You know when, around the age you begin to understand that you’re a conscious human, you get taught how to quickly rip off a bandage to reduce the torturous pain? The first time an adult tells you this, you’re absolutely convinced that this so-called “responsible” elder​​is pranking you, and probably have a prepubescent crisis over whom on this confusing planet you can possibly trust for guidance. Then, around age 6, you shut your eyes, grind your teeth and yank on that bandage as hard as you can. A couple seconds later, you stare at the miracle that is your nearly unharmed skin and marvel at the scarce sensation of pain. It’s an overjoyed disbelief you won’t feel again until your first sip of beer.

Wouldn’t it be great if the MCAT was like that?

Click here for the MCAT podcast, featuring Scott Erwin and Mike Smith, two medical students who scored at the 99th percentile.

The Freaking MCAT (hereby abbreviated to “MCAT”) is, unavoidably, exactly like the bandage that you peel off before you learn how to do it gracefully. No matter how you decide to study or how many A’s you got in organic chemistry (fun fact: I got zero), preparing for the MCAT is, like many aspects of your medical education, a circuitous maze that’s also on fire (or, as it’s described to me, “Hell”). Returning to the bandage metaphor, every practice question you get wrong and every verbal reasoning question in general is the equivalent of another ingrown hair or another square millimeter of epidermis slowly and excruciatingly shredded. By the time you take your exam, you feel totally raw, vulnerable, and probably demoralized that the medical profession is nothing more than a sadistic farce…

Until you get that stellar score. Then, pure jubilation.



So, how do you get that killer score that will get you into medical school? Unfortunately, there’s no sure way to ace the MCAT. But here are a few pointers that I’m confident will help.

For further guidance from two medical students who anihilated the MCAT, click here for the podcast that complements this post.

1. Take an MCAT prep course. Others will disagree, saying that these courses cost money (upwards of two grand) and might not be useful. Those facts are quite true, but I firmly believe they’re wrong in the conclusion that the course isn’t worth it.

Podcast: study strategy.

Consider this: the vast majority of enrolled medical students took one of these courses. If you don’t, you are right away putting yourself at a disadvantage relative to the field, which is already absurdly competitive. It’s not that the MCAT course instructors are providing brilliant, golden nuggets of wisdom that you can’t get elsewhere – most of these instructors are in fact not experts on the MCAT content or on how to be good educators. What these big companies like Kaplan, Princeton Review, Examkrackers, etc., provide are resources, and specifically practice questions. Loads of them. Writing questions like the AAMC is an art, and these companies have mastered it. Having a separate pile of practice exams with a detailed answer key and an instructor who can help you figure out where you’re getting off track will probably be helpful to you. Is it worth spending two thousand bucks on something that will probably give you a boost on your medical school application? Considering that you’ll shortly be applying for loans that will put you in debt 100 times that, I would say the answer is unequivocally yes.

So yes, prep courses cost money, and yes, some portion of the course will waste your time. But you’re about to enter a field that costs MUCH MORE money and that wastes MUCH MORE time. It’s worth a drop in the bucket in each department to not put yourself at a potential disadvantage relative to the gigantic, ridiculously competitive group of applicants you’ll be compared to.

Podcast: study strategy..

2. Practice makes perfect. This one seems obvious, but many premeds can’t handle studying this way.

From an admissions perspective, the MCAT correlates well to USMLE scores in medical school, which is why medical school admissions committees rely so heavily on this single entrance test. But, while I don’t have any data on what I’m about to say, I think I can reliably claim that what MCAT scores correlate best with is how good you are at taking the MCAT.

Podcast: self-confidence and blocking out what other students say.

