mass*velocity^2. Afterall, mass*velocity^2 has the correct units…but because of how the formula for energy was derived, energy, as you know, is actually = ½ mass*velocity^2.
So while this particular trick with dimensional analysis can be useful, you must not rely on it.

VR:
See the following post: My Verbal Strategy
Just as a note, I wanted to say that I was scoring 13-15s on the verbal practice exams for AAMC CBT 7-10. As a word of warning, please heed the part I mention about being able to do the verbal section with 5-10mins remaining. If you get a monster verbal section like I did on the MCAT, you’ll at least be prepared to get through the entire thing. My real verbal was hard. Really hard. Be prepared!

BS:
Biology is like a Modified Verbal Section – The trick to the BS is treating this section a little like the verbal section. You should definitely memorize everything that you possibly can in terms of biology and organic, but, while your are memorizing you MUST think long and hard about the logic of what you are memorizing. For instance, you can memorize all of the favorable and less favorable conditions that lead to Sn2 or Sn1 or E1 or E2 reactions in organic, but, do you have a conceptual understanding of WHY these different conditions favor one type of reaction over the other. This type of conceptual understanding on the bio section is absolutely necessary for the MCAT. Then, you will have to be able to understand the logic that is presented in the passage (because it will be more convoluted than in the PS) and using the logic set down by the passage, apply what you already know.

Know Intimately what you Expect to be Tested on– One type of logic useful for the BS section is to be familiar with the topics that you would expect to be tested and to use that knowledge to your advantage. Let me give you an example. Let's say you are given a large organic macro-molecule diagram with various keto/acetyl-groups labeled "A" "B" "C" "D". You are then asked "Enzyme X is added to a solution of the macromolecule, which keto/acetyl group do you expect to be cleaved?"
Now let's say you have absolutely no idea what enzyme X does and you have never even heard of enzyme X. What would you do? On the MCAT, with the information I've given you, you should be able to guess what the operative characteristic is that the test-maker is trying to test. I can guarantee that it has something to do with how strongly that "O" is drawing electrons from that C=O bond. So without even looking at the answer choices, you should be able to narrow it down to two possibilities: the highest amount of electron draw, and the lowest amount of electron draw.

Applying knowledge to novel situations – While this is important for the PS section as well, it's much, much more likley to show up on the BS section. You will be asked to integrate many different subjects in one passage and use your conceptual knowledge to find an integrated answer. Sure you know all the oxidation and reduction reactions, but if I gave you a novel reaction could you logic out whether it should be an oxidation or reduction reaction? Then, could you use that information to determine whether that reaction would help or hurt the aerobic capcity of a mammal? Do you understand WHY the oxidation and reduction reactions proceed the way they do? Can you hypothesize mechanisms for different reactions? Do you understand WHY electrons move the way that they do? Always, always, always ask ‘why?’ Then, of course, you still do have to memorize all of the information as well.
It take all of 1) Memorization, 2) Conceptual understanding, and 3) Problem Practice!

Additional Note: Although more helpful for the PS section, doing practice problems during your content review including sectional tests and practice passages can also be helpful to drive home important concepts in the BS section. This is especially true for the organic chemistry section. I definitely recommend doing some practice problems as you finish various sections in your content review, but again, timed full length practice during your content review may not be that helpful. Save those full-lengths for after your content review study months.

3) The practice materials you used
Kaplan Premiere Program Book (2008)
Princeton Review ‘Cracking the CBT’ (2008)
The Princeton Review Verbal Workbook
Kaplan Sectionals and Topical Exams
Kaplan QBank
Monthly Quizzes and Tests from Kaplan Online (Comes with Premiere Program)
Wikipedia and Google (Seriously, for random things I wanted to know)

I studied the Kaplan Premiere Program and Princeton Review Cracking the CBT book side by side. Although there is a large amount of overlap between the two books, each book covers the material from a different angle and there is some information that is not doubled in each section. I found this tactic to be very helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of the material, particularly for the organic chemistry section of the exam.

