How to Use Quizlet to Study For the MCAT

Many premeds are infatuated with Anki, but I found it to be extremely difficult to use as I was studying for the MCAT. Because of this, I simply decided to make all of my notecards by hand. Here are pictures of all the notecards I made while studying for the MCAT:

And yes, those are all separate boxes and bags of different notecards. Didn’t I tell you the MCAT takes a lot of hard work? I would estimate that I made well over 10,000 notecards while studying for the MCAT!

Now, if I was to study for the MCAT all over again, I would not write these all out by hand. I would use Quizlet. It is now, hands down, the best notecarding platform there is. It makes it so easy to stay organized. It also makes it extremely easy to make diagrams that you can use to test yourself on visual information. And best of all, Quizlet is fully integrated into our Free MCAT Prep Course, allowing you to do all your studying in one place.

In this article, I am going to walk you through the step-by-step process in using Quizlet to study for the MCAT that I recommend to all my private tutoring students. I will show you the ins-and-outs of Quizlet and make your mouth water at the possibilities of using this platform for learning all the MCAT content you need to know for the MCAT.

The first thing you should know about Quizlet is that it is extremely easy to make a free online account and access it anywhere. To make a Quizlet account, simply visit Quizlet.com and click “sign up” in the top right corner. You can easily make an account using your email or sign up in seconds using Facebook.

To access your Quizlet sets on the go, simply whip out your smart phone, download their app in the app store, and log in using the same account that you just created. Now you can study anywhere, which is essential for an extremely busy premed like yourself.

Now that you have access to Quizlet online and in your pocket, let’s talk about some of the essential features that you will want to utilize in your quest for a top MCAT score. The first feature that you should know about is Quizlet Diagrams. This is Quizlet’s newest feature, and in my mind it is one of their coolest. Many premeds swear by Anki, but making Diagrams in Quizlet is now 10x easier than it ever was in Anki. To make a Diagram, simply click on “create,” then give your study set a name. Inputting the image that you want to use for your diagram is amazingly simple as you can simply download the image from Google or wherever it is located, and then drag it into the diagram box. It’s that easy!

The best part, though, is that you can quickly blur out the labels that already exist in the image using the tools built into the Quizlet user interface. And once you’ve blurred out all the text, you can add your own labels, which will pop up when you hover over them, allowing you to easily quiz yourself. And adding definitions to each term will allow you to quiz yourself on not just the term but the function of the term, which is extremely important for the MCAT. You can utilize our Quizlet Diagrams for free by joining our MCAT Quizlet Diagrams Class.

While diagrams are great for quizzing yourself on the recall of terms, the actual MCAT will largely test your recognition of terms. For this reason, it is extremely important to make high-level notecards. To make a non-diagrams Quizlet set, instead of dragging an image into the diagrams box, simply start writing notecards. Instead of the stereotypical term-definition notecard, we recommend making notecards that mimic the style of the AAMC. We give detailed tips on making top-quality notecards in the MCAT Launchpad of our Free MCAT Prep Course.

Now, one of the best things about Quizlet is how easy it is to add images to each notecard. Simply download your desired image from Google, then drag it into the definition side of the notecard. It’s so simple!

Another great feature that you should take advantage of is the ability to star notecards. I would recommend starring notecards that you get wrong and then reviewing those notecards a second time by clicking on “options,” and then “study starred.” Then as you answer them correctly, you can unstar them, ensuring that you correctly learned every single notecard in that set.

Now that you understand the basics of making your own notecards, let’s talk about how to integrate your use of Quizlet with our Free MCAT Prep Course. I strongly recommend that each of my private tutoring students makes a folder for each of the 10 Content Modules found in our eCourse. You can create folders on your Quizlet homepage by  clicking on the “create a folder” button. Simply give each folder the same name as the Content Module that you are working on.

Then within each folder, you can create one notecard set for each lesson found within that module. Now, when you are reviewing your notecards for lesson 5 of the Biology I module for instance, you can study the Quizlet set built into our free eCourse as well as your own Quizlet set of the same name, making your studying extremely organized. And feel free to join the Quizlet Class for our Free eCourse. And the best part is that each Quizlet set is embedded into its corresponding lesson in our Free eCourse. Feel free to try out one of our sets below:

If the answer side of the card is being shown first, you can change this by clicking “options” and then selecting answer with “definition”

One reason that many pre-meds choose Anki over Quizlet is that Anki will remind you when you should review each notecard. If you pay for a small upgrade you can do the same with Quizlet, but there is no need to spend this extra cash because our Free eCourse will tell you exactly when to review each Quizlet set in order to have every concept fresh on your mind for test day. And our system of review is much more organized than studying random notecards that Anki or Quizlet tells you to study. This is due to the fact that because our review system is organized by topic, which allows you to keep the information better organized in your brain for easy recall.

As you can tell, I love Quizlet. And I think you will too once you get started. Feel free to utilize the free Quizlet practice problems built into each lesson of our Free eCourse, and please feel free to reach out with any questions along the way. I am here to help!

Warm regards,

Andrew  George

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How we Matched up the Khan Academy Passages with the eCourse Lessons

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.

Why we don’t recommend non-AAMC CARS practice questions

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.

Which books do the lessons match up with?

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

Do the chapters match up perfectly?

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.

Do the sections match up perfectly?

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.

MCAT Launchpad Required!

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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