Help!
I studied for 2 years — where did I go wrong?
I completed:
But somehow, I still can’t break 500.I Tried Everything for the MCAT… What Am I Missing?
Hi,
Wondering if any non-trad prospective (or current) med school students would be interested in forming a little support group/group chat? Especially those navigating studying for the MCAT while also working full time.
I am 28y/o just now studying to retake the MCAT (planning to test at the end of the summer). This experience can be quite isolating as a working adult outside the college scene - so hoping to find a little community of people in a similar boat!
Especially females around this age - I feel like we have even more to think about/how this will affect the trajectory of our personal lives - would be interested to hear from others.
* GroupMe created. All welcome.
** Please PM me to get added to the group
Ty!
Hey everyone, hoping to get some honest feedback from people who've been through this or are in the trenches now.
Quick stats:
My situation:
I'm a full-time undergrad taking 16 credits per quarter, currently in the spring quarter at UC
I can only give MCAT about 2-3 hours a day in the morning before lectures, plus Saturdays for FLs. Sundays are usually school-focused because I have exams every week.
The motivation problem:
I start the week strong on Mondays and Tuesdays — full reviews, CARS passages, UWorld sets — but by Thursday or Friday I'm fried from school and I start skipping CARS or blowing past my review time caps. I've been blowing past 45-min review caps and ending up doing 1.5-2 hours of B/B review, which kills my time for other sections and CARS. Then the next day I feel behind and the cycle repeats.
I just attempted a FL today (May 10) and stopped halfway through because I felt like I hadn't studied consistently enough for the data to be useful. C/P came in at 124 and CARS at 121 partial — but B/B and P/S I didn't even start. Felt like a waste of 4 hours so I bailed. Going to retake May 23.
On Anki:
I'm not a fan. Used the Captain Hook deck early on for P/S content review in winter and it helped a bit, but daily Anki maintenance just kills me with the 16 credit load. I'm planning to pick it back up in summer (probably Pankow deck for P/S) but right now it feels like one more thing I'd quit on.
Summer plan:
I have a full-time internship from late June through early August (~6 weeks). After that I have about a month of full-time MCAT prep before test day. So realistically I have:
My specific questions:
I'm honestly motivated and I want this — I just keep hitting walls and feeling like I'm spinning. Any advice from 515+ scorers, current high-FL grinders, or anyone with similar life constraints would mean a lot.
Thanks in advance.
Hi everyone! I scored a 523, and was recently accepted into my top choice MD school.
I am happy to announce I am hosting a free CARS workshop Thursday, May 21st at 5:30PM. I hosted one of these a few weeks ago and it seemed to help a lot of people.
I will also be hosting a free chemistry/physics skills workshop May 14th at 5:30PM
If you’re interested in either of these, DM me or comment and I will give you the link!
This is my diagnostic with zero studying at all. I took the diagnostic yesterday. I don't know how I did that well in CARS i felt like I guessed on all of the last passage questions. Is it possible to get a 520 by the time I take my test (Early Sept.). What should I do? I plan on doing content review with Kaplan and then JS for associated chapters. Should I do uglobe as I'm reading chapters daily? Should I be taking a FL every week till test day (starting off with 3rd party to AAMC a few weeks before test)? I just feel really lost and scared.
I took the MCAT back in 2022 and got a 508 (C/P 126, CARS 128, B/B 125, P/S 129). I ended up applying really late in the cycle/limited schools and never got off the waitlist at 2 schools. Then.. a combination of being discouraged + life happened and I ended up not applying again.
Now, I’m in a situation where I realize I really do still want this, am in a better life situation, but my MCAT has aged out. Just as well, because I think I should do better. Without having studied in all these years, is it realistic to shoot for a jump up to ~514 with 4-6 hours of study per day for the next 3.5-4 months?
Also wanting to invest more in study materials this time around. I’m seeing a lot of positive opinions on the UWorld Q-bank, and am wondering if I should invest the extra $ for the Core Prep Course or Comprehensive Prep Course? I understand I should also just get the full AAMC bundle (last time I just purchased a few individual practice tests), so I also don’t want to overload myself with material and not even know where to start… I will admit my science has slipped a lot. I’m sure it’ll be easier remembering certain things the second time around, but feel I’ve always had certain knowledge gaps (especially in orgo). I am tempted by the UWorld prep course study plan feature, which basically tells you what to do every single day. At the same time, I am afraid of spending too much time “passively” consuming content via UWorld videos (or even reading Kaplan review books?)
As far as AI… this is something I did not have the last time. Read some posts about using Notebook LM - maybe I’m not using it properly, but I don’t love it as much as I think I could? Is it worth getting Chat GPT pro? I get this through work but am afraid of using my work account too heavily for personal things, lol. I do have Anki (see that AnKing MCAT deck is popular), not sure if there are any new AI integrations into that.
Looking for any advice on any of the topics above (or some encouragement) - clearly I’m still a bit disorganized/overwhelmed with all the available resources and figuring out what I should really be doing. Also stressed at the idea of being a first year med student at 30 years old (as a female who wants a family!).