4) Which practice tests did you use?
I made absolutely sure to get my hands on as many practice tests as I possibly could. Altogether I took 20 practice exams. I had access to:
AAMCCBT 3 – 10 and the extra passages from 3R – 9R (8 exams)
Exams that came with the Princeton review ‘Cracking the CBT’ (4 exams)
Free Princeton Review Exam (1 Exam)
Kaplan Full Lengths 1- 11 (11 Exams)
Free Kaplan Exam (1 Exam)
Gold Standard CBT Free Exam (1 Exam)
Two Kaplan Exams on CD, Premiere Program, (2 Exams)

A Copy of my testing schedule is attached to this post.

5) What was your undergraduate major
I started off as a B.Mus in Music Theory at the McGill Conservatory of Music and then started all over again in a joint program in Physics and Physiology in my 3rd year. I finished my undergraduate degree after 6 years.


6) Any other tips you may have
Post-Game Analysis: The most important thing you can do is post-game analysis of your practice exams. Keep a log of the types of questions that you are missing, and why you thought you missed the question. Make sure that you review every single problem, right or wrong on your practice exams. Even though you may have gotten a problem correct, you need to ensure that you got it right with the correct thought process and also, in the most efficient manner possible. Therefore, you need to review every single problem that you do on practice exams. If you do this you will begin to see a pattern about how the MCAT test makers have structured the exam questions, and how to develop what I call ‘MCAT intuition’ about what the correct and incorrect answers are.

What is the test maker thinking? Accordingly, think about what the test maker is trying to test! Really try and figure out what concept or thought process or piece of knowledge the test maker is trying to test with a particular question. If you think about that, you have a better chance of not over-complicating problems and seeing what you are supposed to do. It is important to try and think from their perspective.

Critically think about what you are a doing! Although it seems obvious I guarantee that many of you are not doing this! I know, because when I started studying I wasn’t doing this either. Always ask ‘why?’ and always question the process you are taking. You must always be critically thinking about how you are approaching each problem. Make sure that you are completely aware of exactly what you are doing, and why you are doing it when you are testing.

Practice! The more practice you do, the more familiar you will be with the material in an MCAT format, and the more familiar you will be with doing the calculations or thinking that will be required of you on the MCAT. This is extremely important. Practice as much as you can, and whenever you can.

Ample Content Review: Although practice is definitely more important than studying, in my opinion the best way to study (if you have the luxury of time) is to do solid content review for 1 – 1.5 months and then do a very, very arduous string of practice exams for the next 1 – 1.5 months. I believe that taking full-length, timed practice exams when you lack a cursory knowledge of the topics and material covered on the MCAT is a waste of time. You can’t improve your MCAT test-taking skills if you don’t have the basic MCAT knowledge at hand. Personally, I did 1 to 1.5 months of solid content review with a diagnostic at the beginning, and then 1.5 months of practice exams, reviewing the material between exam days. Note, however, that I did do practice problems in the course of my content review. In fact, practice problems are very important for gaining a solid understanding of some of the concepts, especially in the PS! What I am saying is to avoid doing practice tests during your content review, but practice problems, however, are very important!

In my opinion, the four most important keys to MCAT success are:

1) Practice!
2) Know everything. Really.
3) Understand the Concepts and Logic.
4) Do many, many full length timed practice exams.

In the final days before the exam: In the final 2-3 weeks before you real exam you must develop a routine to get your body and mind ready for test day. For instance, I planned my 'homestretch' for 2.5 weeks before my exam. At this point content review is long ago done with. I'm not really even opening up my books anymore unless there's a random/weird fact I somehow missed. The last 2.5 weeks are for tying up loose ends, final test-taking preparation, and getting yourself into an MCAT Rhythm. Here’s what I did:

1) I took four AAMC CBTs in these final days and I planed 3 day breaks between each of these last four exams so that my actual MCAT was synchronized with this schedule. It is important to make these last exams AAMC exams because they are the closest thing you have to the real MCAT.
2) In addition, I took each of these last four exam at the exact time that I would take my real MCAT, and woke up and went to sleep at the same time that I would on and before real test day.
3) I also restrained myself from going to my refrigerator during breaks, and brought an ‘MCAT lunch and snack’ which was exactly what I would take to the real MCAT to my room on practice test days.
4) In the days between exams, I reviewed the tests (the same way as I suggest above) and also did peripheral content review if there was a particular concept or question I was still shaky on.

By simulating real test taking conditions as close as possible and developing a ‘routine’, when I got to my real exam, it was just another day at the office so to speak. My body, my sleep cycle, and my mind were just continuing the routine I had developed over those last 2.5 weeks.

