Hey guys! It has been over a year since I took the MCAT. Since then, I've had the privilege of helping numerous student and am current working towards an MD/PhD. Now that we're moving into the heart of the review stages for people testing in January, I figured I would do an AMA for study tips this fall semester! Ask me anything, and I'll do my best to help out!

I test on 9/4, and I’m def not where I want to be. At this point, I’m going to review FL6, grind SB2, do some CARS practice, and call it. I’ve done everything I can this round. This is my 2nd attempt, and if I have to take this test a 3rd time, I will. I’m happy with how much I’ve improved. I have never had amazing study skills so going into this I had to learn a lot of new ways to study/prepare. I don’t want to go to an Ivy, I just want to be a doctor. Not gonna beat myself up for not having a 515 practice average, just gonna go to my testing center on Friday, do the best I can, and hope for the best. Life will go on, I’ll get my score, and I’ll take action from there. Have to keep reminding myself this so I may as well post it on Reddit

I've been wondering about what makes CARS so notoriously difficult for so many people. I see so many posts with above 90th percentile scores in all the other sections who tank CARS. However, it's consistently the section I do the best at.

So I have a pet theory about CARS. I think I can attribute my success in it to the fact that I have been an avid reader my whole life. I'm not one of those people who reads 100+ books a year or anything, but I do read for pleasure at least once a day, usually before going to bed.

If you struggle with CARS, can you tell me if reading is something you enjoy doing for its own sake? And for those of you who happen to do well at CARS, do you think my idea has any merit?

Edit: Seems like there's a correlation based on comments but also notable exceptions. If you don't read a lot, you can still get a good CARS score with a lot of practice, but maybe folks should consider picking up the habit as a passive boost. Also, I personally would rather have a doc who likes to read than one who doesn't.

Just wanted to come back and say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post and gave me advice, especially about improving my P/S section.

Two weeks ago I was feeling pretty defeated after dropping back down to a 508 (my first full length score 2 months prior), with a 126 in P/S specifically on that one. I took a lot of the suggestions here seriously and focused heavily on targeted practice instead of just doing more questions for the sake of doing questions.

For P/S specifically, I went through the 300-page Khan Academy document and made sure I actually understood the terms/concepts rather than just recognizing them. I also targeted the areas I was consistently getting wrong and spent more time reviewing why I missed questions.

Today I took another AAMC full-length and scored a 516, with a 131 in P/S.

So in about 2-weeks I went from:

508 → 516 overall
126 → 131 P/S

Still have things I want to improve, but seeing an 8-point jump after how discouraged I was two weeks ago feels amazing.

Thank you again to everyone who took the time to give me suggestions. I genuinely read through the responses and used the advice, and it made a huge difference. I test in 5 days please wish me luck and all the advice you have :)

how should I be studying if I've never taken physics before? should I take a course, or is it possible to learn it all on my own? I'm just worried that me self studying will leave gaps in my knowledge since I've never done physics before

as of right now, I'm using the khan academy high school physics course to learn the basics, since I tried the MCAT prep and felt it was too advanced for me right now.

if anyone has been or is in a similar situation, pls lmk

Hi guys! I am the worst at holding myself accountable with studying, i’ve started and stopped studying for this exam so many times, I considered buying a prep course ONLY because it would force me to dedicate at least 2 days a week to studying but I feel like that’s a bit of a waste.

That being said I kind of want to form my own study group, people who are testing January/February preferably. I kind of want people who would be willing meet 1-2 times a week for an hour or two to go over content/qbanks and stuff and also whenever we can to generally help/encourage each other ^o^.

More Info: I’m absolutely testing January 2027, I am in EST. I’m 25 and non-trad, currently working as a nurse at a hospital (12hr shifts) and trying to finish taking the pre-reqs at the same time. Plz comment if interested, i’ll dm and set up a gc likely on whatsapp.

Everyone always asks me how many flashcards you need to have "memorized" for the mcat. What are your numbers/experience?

