MCAT Guides, suggestions

I have recently embarked on my journey to medicine and will start with MCAT prep and possibly redoing some of my science classes soon. I do not have the the bandwidth to attend a formal MCAT class and will be learning from a book. What did most of you use to study? I see examkrackers, gold standard guides, and a few others being mentioned. Is it basically buy as many as you can, or is there a clear cut best option?


I am just starting out and any suggestions would be greatly welcomed.

one set of books that have been really helpful is actually not an mcat book per se. I am reviewing the material after a loooong time away from the classroom, so i had to go back to basics. the books by Klein titled “inorganic chem as a second language” as well as the organic I and II as a second language has really helped as a precursor to the Kaplan and princeton review material that i purchased. hope that helps…good luck! btw…they are relatively inexpensive ( around 30 bucks) and are readily available on amazon

Thanks for the suggestion, I will look for the books at Amazon. Very much appreciated.

While you may not the bandwidth for a class, you should strongly considered either an online self-paced course, a CBT, or another method that gives you access to realistic practice exams. I found them to be the most useful component. In the past I have used Kaplan and found there exams to be good practice. I believe that the AAMC also has CBTs for sale.


For self study books, many people swear by their content series “A thousand and one questions in…” They also have a somewhat dated but still useful series called “Audio Osmosis” 12 CD set which I still find much better in most areas than the test prep company classes.


There is another company that I have been dealing with which make a product called the gold standard which also has practice exams. I am sure that there are many others.

I have a big post about the MCAT around here somewhere, but to summarize on this topic:


I thought the official AAMC tests available online were great resources. I think they can be found at e-mcat.com , though I’m not 100% certain.


I didn’t find the EK “1001 questions” series to be helpful at all. They just threw random questions at you from a topic. These are not MCAT-style questions; they’re just whatever they could think of or could cull from their books. The “101 verbal passages” book was nice, but I’d skip the subject-based ones.


That said, EK Audio Osmosis was a great resource, IMHO. It was maybe my favorite resource that I used. But I was commuting a lot at the time


Otherwise, the books will be take or leave depending on your style. I wasn’t overly enthused with what I saw of the big expensive courses or packages. Just make sure you have a solid understanding of the subjects, and a good degree of familiarity and comfort with the exam style.


Good luck!

I love this site Thanks for the assist and the words of wisdom. Very much appreciated.

I just took the MCAT this past March and did decently. Here is what I did:


I used The Berkeley Review books, as well as examkrackers and the aamc tests from e-mcat.com


One exam from e-mcat is free, test #3, and is a good gauge of where you are starting off. The rest of the practice tests on e-mcat will cost you $40 a piece, but are from old mcat exams and are by and far the best way to practice for the test. That is, after you have done a solid content review. A combination of the Berkeley review and examkrackers worked well for me.


My suggestion is to take aamc #3 to see what its like. Then go to the library and go through all the books they have and choose the ones that you like the most. They all teach the same thing, but they just have different styles.


If you have a decent understanding of the concepts, and have done at least 4 of the aamc practice tests, you should be good.


Hope that helps. Best of luck to you. It’s not that tricky, really. They just want to make sure your willing to dedicate as much time as it takes to get a decent score on the test.

Congratulations! What did you score?