This might have been a waste of time, because by the time you take the MCAT its not truly feasible for you to memorize to every little detail and they won't really test you on it, but I feel that putting in the effort to really understand the content at a micro level makes the difference between a 515 and 520 with any random discrete they might throw at you. At times I'd stare at a single page for 20-30 minutes, getting to the point where I could name all the enzymes in biochemical pathways before reading the next page. During this stage, I read each chapter very slowly and made sure I understood the material well before moving on. I would read 1-2 chapter(s) a day and do TBR passages from chapter(s) I'd read two days previously. I spent the first 7 weeks solely studying C/P and B/B using TBR. KA docs and premed95 anki are also incredible resources, as is well known around here, so definitely use these over any other 3rd party books. By the end of my studying I'd really only used about half of the practice passages available in the TBR books. Also, there's an endless supply of practice passages that come with the books so you'll never run out of materials.
I feel TBR is invaluable, they really go into the minute details for the sciences, and I'm the kind of person who needs to understand concepts from the ground up before I feel comfortable with them. I used TBR for C/P and B/B and I used KA 300/100pg docs and premed95 anki for P/S. I studied for the MCAT for 14 weeks (Feb 23-June 1).
#Mcat practice test reddit full#
I realized in that time that I wanted to commit to pursuing medicine full fledgedly (and by this point my 2015 MCAT was expired for most schools) so I quit my job at the end of Feb and started studying for the MCAT while working part time as a medical scribe.
I graduated in May 2017, but I had doubts about medicine at the time so I ended up working for the past year as a management consultant. When i walked into the exam room that morning I was fully planning to void it, but the exam didn't actually feel too bad so I ended up scoring it. I studied maybe 125 hours over 3 months without any real focus and I hadn't taken a single full length practice test in one sitting. I was unprepared for the test when I took it in 2015. It was the summer after my sophomore year, I hadn't taken any biochem courses at the time, and I was planning on retaking later in my junior year. I studied that summer using only TPR (didn't even know about AAMC materials) but to be completely honest, I put in very little effort that time around. I actually took the MCAT for the first time in Sept 2015 and got a 515 (129/130/129/127). Still, I am confident in my science background, as I believe the instruction at my university was exceptional (even if I didn't take full advantage of it) and I was heavily involved in biochemical research at my university and others (multiple fellowships for my independent projects and a paid internship at the University of Tokyo). I mostly would cram for exams using online materials, so I became a pretty effective self-directed learner. I very rarely went to class - I'm talking I'd attend maybe 2-3 classes a semester for most of my science courses, and that's only b/c attendance was required for an exam or some other assignment. I performed fairly well in undergrad (3.8 cGPA and sGPA in my biochem major at a large state school), but I'm also a lazy fuck. I'm a naturally good test taker (36 on ACT in high school), so that definitely helped. Hoping to give back now to help others going forward. Hey guys, I was a long time lurker on this sub and I definitely attribute my success in large part to the help I found here.
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