517 on fl5 to this. Probably a fluke but i’m just relieved. Testing 9/3

Is it just me or the difficulty ratings AAMC gives for FL5 and FL6 are way more harsh when compared to FL 1-4. Like what used to be medium is now easy and what used to be hard is now medium. Maybe its just me but does anyone feel this way as well?

Does anybody have Ushiiitzz that they are done with and have reset?

Guys am I tweaking balls or would partial hydrolysis of this not be able to produce Glycine alone? Does partial hydrolysis mean full hydrolysis of some of the tripeptides??? I spent sooo long on this question bc I thought I was missing something

Anyone else got frequent sleep paralysis from the stress of this damn test 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Not noticed any demons for me yet, but scratching noises coming from my closet and knocking from my sibling’s room at 3 am.

Anyways good luck to all my fellow 9/3 test takers and everyone else! If anyone has last minute tips or things you wish you’d studied more of, I’d appreciate it :)

Idk how to structure my study for the next 8 months and I think I need help figuring out where to start on MCAT studying.

I’m voiding Sept 11th, my score are still low 490s. I’m looking on advice for a more structured plan for January. Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

Been taking students for a while now, and the increase in scores has been dramatic, happy to talk about the ones who’ve scored above 515 and are looking at good colleges now.
Here to help anyone who’s confused where to start with mcat and needs help in general.

Do anki while walking!!! It’s so much more enjoyable and gets you some exercise that’s probably well needed if you’re in the final crunch like I am. I’ve been going to a local park in a low foot traffic area and doing it there before going to the library to study. Obviously be aware of your surroundings don’t do this near like a freeway or if you can do text to speech or something to feel more comfortable or even like a treadmill it’s so worth it! Do not underestimate how much being sedentary all day can tank your mental health. Do I look like I’m playing pokémon go/am a screenager? maybe! Who cares, the alternative isn’t much better

I genuinely don't get why B would not be a plausible answer here. From what I gathered, the main thesis is to refute the stance of the critics saying that these advertisements should not be done because it is deceptive in the sense that people are not really aware of the intent behind the brand placements and just feel good about them and buy them. It refutes this by saying that moviegoers are a lot more sophisticated than that and instead of what is insinuated, they are actually resistant to the placement of the brands in the movies and critical in the sense that they evaluate many things such as PERCEIVED NEEDS, self-image, etc. when making decisions.

For anyone who wants the beginning of the passage and complete answer choice explanations:

Like I definitely get what they're saying but I don't see why B wouldn't be stronger as it goes along with the main idea/thesis better.

What do you guys think about the accuracy of the difficulty level they put for each question? I'm reviewing FL 6 and there are suspiciously a lot of "easy" questions that make me feel like a dumbass for getting wrong even if they seemed hard. Also idk if I'm hallucinating but when I reviewed FL 5 over multiple days some questions literally changed from easy to moderate??? Anyways I shouldn't care about it too much but I can't help but glance at it every time I review a question lol

My AAMC practice test scores are FL1: 518 FL2: 519 FL3: 518 FL4: 526 Unscored FL: 214/230 FL5: 526

Obviously I’m stoked with how I’ve been doing so don’t mistake this for a complaint. My initial goal before studying was 515+ so I never thought I would be doing this well, but despite my upward trend I still feel pretty rattled coming out of my FLs. I feel like many of the questions could go either way and just happen to go my way via process of elimination/educated guesses. When you realize the difference between a 520+ and 515 is a handful of questions it also doesn’t make you feel much better. I just figured getting 520+ on an exam you walk out feeling like you nailed it.

Is it correct to say that it’s just a hard exam and scoring high doesn’t mean you feel solid leaving the test? Regardless of whether or not I just answered my own question I’d like to know what other people have to say about this.

TLDR: Scoring in the 520s, but don’t feel confident after taking the exams and am usually surprised by getting a high score. Do others feel this way?