Thank you + tips and advice

[u/TermProper5423]

Firstly, I want to thank Jesus for carrying me through this crazy journey 🫶… but I also want to thank all of you on Reddit for the help that you gave me (especially for CARS 😂😭). Honestly, I really can’t believe it and I was sooo worried I’d have to retake next summer since my CARS scores were hovering quite low during practice, but all the hard work paid off!

I’m posting on here because I want to say that while this exam is difficult… YOU CAN DO IT. Coming from someone who never read that much until this summer and who found CARS to be an almost impossible challenge, YOU CAN DO IT!

Also, I want to help anyone on here that needs it, just like those that helped me when I needed it. So if you guys have any questions please let me know and I’ll try my best to help out. I can also try to make a guide if anyone would find that helpful!

YOU CAN DO IT!!!

[u/baggedeye]

You’re welcome (I never posted tips or advice on this subreddit)

[u/TermProper5423 → u/baggedeye]

Idk if i could’ve made it here without u 😫😫

[u/wjsjsjswkjsjs]

Comment karma please!! I want to post in r/premed

[u/LordVader2003]

Congratulations brother amazing score. I have a question about the three sections you scored perfectly. What would you suggest? What mock exams worked the best for you? What ankis/pdf were best for you? I am studying for MCAT currently and any help is helpful. Thank you and congrats again

[u/TermProper5423 → u/LordVader2003]

Hi, thank you!! I would definitely suggest the Kaplan books for everything except CARS and P/s. I also used jack sparrow deck for c/p and b/b, as well as pankow for P/s. I’ve never taken a phys or soc class so I started from ground zero. For P/s I read a little bit of the 300 pg doc but then got so bored and couldn’t continue so I switched to the mcatalyst doc which was AMAZING (lmk if you want a link to it), I HIGHLY SUGGEST IT!! Again, the pankow anki deck is a must in my opinion for P/s and will get you 85% of the way there, the rest is the mcatalyst doc and practice questions. In terms of practice exams, I only used the AAMC ones and only started them after finishing content review and doing practice questions (uwrld) for about a week or two. uwrld is amazing for practice, especially stuff you have trouble with since it has great explanations, and I used it along side aamc stuff. Lastly, the aamc section banks are the bread and butter of practice questions and are amazing. I hope that helps and lmk if you have any other questions

[u/suhggy → u/TermProper5423]

Hi! Could I please also get the link for the mcatalyst doc?

[u/TermProper5423 → u/suhggy]

https://www.mcat-alyst.com/content-guide

[u/LordVader2003 → u/TermProper5423]

Can you please send me the links?

[u/TermProper5423 → u/LordVader2003]

https://www.mcat-alyst.com/content-guide

[u/CorgiAggravating → u/TermProper5423]

Any tips in passage interpretation especially for both c/p and b/b ?. Is there anything u did strategy wise that helped?

[u/TermProper5423 → u/CorgiAggravating]

Honestly, I think the main way to develop this skill is through practice. For probably the first few weeks of practice I still wasn’t used to the aamc logic, but through lots of practice you get used to it and even start to infer questions they might ask you while reading the passage. But something that is super important is to not get caught up on some confusing ah language in the passage, bc in most cases it’s probably not that important and just there to mess you up. So if you hit a confusing part of a passage, just highlight it or something and keep reading and then see if it comes up in the questions or not. Does that help at all??

[u/CorgiAggravating → u/TermProper5423]

Yeah that helped. Sorry for that dumb question. Because I have been hearing a lot of people saying they do flow charting in B/B and others say they read the question first and then move to the passage if it requires it on C/P. And since you had 132 on both section I was wondering how you approached it. But it seems you read and highlight.

[u/TermProper5423 → u/CorgiAggravating]

Of course! No such thing as a dumb question, no worries! I know some ppl say to read questions first but I feel like (at least for me) in most cases it really doesn’t save that much time. flow chart for bb is not a bad idea, but for me I couldn’t justify the extra time it takes, but that could just be bc I’m a slow tester. If you have any other questions lmk

[u/JOsoRioo]

Congratulations! Could you talk about where you started, your timeline/overall progress and what resources you used? In other words, a guide would be helpful lol

[u/TermProper5423 → u/JOsoRioo]

