I have been preparing for the MCAT with Khan Academy and the Kaplan 7-book set. I feel this allows me to learn the concepts as well as any $2000 MCAT prep course, but doesn’t teach exam strategy as much. Is there any other way to learn exam strategy (eg. Youtube, website, practice), or is the only real way to enroll in a prep course?
Tons of different strategies out there on the internet to be had, some of which are probably ripped from commercial prep courses (can’t verify that, just assume since it’s the internet…). The only real way to practice the strategies to find what works best for you is doing a million different questions/passages and taking as many practice tests as you can. You should do a lot of passage based questions. And practice tests. Did I mention practice tests? I don’t know what the options are for the new MCAT as far as practice tests go, but you should definitely test out your strategies on practice tests. They don’t need to be full practice tests, even just doing sections will help as far as testing your strategies and becoming more comfortable with the test.
Most of the strategies are kind of test-taking-101 level stuff, but it’s getting comfortable using them on a high stress, timed exam that takes practice. There are different strategies out there to the reading comprehension stuff which are probably worth focusing on. In the end, it’s all about time management and your willingness to stick with a strategy once you’ve proven to yourself that it works. Very very difficult to just outright skip a question if you’ve already spent over a minute trying to figure it out, knowing you can get it if you spend another couple of minutes on it, but also knowing that you don’t have another couple of minutes to give…
I answered this on the podcast coming out tomorrow - 12/7!