I took the first of the final four tests on a Wednesday, the next on the following Sunday (3 day break), the next on the following Thursday (3 day break), and the final one on the following Monday (3 day break). That way I had a 3 day break until my real exam which was Friday.

I believe that making my last four exam times periodic and treating them like my real exam really helped. When I sat down to do my real exam it really felt like it was nothing unusual from my normal routine. I was prepared, and I had done this before... That helped to calm my nerves and give me extra confidence.

7) How long did you study?
Total time studied: I studied for approximately 3 to 3.5 months for 4-8 hours every day, 7 days a week.

Guys, you really can do this. Just treat the MCAT like a big game, a competition of sorts that you are trying to win at. Get excited about studying and doing better on the next practice exam. If you are able to take that pseudo-masochistic viewpoint, the MCAT almost becomes fun. Put your mind, body, soul…put your entire existence into this MCAT for a few months. Remember, it’ll be worth it in the end. If I can do it, you can to. You just have to figure out the best way for you to gain your own success. Good luck, and kick that MCAT straight in the crotch!

bozz - what do you mean by dimensional analysis?

As Bozz said, this is using the units of the variables/quantities you are given to arrive at the answer. On the MCAT this can be a very poweful technique for a number of the chemistry and physics problems. Here's an example:

Often you'll get a passage that gives you some new formulas that apply to a specific situation. Let's say...an electron passing through a curved plate capacitor: You might be given some novel equations that deal with the velocity, energy, etc. of the electron. Then you'll get a question which says something like:

"Which of the following expressions describes the force that is applied to the electron?"

The answer choices will all be expressions containing variables and quantities that are in the passage. Now, there are two ways to attempt these types of problems:

1) Figure out how the formulas that were given in the passage (usually complicated) and the formulas that you know from your studying fit together and eventually simplify down to one of the answer choices. This usually requires some tedious algebra, and also understanding of the equations themselves. This is the slow way.

2) What is funny about the MCAT is that questions like the one above, will often be structured so that every single answer choice will have different units! Since the question asks for an expression of force, one of the answer choices must have the units of force (kg*m/s^2). If you realize this, you can easily exploit dimensional analysis to arrive at the correct answer.

You just take 20 seconds to check the units of each answer choice, and then answer that has the units of force must be the right answer. Et Voila! Done in under 30 seconds...

On the MCAT board, when I harp about learning to do problems "in the most efficient, quickest way possible, using the least amount of paperwork and math", this is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

My verbal strategy...(I bombed on the real thing comparatively to my practices. I avged 12-15 on practices, scored a 12 on my diagnostic, but an 11 on the real thing. That being said, I'm still ecstatic!)

1) Practice under harsher timed conditions than you will encounter on the test. You will have about 8.5 mins for every verbal passage. Get a stop watch and a verbal workbook, and practice finishing every passage in 6.5 mins. When I started doing this, two things happened: 1)Even though I was using less time, my scores did not decrease. They stayed the same. 2) When I became really good at answering the passages quickly, I found that I had time to refer back to the passage on every question. Now, since I can read the passages much more effectively (meaning faster) when I see a question that I'm not sure of, I have time to go back and quickly re-read the 3-4 sentences that pertain to the question. At this point, my scores started to increase.

2) Attack every single paragraph. Read very quickly, but read very actively. Don't try and go too slowly to remember every detail, this will kill you. What you should do is Gather the main idea of every paragraph, and make sure you're always thinking about the POINT of the passage. Eventually, when you've done enough verbal practice, gathering the idea of a section or paragraph will come very naturally. As a byproduct, you will start to gain a sense of the types of details that are important to remember, and you will begin to remember them automatically.

3) When doing the read-through, DO NOT re-read a sentence if you think you weren't paying attention. Try this on any reading material: Try reading very actively, but force yourself not to re-read sentences you just read or to go back on the first read through. If you are actively reading, its amazing how much you retain without having to re-read. Your brain often tricks you into thinking that you didn't understand something, when in fact you did.