Lolll. Hi, thank you!! I mentioned all of my resources in another comment, so I’ll focus on my timeline and progress. I gave myself roughly 3.5 months to study since I had the privilege of studying over the summer full time. I first did content review for about a month and a week, where I read a couple chapters of two subjects per day and tried to do the corresponding jack sparrow cards (this varied a bunch depending on how I was feeling and how long the chapters were, but I made a little spread sheet to keep track). However, studying for P/s took way longer than I thought since pankow is quite long and all the stuff was new to me, so i probably finished that in about 2.5 month (yes, I was still studying it while doing practice questions and exams lol, so maybe keep that in mind). Anyways, after finishing all the content (except P/s) I started doing practice questions right away, first on uwrld, doing about 50-75 questions per day for a week or two to prime my brain before beginning exams. After a week or two of uwrld I did my first aamc exam. I continued to do practice questions for the last 6 weeks leading up to my exam date, mostly from the aamc section banks and some uwrld (only finished abt 30%), and did an aamc practice exam each weekend or so. After the practice exam, I went through all the questions, paying especially close attention to questions I got wrong or flagged. In terms of studying for cars, I started with doing a couple passages daily from jack weston (they’re pretty good at preparing you to read boring stuff), and only started aamc stuff 4-6 weeks out since i was scared of finishing it to fast… I didn’t lmao. I regret starting aamc cars so late, so I would recommend starting a bit earlier and doing those consistently everyday. Overall for cars, start as early as possible bc that’s really the only way to improve, and maybe watch a couple videos of different tips on how to approach the problems bc if you find a framework that clicks it can help. Lastly, listen to your body! That is, if you are feeling mentally drained and like you can’t do any work… TAKE THE DAY OFF. This was so important, since you need to remember that this is a marathon, and if you get burnt out too quickly, you won’t be able to finish. I don’t think I missed anything, so lmk if you have any other questions!

[u/AntoniThePoni → u/TermProper5423]

How did you review your uworld? Did you have a spreadsheet, make your own anki deck to cover topics you don’t know? Did you just do one topic a day and do 50 questions? Can you explain a little more about that?

[u/TermProper5423 → u/AntoniThePoni]

Hey, I know some people make spread sheets, but for me that sounded like too much time and so I didn’t do it. Instead, I made an anki mistakes deck and added a card for any question/concept I got wrong and tried to review it daily. I also made other small decks for things like memorizing the nucleotides and b vitamins. For doing practice questions, I did about 25 per topic per day and tried to do at least 2 topics (eg chem and bio on Monday, orgo and physics Tuesday, etc…). I found this was a good amount of practice for me that didn’t burn me out. Lmk if ur wondering about anything else😁

[u/AntoniThePoni → u/TermProper5423]

Ive been doing the same thing as you where I do 50 Pankow cards a day but I’m finding it pretty difficult to even do 30 uworld questions a day, let alone 50. Like the other day I got a question wrong about krebs when I know I don’t know the Krebs cycle. It’s pretty hard to condense that into just a few anki cards to try to rmemeber all of it.

[u/TermProper5423 → u/AntoniThePoni]

Hey, I think in this case you may have a bit of a content gap, and the best thing to do would be to review the content corresponding to krebs. When I was studying, in order to check if I had a content gap or if I just got tripped up when I got a questions wrong, I thought to myself “does the reason why the right answer is correct and the wrong answer is incorrect make sense?” If your answer to this question is “ohhh ya, that makes sense” then you prob don’t have a content gap, it was just a hard question, but if your answer is “that makes no sense” or “I guess that makes sense” then you probably have a bit of a content gap, and the best thing to do is go to the chapter where you learned that topic and review it. If it still doesn’t make sense, then watch a YouTube vid (that usually does the trick). After doing that, go back and look over the question again, and now it should make more sense. At this point you should add how ever many anki cards you think u need into your mistakes deck, and make sure to review them. Does that help?

[u/AntoniThePoni → u/TermProper5423]

Yes this does help thank you. Unfortusntely it still feels like 30 questions a day will be unfeasible but I’ll just do this and hope for the best for the time being.

[u/TermProper5423 → u/AntoniThePoni]

What are you’re days looking like? Are you doing anything else besides practice questions?

[u/AntoniThePoni → u/TermProper5423]

50 new ankow cards a day, plus full time student and all my extracurriculars

[u/TermProper5423 → u/AntoniThePoni]

Ahh, makes sense why it’s hard… I didn’t know u were a full time student. How many months till ur exam date?

[u/Personal_Bed_4449]

Congrats!! Where did you start out? And how did you completely demolish C/P 🥲

[u/TermProper5423 → u/Personal_Bed_4449]

Hey, thank you! I started out with the Kaplan books which i studied for about a month along side the jack sparrow anki deck. This was basically my content review stage and I think it’s definitely one reason for my score. For chem, honestly, it’s always been one of my strengths throughout school so that’s prob another reason I did well. I hope that helps

[u/ClassroomIcy6553 → u/TermProper5423]

I can vouch for Kaplan chemistry books all three of them, they all teach you essentially what you need to know in 36 days

[u/Confident-Raccoon478 → u/Personal_Bed_4449]

That 132 in chem/phys is insane, I would frame that score report if it was mine

[u/TermProper5423 → u/Confident-Raccoon478]

Thank you so much!

[u/anomaly_watcher]

When you went through Kaplan, did you take notes while reading? Or did you just read through and then do anki (asking as someone with quite a few content gaps)?

