If it was a content error, then write down what piece of content you were missing.If you knew all of the relevant content but you just didn’t think things through correctly, then that’s a reasoning error. that you didn’t know, then that’s a content error. If you missed the question because there was some fact, equation, etc. For each question you got wrong, ask yourself if it was more of a content error or a reasoning error.That means you should even review questions that you got right but guessed on. Look through every question except the ones you were 100% sure on.
(That’s why it’s hard to fit in two practice tests per week unless you’re studying full time!) You’ll generally want to allow about one to two days just for reviewing. The review is really where most of your improvement will come from.įirst of all, a good review takes a lot of time. Reviewing your full lengths is just as important as taking them in the first place. So don’t worry too much about some random person on the MCAT subreddit who says they did 23 full lengths. It would be better to take 5 full lengths and carefully review them than to take 10 full lengths without reviewing them carefully. I’ve talked with plenty of people who have done a lot of practice tests but haven’t really gotten anywhere because they weren’t taking the time to review them carefully. What’s a lot more important than the exact number of practice tests you do is how carefully you review them. The key thing that you have to remember is that quantity is not everything. If you have a very long time before your test you can do more than that, and if you’re pressed for time then you can get by with fewer.įour of the tests you do should be the AAMC exams (that includes the three scored exams and the one unscored exam). You could probably infer from what I said before that I recommend doing about 6-8 full length tests. If you’re studying full time, it can work to do two tests per week, but usually that doesn’t allow enough time to review them and keep up with content. Once you’re doing full lengths, I recommend aiming for about one test per week. You can keep doing content review in between your practice tests. So you need to just start doing practice tests at some point whether or not you’ve covered all the content you want to. Well, guess what – you’ll probably never be done with content review! There’s so much content you could cover that it’s unrealistic to think you’ll ever feel “finished”. One thing that holds a lot of people back is that they’re worried they need to be done with content review before starting practice tests. Then you want to start doing full lengths again about 6-8 weeks out from your test (you can make this longer or shorter if your schedule requires it). After that first one you can stop doing practice tests for a while. Of course, you probably won’t score very well on it, but it will help guide your studying. Doing a practice test early on will give you a much better sense of how the MCAT will present science content and the type of content you should know. You can even make this the first thing you do when you start studying for the MCAT.Ī lot of people are reluctant to do this because they don’t know most of the content yet. When to take your full lengthsįirst of all, I recommend taking one full length test very early on in your studying so that you can know what you’re up against.