Advice? Yea its a pretty broad question, but the best way to learn is from others and their mistakes. Don't say something stupid like go study, because even though thats obvious it actually tests you more on your thought process rather than raw knowledge for those that haven't taken it. (PS I'm going to be a junior in college and I'm going to take it sometime from march-july). Timing is a major issue for me, I'm bad at pacing myself.
Take a prep course I took a great LSAT prep course at Kaplan (also a thought process test), they have an MCAT one too
On a more serious note, you should check out the medical student forums, there's probably a lot more people there that could help you out.
I took it twice (33, 34) and used to teach it for Kaplan. My advice is to (of course) study your butt off for at least 3 months - down to taking study material with you anywhere you go to sneak in 5-10 mins of looking over stuff. You'll be surprised how many small chunks of idle time you have each day. Don't try to memorize - there's so much stuff, you'll overload. Understand the material. I'd also say take every practice test you can get your hands on. Take absolutely no less than 3 exams, and you'd probably want to take closer to 8. Don't just see what your score would be - jot down every single question that stumps you and adjust your studying to reflect it. The exam is an 8 hour ordeal and you have to be able to go through the entire thing without burning out/crashing or you'll bomb your last section or two. I'd honestly advise weaning yourself OFF of caffeine now.
Define your scale- what do you mean by A? In general, people think above 30 is good, but of course all of that is contingent on where you want to go and how your gpa/ extra curriculars are. My advice- once you have taken the pre-recs (biology, chemistry, orgo, and physics), THEN start studying for the exam. It might sound stupid, but I know a good amount of people who took the test before they took part 2 of a class or something and it hurt their score. Take a prep course (I took Kaplan and it was good- you can't really go wrong between Kaplan and Princeton). Follow the curriculum rigorously. Like others have said, the subject books are not the most important things. The greatest advances I made in my scores came from doing a crapload of practice tests. After the course, I dedicated a month to studying- I had little to no life, went to the library and studied from 8am-4pm daily. The first 2 weeks I re-did the course (1 class/day) and did all the supplementary material. Last 2 weeks I figured out my weaknesses and studied that more and took 1 practice test a day. I probably took over 10. Those are important because they prepare you for the mental marathon that is the MCAT. Endurance is just as important as material. Don't get discouraged or give up if your score doesn't start jumping up with each test, but make sure you focus. If you know what kind of studier you are, go with that. I personally could never study for 5-10 mins here and there because I know it wouldn't stick for me. Clearly, though, it worked for emjohn, so do whatever works for you. Good luck!
Read this forum regularly it will really help you out. However, a lot of the people on there are the best of the best (and super hardcore pre-meds) so do not get discouraged with threads complaining about a 3.7 GPA and 34 MCAT being too low, that's ridiculous. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?f=31
Write this down: a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c,a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c, a, c, e, d, c, b, b, e, c, c, d, a, a, c You can thank me later.
Use Exam Krackers study questions because they are the hardest. AAMC tests are the best to use because they are the company who write the actual MCAT. The test is a beast. I have taken it 4 times. my best advice is to master every subject on the MCAT (Physics 1, 2 Chemistry 1, 2 Orgo 1, 2, Bio- all fields). Good Luck. Oh and verbal sucks. Start practicing now.
Try www.gunnertraining.com! Stick with it for two weeks and you can then decide whether it's worth signing up for.
You probably know about Student Doctor Forums, but if you don't you should look through here. Take some of the advice with a grain of salt, but you'll find some good ones. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?f=31
I have to disagree here. Any and all material is helpful but Exam Krackers was the least like the actual MCAT compared to everything I came across. I recommend Princeton review. To each his own though, you have to find out what works best for you. To the OP, I don't know what you mean about don't tell you to memorize facts, just like Ramathorn said, you have to know those subjects front to back. If you were in a burning building and I asked you to spit out the Big Five physics equations you should be able to do it in a snap. When you hear that it test you conceptually and it isn't based on memorization it means that there are very few questions that are plug and chug. You have to understand A, and from A deduce B and from that use the correct equation for C yada yada. You can not begin to do that type of deduction until you have your facts, down to the bone, memorized. VERBAL is the single most important section on the MCAT. It makes up the greatest percentage of your score, it is on average the lowest score out of the 3 sections. If you want to stand out do well on that section. It is also the hardest to study for. I used to teach the MCAT Verbal for a company and it is something you have to practice daily. Read a lot of opinionated material to get your reading comprehension up and to knock down your reading time. This thing is getting too long, send me an email at q.a.allen@gmail if you need anything. This test was the hardest thing I had ever done, it consumed my life and it will make you miserable. Do well and it is more than worth it though. Take it seriously.
+1 to everything emjohn said above except minor correction - the test is now actually 5.5 hours long. Also, I hear Berkeley Review is great if there's one around you and many others have echoed the sentiments of EK. Lastly, I have no idea what an "A" on the MCAT would be. Get the best damn score you can get, knowing that the average MCAT score of matriculants has risen slightly, with it being around a 31-32.
are you sure you want to go into medicine? its a long hard road. i took princeton review. do all the questions and all the practice tests. practice practice practice... good luck
Ah - didn't know it was computerized now. Both of mine were pencil/paper, and the second had the biggest loser of a proctor that was a complete failure moving things along.