So I took the free Kaplan full length exam and got a 513 but I’m suspicious of Kaplan inflating my score due to the amount of questions correct in each section not adding up to the percentile I was ranked in for that section. For example, in past AAMC full lengths where I got 38 out of 59 right in C/P I got a score of 126. But here I got a 129. Can someone tell me if they made a mistake with the score or if this is somehow accurate?
UGHHH.. I just took my 3rd FL and it was shit. I got 489 with no sleep on my first one.( tho the time was 1.5x). Then I went up to 492 for my second one and it was normal timing. I just took my 3rd one with normal timing and I got 487. I genuinely don't know anymore. The only thing I know is that I definitely need my accommodation because I keep running out of time. I just feel like giving up. Maybe this is just not for me. Feeling so defeated.
Here are my practice FL scores. (Yes Im a little bit older so I still use pen and paper). Above the red line are Blueprint FL's and below are AAMC FL's. I test on 5/22. I still have yet to take AAMC 4 and 6 (doing both of those this upcoming week and will update afterwards.) What are your thoughts on how I am looking for 5/22? Can i scratch 518/520? If so whats your advice to do so? I have heard horrible things about the 'new' MCAT.
Scored a 520 last cycle, CARS was my best section, got into 9 MD programs. Taking a year before med school to tutor full time and at this point I've worked with enough students to see the same mistakes on repeat.
If you're stuck or just starting, here's what I'd actually tell you.
Most people spend 3 or 4 months grinding Kaplan books or Khan Academy and call that prep. It's not. Reading content maybe gets you to a 505. The test doesn't care if you know the Krebs cycle. It cares if you can use the Krebs cycle to figure out a passage about some experimental drug you've never heard of, under time, with two answers that both look right.
What actually works is more like 30/70. 30 percent content, and only on the stuff you're weak on, not the whole list. 70 percent practice and reviewing that practice. Flip that ratio and you'll plateau.
People do UWorld, see the score, move on. Wasted time. The 515+ scorers spend longer reviewing each question than they do answering it.
For every one you got wrong:
- why is the right answer right
- why is each wrong answer wrong
- what was the question actually testing
- have you missed this pattern before
Keep a doc of the patterns you miss. That doc is your real study guide, not the Kaplan book.
UWorld, Kaplan, Princeton are fine for volume and concept reps. But AAMC writes the test, and nobody else nails their question style or their trap answers. The wrong-answer logic on third party stuff is just different.
Use UWorld in the first half for volume. Save AAMC for the back half. AAMC FLs in your last 6 weeks. Question packs and section banks are gold, treat them like that.
People who break 130+ on CARS are doing 1 to 2 passages a day for months. Not 10 on Saturday. Not a weekend cram. Every day.
Jack Westin for daily volume, AAMC CARS in the final stretch. Review the same way you'd review a science question.
And if you're a native English speaker scoring under 127 on CARS, it's almost never reading comprehension. It's that you're picking what you think instead of what the passage actually says. Train yourself to find the answer in the text. Sounds dumb, works.
Same start time. Same breaks. No phone. No snacks you wouldn't bring to the testing center. People take FLs in pieces and then wonder why their stamina dies on test day. It's 7.5 hours. If you've never sat 7.5 hours in one go you're going to fade in B/B and your score is going to show it.
If you went 508, 509, 508 across three FLs, more practice isn't the answer. Something in your process is wrong. Are you reviewing right. Are the same question types catching you. Are you running out of time. A plateau is data, it's telling you what to fix, not to push harder.
Anyway, happy to answer stuff in the comments. DM me if you want to talk through your specific situation.
As the title suggests, I don't know how to really study for it? I have the 86 pg document so do I just read that or do I purely do the Mr.Pankow deck?
Any advice would be appreciated!
I NEED a tutor... likely for everything. I'm adamant on applying this cycle and need to take the test by the 2nd week of June.
My school is operating on the quarter system which has destroyed my timeline but I have completed all pre-reqs.
Am working on a budget but willing to spend what is needed for someone who can push and guide me to reasonable increases given my timeline.
Been working the last few months to make an updated document that I've used to collect the terms that many of the awesome/free resources (and MCAT reaction threads) use that seem to be relevant for the MCAT and combed through them to eliminate things that have pretty much evidence to be showing up on the exam (I'm looking at you, obscure nervous system anatomy) and then focused on making sure to include many new terms that may be missing from Pankow/300 Page document, as well as extrapolating a few new terms that probably won't show up but since they're on related topics to what does, and the MCAT does have a hidden list of concepts they test on, I felt comfortable adding a few things in.
You can find it in a link in the description, Reddit doesn't allow google doc links so you can just go through my website and download it for free or use the Google Doc for free.
Massive Thanks: HUGE thank you to the many resources that have been prevalent in this community for a long time (Khan and the 300 page document, Pankow, most notably.. Couldn't have made this without them.