But premeds aren’t used to studying for tests by taking tests. They’re used to memorizing – formulas, reactions, distillation techniques that still make me cringe. “But,” you cry, “you have to know all the content from your premed classes!” First, no, you don’t. The breadth of MCAT content is only a fraction of your premed content – the amount of likely testable material is a fraction of that fraction – and the AAMC lists exactly what topics could be covered. Second, yes, you must have a baseline level of knowledge. But once you hit that baseline, what the MCAT is mainly interested in is your ability to critically think about and apply that information to novel and seemingly complex situations. By far the best way to prepare for this type of thinking is to take practice tests, and then, most importantly, review them. When you get questions wrong, figure out why – that’s where the answer keys from big MCAT prep companies are great – and also understand where you went wrong in your thinking. You’ll find, as I did, that not only will you review your MCAT strategy, but you’ll also retain the content that you may have been shaky on.

Podcast: reviewing the practice questions you get wrong.

And, when you’re taking those tests, do them under test conditions. That doesn’t just mean sobering up and seeking a quiet area with no distractions; it also means same timing, same time of day, same breakfast, same lunch break, etc., as you'll encounter on the day of the exam.

Podcast: feeling like it didn't go well.

As you continue taking those practice tests and analyzing your performance, you’ll start to realize that the AAMC can only write questions that test a finite range of critical-thinking skills, and you’ll be able to identify what those skills are. At that point, you’ll be thinking like the test-maker as opposed to the test-taker, and that’s when you’ll score at an optimum level.

Podcast: why you shouldn't over-study science content at the expense of taking practice tests.

You’ll also become depressed at the not-insignificant amount of time you’ve spent studying for an exam that’s irrelevant to your future career as a physician. Welcome to medical education!

3. Make a schedule that you’ll stick to and that includes breaks. Two key mistakes that MCAT takers make are under-scheduling and over-scheduling. The under-scheduler says, “I’ll just take eight weeks, review my old college notes, take a few practice tests between keggers and I’ll be just fine.” The over-scheduling counterpart claims, “I’ve got my college classes and my after-school job, but I can cram in four hours per night after I get home and chug a Red Bull.”



As Rob Lowe was once overpaid to say on television, don’t be this me. Make a manageable schedule. It should be a detailed schedule that includes all your non-MCAT commitments, and that lists exactly what MCAT assignment(s) you’ll work on each day. For example, Monday you do a practice verbal section, Tuesday you review that practice section and do 100 biochemistry flashcards, Wednesday you take a timed full-length exam, Thursday you review that full-length exam, Friday you take another verbal exam and carve out your eyeballs with a dull knife, etc.

Podcast: the utility of review courses.

Lastly, you need breaks. Take at least a few hours each week – I suggest a day per week, but if I mandate that then you premeds might stop reading this blog and hunt me down – and do something fun, whatever that means to you. Don’t be that person who studies for eight hours straight in a cubicle with a Mountain Dew and a jumbo carton of goldfish. By the same token, don’t be the person who “studies” but is spending half the time texting or on Instagram taking pictures of his laptop screen with the caption, “FML I hate studying LOL #ShootMeNow.” If you have a full day of MCAT studying on the calendar, I suggest taking a 10-minute break per hour of solid, undistracted studying, and taking 30-minute to hour-long breaks for each meal. Also make time to work out, if that’s your thing. I know that you’re already furiously palm-stroking your temples while thinking about the accumulated time these breaks appear to waste, but scheduling short but frequent down time will truly increase your efficiency and prevent burnout. Both the MCAT prep companies and my infinite wisdom say so.

Podcast: the value of taking breaks.

Now then, have at it! I’m sure you’ll enjoy studying partial pressures, reading 300-word passages about 18th-century French literature, and trying to decipher questions like “Which of the following false statements does the above experiment most likely disprove?”

Addendum: Many of you may ask about strategizing for the new (2015 and beyond) MCAT compared to the old version. I took the old MCAT, as did all of my peers. However, the above guidelines still apply. The content of the test changed some, but the core of what skills the test is measuring remains the same. I trained as a Kaplan instructor for the new MCAT, so I'm familiar with the test, and the above tips still apply.

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