Please excuse if this has already been covered, I didn’t see a recent, similar topic.
Here are my suggestions for the best prep materials by subject area:
Bio - EK, hands down!
Chem - TBR (The Berkeley Review)
Physics - TBR
Verbal - Combo between EK and Princeton review.
Please add to the list to help our fellow OPMers!
Thank you! This info will come in handy as I start to review for the MCAT!
I concur: TBR is untouchable for the Physical Sciences section subjects.
I don’t have an opinion on “best” for Organic or Bio. I used TBR for all the sciences, and came to realize that TBR is less than ideal for Bio and Organic. In the case of organic, I would suggest using chad’s videos for content and using TBR for passages.
TBR bio is ridiculous, and even for the highly motivated, often frankly demoralizing. I used EK for content and TBR for passages, but ultimately would not recommend TBR bio for anything other than the “self assessment” that each book contains.
Best strategy for bio? Take biochem, genetics, and cell bio classes. Review your class notes at a hight level with the MCAT knowledge domains list as a reality check on what/how much to know. You will do well.
I’ve only looked through the different verbal books, doing 2-5 passages from each, but TPR felt light years ahead of the others.
My MCAT results are released 4/29!
EK Bio let me down big time.
It definitely did not prepare for the MCAT that I took.
The scope of the questions – not just the passages but also the discrete questions – were beyond the EK content review.
I think Esperen is right: take as many bio classes as you can.
And while EK did give me a good base for biology, it needs to be supplemented.
On the other hand, EK was a fantastic preparation for the PS section. I had to supplement with other materials to get up to par, but if you can do their end of chapter exams, you’re set for the MCAT.
I used Kaplan for all. I started with self-study using books alone, and it was good for general information on all of the topics but felt lacking in application for the test. The hard part about the MCAT is critically applying broad topics. I would recommend the Kaplan On-Demand (do it on YOUR time, not theirs) to learn how to think like the test requires you to.
There are definitely other cheaper routes which will get you to the same outcome. I shorted myself on time and went from practically zero to test in 3 months.
What resources are good for Orgo? I have TBR and EK, as well as Kaplan, but I am not sure what to use follow as my primary source.
I can’t speak for the TBR materials, but I didn’t really care for either Kaplan or EK for Orgo. Both books tend to include a lot of information that isn’t covered on the MCAT.
That said, the EK 1001 Organic book is a good one to have around.
I relied primarily on the Kaplan on-demand course for orgo… The books themselves (I think they’re basically the same as the ones you can purchase without the facilitated course) weren’t all that great, but the full course included some review notes that broke down some of the harder concepts.
That being said, I did use Prof. Google for a lot of things that weren’t explained that well in the books. I’d say that most of my searches were to explain specific reaction types. The hardest part for me was remembering the general mechanisms for WHY reactions take place. I found orgo in general much easier once I recognized how things are attacked. The MCAT tends to take the simpler concepts like that and make them really scary by attaching them to HUGE molecules.