When I first began researching the medical school application process, I was completely overwhelmed. Between the MCAT, primary applications, secondary applications, interviews, and more, it was all very daunting! I wished I had a straightforward guide when I was planning my senior year of college. As a current applicant to medical schools, I felt that it...
Getting a tutor is not essential to MCAT preparation, but it can definitely be worth the money in certain cases. Price can be a big barrier to tutoring for many students, but having to retake the exam can also cost you a lot of money, time, and frustration. Perhaps the biggest cost associated with retaking the MCAT is the opportunity cost of having to...
Does studying for the MCAT have you down? Why not spice things up and make it fun using these 8 easy-to-implement tips: 1. Think of fun mnemonics Whenever you learn a new term/group of terms that you know is going to be a pain to memorize, think of a silly mnemonic device that will help you remember it. For instance, if you are trying to keep the...
I believe that one of my most important jobs as a tutor is helping my students develop good study plans, and some of my students have followed their plans to achieve scores in the 100th percentile. In this MCAT tip, I want to share 5 of the most important elements of a good study plan: Individualized. A good study plan should be focused on improving your...
Hi! My name is Denisse Morales-Rodriguez and I am an Elite Tutor for MCAT Self Prep. When I was studying for the MCAT, I was balancing full-time coursework with part-time research and shadowing. Despite this busy schedule, I developed time management skills that really helped me follow my Study Plan and achieve my goal score. Now, I’m happy to pass on tips...
For me, starting my MCAT studying was tremendously stressful. My first step in learning about the exam was to take a practice test. While taking the free Princeton review full-length exam, I was floored to learn the level of memorization needed to take this exam and finished completely overwhelmed. Apparently, I needed to know amino acid structures and...
Overview The MCAT and CASPer’s Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) formats are on opposite ends of the medical school application spectrum. For the MCAT, we have well-defined content to study and clearly graded practice tests to gauge our progress. We put in hundreds of hours over the course of MCAT studying to make these improvements. Through practice problems,...
The MCAT is one of the most challenging exams there is. So, if there was one thing you should know about it that would improve your chances of getting a top score, what would that be? Based on our analysis of top or even perfect MCAT scorers, the best thing you can do to score high on the MCAT is to become fluent in science. What does it mean to become...
I remember facing burnout a month before my MCAT date and panicking. I had just finished my finals week and planned on starting MCAT Self Prep’s Bootcamp (a 30-day study plan that is part of the free e-course). I simply couldn’t bring myself to study for the MCAT. I needed to both address the burnout I was facing and figure out how to minimize it moving...
If you ask any friend who scored exceptionally high on the MCAT for studying advice, they are likely to tell you two things: take lots of practice tests and master the content through self-testing. We’ve already covered how to take practice tests in other blog posts, so for now let’s focus on self-testing. Self-Testing for the MCAT Self-testing can...
Each lesson of the eCourse contains links to 1 to 5 Khan Academy science passages for the purpose of providing you with non-AAMC material to practice your science passage reading skills on. By completing all the linked passages within every lesson, you will have finished all the freely available Khan Academy science passages.
To match up the Khan Academy Science Passages with the eCourse lessons, we carefully examined the passage and question content of each one. Then we decided which lesson of the eCourse best correlated with that content. You may notice that some passages don’t match up perfectly with the current lesson. If they don’t match up with the current lesson, they should match up with one of the previous lessons in the module. We did this carefully so that you could practice your science passage reading skills on passages that contain the content you’ve already learned.
We recommend practicing CARS by reading non-AAMC CARS passages but not doing the associated practice problems. The reason we don’t recommend doing the practice problems is because the MCAT is written by the AAMC. They have a very unique style in which they write CARS practice questions that third-party companies (try as they might) are unable to replicate. When students spend time on non-AAMC CARS practice problems, they get familiar with the wrong style of questioning, leading them to overthink and incorrectly respond to the questions written by the AAMC. Thus, it is in your best interest to solely practice on AAMC CARS practice questions.
That said, we highly recommend practicing your reading skills on non-AAMC CARS passages. In our Ultimate CARS Strategy Course, we provide you with 1,000 free CARS passages and 100+ homework assignments, giving you ample material to practice on. Reading countless passages while practicing the proper reading habits and strategies will prepare you well to conquer the CARS section as it was written by the AAMC.
The books we use in each lesson are linked below. We plan to stick with these older editions of the books since very little has changed and the older editions are much more affordable:
First Edition of the Kaplan 7-book Series
First Edition of the Princeton 7-book Series
The Kaplan Books, Princeton Books, and Khan Academy Videos were all produced by different authors. For this reason, there are some chapters in the Kaplan Book or Princeton Book that are not even found in the Khan Academy Videos and vice versa. For instance, the Kaplan and Princeton Books have chapters that cover certain experimental procedures that the Khan Academy Videos do not cover.
Our goal in matching up the books with the videos was to correlate the content as best as possible while also covering ALL the content from every resource. For this reason, when nothing in the Kaplan Books matched up with one of the video playlists, instead of leaving the reading assignment for Kaplan blank, we inserted material that did not fit in anywhere else (i.e. one of those chapters on an experimental procedure that was not covered by Khan Academy). So, when the assignment doesn’t appear to match up right, please know that this was intentional.
*If you follow the reading assignments outlined, you will finish the entire Kaplan 7-book series and/or Princeton 7-book series by the time you finish all 10 content modules.
If the sections assigned in our eCourse do not match up with the sections contained in your content review book, you may have a different edition. The sections should still match up the large majority of the time, but in the rare instance that they don’t, I’d recommend simply reading sections that do match up and saving the ones that do not for a future lesson.
Before jumping into our free eCourse, you’ll need to complete orientation by watching MCAT Launchpad. During this free 35-minute intro session with Head Tutor Andrew, you’ll learn 6 Keys to Earning a Top MCAT Score, the 5 Essential Elements of an Effective Study Plan, 12 Tips for Taking the Best MCAT Study Notes, and more! Andrew will also provide you with a detailed overview of the Free MCAT Prep Course, teaching you how to get started.
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