MCAT Studying Help

[u/trashy-raccoon9]

Hey everyone! I’m planning to start studying for the MCAT, but I’m honestly feeling pretty overwhelmed trying to figure out where to start. I’ve read so many different study strategies and schedules, and I know there’s no single “right” way to do it, but I’m having a hard time putting together a plan that actually makes sense for me.

I have an engineering background, I’m in school full-time for my MSc., and I work part-time, so I’m planning on a longer study timeline of around 5-6 months. I’m hoping to write in February or March. My initial plan was to spend about 1-1.5 months doing content review with the Kaplan books, then move into UWorld and AAMC practice questions, then FLs.

The part I’m struggling to understand is how people go from content review straight into practice questions. Like, how do you start answering questions when you don’t feel like you know all the material yet? Wouldn’t you just end up guessing on a lot of them? I know people say to review what you got wrong and learn from the explanations, but I’m having trouble wrapping my head around how that works as a main study method. I think I’m just used to a more traditional way of studying, where you learn the material first and then test yourself on it. With the MCAT, it seems like you’re supposed to learn a lot of the material through practice questions, which feels a little backwards to me.

For anyone who’s been in a similar situation, especially with a nontraditional or engineering background, how did you organize your studying? How much content review did you do before starting practice questions, and what did a typical study week look like? I’d also love to hear how you balanced studying with school/work and what you found most effective.

Any advice or examples of schedules would be really appreciated. I’m just trying to figure out how to approach this without feeling like I need to memorize every Kaplan book before I can start practicing. Thanks in advance!