4) You should be categorizing the paragraphs in your head. Remember that the reading material on the verbal section is always written so that the information is organized in some logical way. The AAMC specifically picks passages that are not haphazardly organized and written. "Categorizing" means that you should be thinking about the general subject of each paragraph so that you know where in the passage to look for information when you need to refer back as you answer the questions. It does not mean stopping and summarizing every paragraph in your head as you read. This way you don't waste time re-reading large sections of the passage (or the whole passage!) to find helpful information when you do need to refer back. Instead, your categorical map of the paragraphs will give you a general idea of where that information should be located. This will save you important time when you reach one of those questions that you don't know right off the bat. Lastly, the categorical map you create as you are doing your first read through should be in your head. This means you are really just making mental notes that point you in the right direction, and not summarizing.

5) Answer every question in order, do not skip questions. I think that this particular point works really well because often the questions themselves are ALOT of reading! If you read a question, decide that its too hard and skip to the next, you'll then have to come back and re-read the question on your second attempt thereby wasting time! Make a mental note of and use the CBT's "mark" function on the questions that are iffy so that when you do go back and review all of your answer, you know which questions you should focus more time on.

6) Be aware of the different question types on the verbal section. The princeton review book has a list of these, and I think the Kaplan one does as well. In addition, when you are reviewing your practice exams you should make your own list of what you think the different question types are. As to HOW to answer every question type; This is one of the major areas where practice comes into it. As you get better, you'll begin to realize the types of things that look like 'correct' answers, and you get a feel for the types of things that the examiner is looking for. Check out the "process of elimination" section (number 8 in this post).

7) Do heavy post-game analysis. You must, must, must go back over your verbal questions and ensure that your thought process was correct for the questions that you got right. Figuring out what exactly you were thinking when you answered a question incorrectly is absolutely essential. That way, when you find yourself thinking in a similar way on a future exam, you might stop and think twice about your answer. Do not ever say, "Oh I totally should have gotten that question! It's easy!" If you missed a question, you missed it for a reason. Instead of passing it off as a "stupid mistake" make sure you understand exactly why you made that mistake, and what you were thinking when you made it. Then, you should try and figure which types of questions you are most often missing and analyze your thought process to see what wrong thought caused you to pick a wrong answer. Then, be aware, and fix that thought process.

8) Learn to use process of elimination (POE). There are a few tricks you can use to POE the hell out of some verbal questions.
- Extreme sounding answers are almost always wrong. Exception: If the passage itself sounds extreme. You should still make sure that your answer choice fits with the logic of the question and the passage itself. For instance, the question could ask, "Which of the following is NOT representative of the author's stance of issue X". In these types of questions, the extreme answer might be right.

- In questions that ask you to describe the 'mood' of the author, or any question with 'one word' answer choices, answers that are similar or say the same thing are almost always both wrong. Check and see if you picked an answer that sounds very similar to another one, and make sure you know exactly why you chose that answer. The MCAT will never be cut and dry, so just make sure your logic about an answer choice is clear.
- Watch out answer choices with identical or similar vocabulary to the passage. A very common trick is that often words that were used in the passage will be transplanted into an answer choice with either: 1) a cause and effect relationship reversed so that it is wrong, 2) a fact from the passage taken out of context, 3) a hypothesis that is mis-stated, 4) a slight twisting of the author's logic, 5) an incorrect detail has been inserted into the answer choice. Watch out for these, and when you see an answer choice with alot of identical words to the passage, be very sure to dissect it so that you understand its meaning. As you practice more and more, you'll begin to find other curious aspects of answer choices and question stems that stick out at you.

9) PRACTICE!!!
No seriously, practice. Developing an MCAT intuition is like developing a muscle. You can't cram for it, and you can't practice it "sometimes" while expecting major gains. You have to practice, consistently, repeatedly, and often.

10) Closing Note
This is my entire strategy. What worked for me may not work for you, but it's worth a shot! If something different than what I've posted here works for you, then use it! (and more importantly, come back to The Studentdoctor Network and tell us about it!)
I picked up a princeton review verbal workbook (I think you can only get them from the class) and I did two passages every 1-2 days starting at about 3 months before my MCAT. Toward the end of my practice test runs I was consistently getting 13s and 14s in verbal on the AAMCs. This section is doable guys. Just make sure you are practicing properly and meticulously reviewing your answers! Just doing passages isn't going to give you exponential gains in performance. You have to practice and review the right way.
Good luck guys. If I can do it, you guys seriously can too...

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