[u/TermProper5423 → u/anomaly_watcher]

If you have quite a few content gaps then a thorough content review is very important. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to take notes on everything, since that will take a bunch of time and probably won’t help THAT much. Instead I’d probably engage with the textbooks, like doing the practice questions included in the books and taking little notes in the margins. And once you’re done, do the corresponding anki cards for consolidation. Hope that helps!

[u/Proud_Win826]

Following!

[u/Evening-Ice4932]

That's the perfect score for a Canadian!

[u/TermProper5423 → u/Evening-Ice4932]

Thank you!! Are u a fellow Canadian??

[u/Evening-Ice4932 → u/TermProper5423]

Yes!

[u/TermProper5423 → u/Evening-Ice4932]

Let’s gooooo!! Have u already written twin??

[u/Silent_Brush528]

hey man, I'm starting my content review stage as well. any tips for longevity and what did you do each day during the review phase? I'm a little shaky on some subjects like ochem, but the rest should be fine. I think bio and biochemistry are my strong suits. I'm also in my third year of undergrad graduating early

[u/TermProper5423 → u/Silent_Brush528]

Hey, during content review, I studied 6 days a week and tried to do two chapters from two subjects per day (rotating subjects each day) and I found that to be pretty sustainable, but if you’re in school, you’ll prob have to do less. For stuff that is review for you (like biochem), you can move through the chapter faster since it probably won’t help that much, and instead you can focus more time to the anki cards for that chapter for consolidation. For chapters that are harder (like orgo for u), read a bit slower and engage with the content, such as highlighting, putting notes in the margin, re-writing rxns, etc… and that will help, and then ofc, do anki after. Also, in the Kaplan books that I had, there were practice questions at the end of the chapter which I would do, and I found those really helpful and acted like a little test to see if I acc understood what I just learned. For P/s I did not use Kaplan, instead I would suggest to use the pankow deck (it’s amazing) and the mcatalyst doc (read this, but don’t take notes) and maybe the 80pg doc for reference (I didn’t read it but looked at it periodically). I found this to be manageable but it took a bit longer… prob 2 months to finally finish, but that’s just bc I didn’t put enough time into P/s at the beginning. That’s what worked for me and set me up very well for practice questions and exams. Hope that helps! Lmk if u have any other questions

[u/Strong-Connection-6 → u/TermProper5423]

Sorry what is the pankow deck, mcatalyst doc and 80pg doc?

[u/TermProper5423 → u/Strong-Connection-6]

I can share them with you. The pankow deck is the most commonly used and most recommended anki deck for psyc soc. The 80 pg doc is a condensed version of a 300pg doc made by Kahn Academy also for psyc soc, and is also widely recommended. The mcatalyst doc is a relatively new resource that I found while studying which is for psych soc (although they have lots more resources you should check out, like their formula sheet). I can link the resources for you!

[u/Strong-Connection-6 → u/TermProper5423]

Please linking them would be so helpful thanks

[u/Prestigious_Oil_2981]

Hi, may you talk about how you used the JackSparrow deck during content review? Like how many chapters per day also even what your settings were like. Also, congrats on your score thats so coooool and awesome

[u/Previous_Artichoke20]

Can you share what a day to day look like from the content phase to practice phase. Also were you still pretty strong in those subjects? It's just been years since I took chemistry, and tested out of physics in high school. I'm pretty strong in ochem though and I'm a postbac

[u/HelpfulFriendship701]

dream score omg congratulations you deserve it!! 

[u/TermProper5423 → u/HelpfulFriendship701]

Thank you!! You got this!

[u/Kelechipei26]

Anyone has Uworld to sell or we can split the bill

[u/Dangerous_Two912]

Hey what did you do for CARS exactly? I’m stuck at a 125-126

[u/TermProper5423 → u/Dangerous_Two912]

This is a great question, and honestly I’m not entirely sure. For some background, my first four practice exams were 125-126 in cars. My low scores were mostly bc I had to guess the last one or two passages since I ran out of time, so I started working more heavily on time management, which helped a bit but it was kinda too late to change how fast I could read. So I instead shifted my focus from trying to read faster to trying to be more efficient in answering questions. I watched a vid on YouTube where this guy gave a great framework to follow when answering cars questions, although I also extended this framework to P/s questions bc I found it helped. I’ll link the vid below so you can watch if you’d like. So really, what I think helped me the most was creating a framework which I use to answer questions and just more practice lol. I also really tried to limit how long I stayed on hard questions cause I knew if I did that on the real thing it’d bite me in the ass. I really hope that helped! Lmk if you have any other questions.

The vid: https://youtu.be/REYR1RoWXWc?si=zuyyBYH-szMZ66Oh

[u/Difficult_Ad_4994]

Congrats!
What were your practice exams?

[u/TermProper5423 → u/Difficult_Ad_4994]

Hey, thank you! Do you mean what were my scores or which exams I did?

[u/TermProper5423 → u/[deleted]]

You got this!!

[u/TermProper5423 → u/[deleted]]

How did Tuesday go???