When to start doing practice questions for the MCAT

Written and edited by the MCAT Self Prep Tutoring Team

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When to start doing practice questions for the MCAT

You’ve started studying for the MCAT. You’ve created a study plan, watched your lecture playlists, and made loads of flashcards. Now that you feel confident about mastering content, you have one remaining question: when do you start answering practice questions?

When to start doing practice questions for the MCAT: What are they

What are MCAT Practice Questions?

Practice questions are MCAT style test questions一passage-based or discrete一taken to assess your knowledge and test-taking skills. These differ from practice exams in that they may or may not be timed, don’t adhere to the 7.5 hour structure of the MCAT exam, and don’t include a score at the end. The purpose of including practice questions in your studying is to become comfortable with this style of asking questions and to identify areas where your understanding needs improvement. In contrast, MCAT practice exam days are meant to develop stamina and to receive a score that will inform whether you are ready for your upcoming test date.

When to start doing practice questions for the MCAT: And why

Why do MCAT Practice Questions?

I like to tell my students that practice questions are a learning opportunity, not a place to demonstrate your knowledge. You want to identify as many gaps in your understanding as possible (and fill them!) before test day. Getting practice questions wrong can reveal misunderstandings you had about a topic or demonstrate overconfidence about a concept. Oftentimes, getting a question wrong reinforces that subject even further. (For example, I took the MCAT four years ago and I still remember many of the practice questions I got wrong!) Because of this, it is critical to review all your practice questions like you would a practice exam. You don’t want to miss out on important concepts because you guessed a question correctly!

When to start doing practice questions for the MCAT: Top Resources

Top Resources for MCAT Practice Questions

AAMC has several question packs which are the gold standard of practice questions and the most similar to the types of questions you will see on test day. For those who follow the MCAT Self Prep E-Course, these are also used for AAMC mini exams. Common question banks used are the UWorld QBank and the Kaplan Prep QBank (which contains thousands of practice questions), but feel free to check out MCAT Self Prep’s Free Practice Quizzes and Question of the Day if costs are a concern for you! You can also check out this page for free and low-cost practice questions and practice tests. These include Khan Academy practice passages, Jack Westin free daily questions, and other resources!

When to start doing mcat practice questions for the mcat

When to start doing practice questions for the MCAT: CARS

MCAT CARS Practice Questions

Because there is no content to master for CARS, you can start with CARS practice questions whenever you have the time and feel ready. When I was studying for the MCAT, I started with a daily CARs passage a day right from the beginning of my studying and slowly increased that number. This meant after a few weeks, I was doing 2 passages a day, then 3 passages a day, until the week of my MCAT exam, when I was doing 9 passages (an entire CARS section) every other day. If you follow the MCAT Self Prep Create-Your-Own Study Plan, there should be time built in for CARS practice (depending on how far you are from your goal CARS section score) when you are in your content review phase.

CARS practice in particular is essential, as no amount of flashcards will help you on test day. Consistent practice will make strategies feel second nature to you and help with whatever unfamiliar passages get thrown to you on test day! If you need help choosing strategies to try, check out our Ultimate CARS Strategy Course!

MCAT Science Section Practice Questions

To get the most out of practice questions from the Chem/Phys, Bio/Biochem, and Psych/Soc parts of the MCAT, it is important to have a solid foundation. One doesn’t need to have finished content review to start practicing, but it is helpful to know something about amino acids before doing 20 Biochem practice problems!

Because of this, many students integrate practice questions into their content review phase. This can look like completing practice questions after finishing a module or Kaplan book to assess your understanding of a topic, or incorporating practice questions of concepts reviewed earlier in studying so you don’t forget them.

Other students prefer to finish content before practicing. For these students, I would suggest building substantial time into their study schedule to finish both content and use as many practice questions as possible. As many question banks have thousands of practice questions, it is critical to have reasonable expectations about how many questions you can complete and review each day before your MCAT exam. While it would be amazing to finish every UWorld question in the question bank, doing so would usually require several weeks of dedicated practice.

If you’re running low on practice tests, what some folks do is use their practice question bank to create an unscored practice test. This would mean selecting 59 Chem/Phys questions, 53 CARS questions, 59 Bio/Biochem questions, and 59 Psych/Soc questions. While you don’t receive an actual score, this still accomplishes the goal of practice and building 7.5-hour concentration stamina under a similar structure as a practice test.

Timed or Untimed?

Many question banks have the opportunity to set MCAT timing to your selected number of questions (e.g., if a Chem/Phys section is 59 questions in 95 minutes, there would be a timer for ~48 minutes for 30 questions).

If you struggle with your timing, practicing with a timer may help develop your internal clock and keep you on pace. However, if you lack confidence with content (or if you select a lot of physics questions with math calculations), practicing without a timer to consolidate your knowledge of a given topic is a great way to practice. For me, I began practice questions untimed and incorporated timing only when I felt confident about a certain topic and ready to practice my passage-reading skills under time pressure.

You may also see an option for Tutor Mode. This means that you can see the answer and explanation for a practice question as soon as you answer it, as opposed to waiting until the end of a question block to see your results. If you’re confused about a given topic, tutor mode can help walk through a practice question, which in turn can help you answer subsequent questions. If you want to better simulate test day conditions, waiting until the end of all the questions to review the answers may work better for you.

Conclusion

When to start on MCAT practice questions

Practice questions are a critical component of any study plan. How you go about using these for your study plan is up to you and your individual needs, but the most important thing is that you use these resources to test and refine your knowledge, consolidate your understanding of MCAT content, practice timing and test day conditions.

If you find you need help reviewing your practice questions or fitting them into your study plan, schedule a free 10-minute phone consultation with me or one of our incredible Premium Elite Tutors. Good luck studying!

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Good luck!

Denisse

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