Hola OPM. I have a quick question for those that have taken or are studying for the MCAT.
I’m having some slight financial dilemmas, as my job loves to cutback hours around the holidays and picks back up around February. I keep hearing that TBR is great for detailed studying (especially if your college course skimped over a few sections), so I’d like to give this a try.
Fastforward: I don’t have ~$300 to spend at the moment.
I’ve also read that the EK set is great for condensing material and review.
Is it a good idea to spend $100 on the full EK set now so that I can at least start studying, and get the TBR set towards the end of Jan when more funds become available?
I’m going to register for the April 28th test so I need to go ahead and get to it.
Thanks
Ahh wrong forum guys - could this be moved to the MCAT section? : )
Hi
If you have the time now, I would get the Exam Crackers and get rolling with that. I have heard a lot of people swear by EK, especially for the verbal reasoning section as their approach is different from the other prep companies.
Lynda
Thanks Lynda, that’s what I was thinking. I’ll still get TBR because I’ve heard their passages are gold, but for content I’ll just go ahead and grab EK.
Thanks 
Hi
At point, Kaplan offered all of their MCAT books for free. I got mine on Kindle. I don’t know if the offer is still on, I believe it has been discontinued long ago.
I don’t know of any way to get the free ebooks out of my kindle and share them. I didn’t pay for them and wouldn’t sell them either (plus I am afraid even sharing may represent copyright issues).
Anyway you can do some digging a perhaps find some free ebook versions.
The Kaplan series is OK, for review though, it means you should know the stuff before. Their practice exams are not great. They seem too tortuous, or too detail oriented and often time test exceptions more than rules. But this is still good practice.
I also used the EK series. It is very good as well.
Good luck
You do not need to spend a lot of money on MCAT material. I asked around and received some older MCAT materials (mostly standalone books rather than those from the classroom courses) for free from friends in school who have already taken the test. At the public library, I checked out Barrons Guide to the MCAT as well as the Hyperlearning extra questions book. I did buy the EK from Craigslist, as well as Princeton Review’s Cracking the MCAT, which comes with 4 online exams. However, I am saving my money to spend on taking practice computer-based tests (CBTs) from the AAMC website; there are at least 8 tests there (and as mentioned above, test #3 is free). The Berkeley Review also has 7 online practice tests available for 45 consecutive days or until your MCAT date (which ever is sooner) for a cost of $200. Not cheap but it probably is worth it.
Thanks redo and datsa, glad to hear you guys were able to get your materials without spending an arm and a leg. I will go ahead and use the EK and try to find those kaplan materials, and try to find some of the materials you used as well datsa.
Looks like I have one more time to party hard (tomorrow!) before I go in my cave until April.