I have always been a student who was a good reader. You can put a huge amount of material in front of me, I could read and know it all quickly. I have also, however, been a poor test-taker. Well, not exactly a poor test-taker... but a poor standardized test-taker. Timed exams give me extreme anxiety. And to avoid the anxiety, I avoided timed tests like the plague while I was studying. I just read read read everything I could. Kaplan, Princton review, ExamKrackers, EVERYTHING. I knew every scrap of material. And after every failed attempt, I went back to the books and read more. I would do lots of questions, but not under timed stress. Of course, I would get most of them correct during practice.
Finally, I wised up and realized that I wasn't lacking in knowledge... but rather I wasn't skilled at the test and my anxiety about it was preventing me from even using my knowledge to answer questions correctly and to finish the test.
I've seen a lot of other students fall into the "but I really don't know this material" trap. IT DOESN"T MATTER. I swear. No matter how much you don't believe it, the answers are almost always in the passage, and what you are required to know yourself is very minimal information.
The best advice I can give you is the following:
1) If you have tons of time (several months), then go ahead and read all the material.
2) If you are down to several weeks, FORGET reading the material. You need to practice full length, timed tests. Buy as many as you can, get them off the internet, synthesize them from practice questions. Time yourself, use real conditions, do as many as possible.
3) This is important. Always go over every answer. Right or wrong. You need to know why you got every single question correct or incorrect. You are actually "studying" during this process. Believe it or not, there is, I SWEAR, a finite amount of material that can be on the MCAT. Scenarios may be different, but there are the same concepts over and over. Correcting your exams thoroughly will make you very familiar with them.
4) You're practice score is very close to what you will get on the real thing. Don't waste your time and money if your practice exams are not close to the score you want.
5) Study courses. Wow. What to say. Here's my thoughts. Overall, I think these courses are gimmicky and not worth the exorbitant price-tag they carry. In fact, I straight out disagree with many strategies they advocate. I think many of them are time-wasters. For example, Kaplan will tell you to first off scan over all your passages and then pick which ones you want to do first. In my opinion that is a huge waste of time. In order to score well you'll have to complete all the passages anyway, may as well tackle them systematically and in order and save yourself a few valuable minutes. But hey, they have to come up with something to sell. I guess these classes are good for people who can't motivate themselves to study, but if you're in that boat you probably won't make it to med school anyway.
I do like their materials however. If you can pay for their online package just for the materials I think it is worth it... but otherwise I really feel it is a waste.
6) If you have severe anxiety, start addressing it. If the problem is that you haven't practiced enough, then practice. If the problem is deeper, then I really suggest being open to the possibility of working with a psychiatrist to see if you have a learning disability or other simple anxiety issues that can be treated with behavior therapy or possibly medicine. Don't dismiss this idea. You might be surprised at what a difference small adjustments (not necessarily with meds) can make in your ability to retain information and to remain calm during an exam.
Ok, that's it for now.
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