Organization of Pankow vs Document: there's going to be stuff you find in the Pankow deck that isn't on my document and vice versa. Most of my reasoning for that is listed above, but also keep in mind that the AAMC updated their outline and so I ended up organizing my document to align with that rather than what was available when Pankow was there. I'm also not as funny as Pankow so my apologies on that.
Examples: I love giving people examples of terms, I find that it significantly makes it easier to understand things, which is why my document has a ton of examples of terms that are listed.
Delineations between similar terms: for a lot of the terms that are similar (i.e. Actor-Observer Bias, Fundamental Attribution Error, Self-Serving Bias, and Looking-Glass-Self) I made sure to include explanations and examples of how they're different so they're easier to understand and catch differences for the questions that put all of them close together.
Memory Quick Tip: PLEASE get comfortable putting these terms into your own words by finding examples of things. I'm thinking of making a document that removes my examples to allow you to create your own, because knowing the definition is great, but the MCAT never tests on definitions, really, for P/S. Examples and terms, especially similar ones!
A note on the complicated development theories: I tried to simplify these as much as I could, since for the most part, these are not commonly asked about, but highly recommend trying to personalize those theories (like Kohlberg, Erikson, etc.)
That's all! Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions, there's a way to suggest edits or new terms in the document if you find any mistakes.
Chem/Phys kicked my ass yall. I feel decent about all other sections, plus finished with time remaining but I'm so scared of the C/P section... I'm aiming for 512-517 or so, so I'm hoping my performance on the other sections makes up for it but omg that SUCKED 😩
Hi all,
I’m a non trad working full time but my boss is pretty understanding and flexible and knows I’m applying to schools right now.
Just wondering if 90 days should be okay for someone like me who is 10 years out of undergrad.
My plan is to do integrated content review and questions every weekday, heavier on weekends, then the last month focus mainly on AAMC materials.
My goal score is a 505+
Please share your thoughts!
Hey, this may be a small rant plus question.
I am planning on studying for the mcat this summer and take it in September. I am gonna be studying at my university for the summer (for lab+ work).
I have noticed that I learn best through verbal discussion and when working with others. I was looking for guided courses n stuff that cost money where there’s a “tutor” of some sort but usually it’s very minimal for the cost I will be paying. I was wondering if finding a local tutor would be helpful, but I have heard that tutoring isnt very helpful unless you’re completely lost.
Ideally I wanted to study with some people from my university, but I go to a very cliquey premed in-state school where everyone i’ve met is out for their own. Everyone I know is extremely silent about their journey and are reluctant to work with others. (unless they have personal connections to them ; like good friends for years)
That being said, I obviously understand needing to work by urself as I would need that too at some point, but wanted to do content review or occasional check ups with my peers to keep us accountable and on track. I am slightly worried about how I’ll be this summer since over the school year I would get close to 1-2 classmates and the professors which helped me a lot. I don’t have that option now as I can’t ask people questions as freely as I can over the school year. I am also afraid of the social aspect as everyone who will be staying here this summer seems against collaboration at any level, which makes me worry that i’ll feel alone or burnt out at some point.
This was kinda long and not super directed at MCAT advice but I was hoping to hear feedback abt how to stay motivated and productive with this type of learning style.
Hi
Just finished taking the Blueprint diagnostic, did not prepare at all. Just wanted a baseline. Not even sure if this score actually translates to the real world,ie aamc.
I was hoping to take the test 07/31. I know it's late but I feel really behind the curve content wise.
Detail- 1)I was most confident solving Cars and PS. The stuff I got wrong on PS was memorizable imo, everything else was reasoning based.
How best to improve my score considering above.
For people using Kaplan for content review, how are you guys actually structuring it? Are you doing multiple subjects a day (like a chapter from a few different books each day), or splitting it up like gen chem + orgo + CARS one day, then bio + biochem the next? Or just focusing on one subject per day and doing a few chapters of that? Also are you doing UWorld during content review or waiting until after? And are you using Anki with the Kaplan chapters? If you finish a chapter, do you review those Anki cards again the next day before starting new stuff, or just move on?
I feel like I’m overthinking this but I genuinely don’t know what makes the most sense. Ughhhhh I don’t know what to do please helppppppppp
wait wth im acc like im shocked idk what to do my exam is in 18 days and i got a 497 on my FL4. I got a 507 on my FL3 and was starting to feel like i was picking up momentum maybe i could get to 510 but wtf just happened pls lmk if u guys have any advice 126CP 124 CARS 123 BB and 124 PS
I want to start studying for my MCAT over the summer and plan to take it in January. I honestly don’t know anything about the MCAT studying and don’t know what to do. The only thing I’m getting right now are the Kaplan books, to start content review. It won’t even be a full “review” for me, I have to self teach some/ a lot of the subjects too. I’ve heard some people say do UWorld for each chapter of the Kaplan books. I don’t even know what UWorld or Anki is. Where can I get the best study sets, how many are there, how does it work? I honestly feel very lost and I need immediate help. I have like 7 full months starting June, and I want to get this content review part done in 1 or 2 months, but some people say it should be really short and to focus on practice problems asap. Idk. Help pls!!
