Are you ready to prepare for the MCAT? Here are some study habits from College-Writers team that will help you improve your score.
1. Determine your baseline
Your baseline score is what you would get if you took the exam today. Before you start preparing for the MCAT, we suggest that you take practice tests and learn the testing environment in order to evaluate your own abilities. When you practice a lot, you can understand what areas may cause troubles.
2. Practice is more important than a content review
The MCAT is aimed to determine your ability to apply your knowledge to various situations, as well as your ability to evaluate and support arguments. Obviously, you still need to know your science content, and you need to know it well. However, many people who prepare for the test think that the level of their knowledge must be higher than they actually need. Keep in mind that scientific knowledge will not help you when completing the section devoted to reasoning skills and critical analysis.
3. Be accurate
Is time your main priority? It’s good if you know how to work quickly. However, when you start practicing, focus on training your skills. Once you feel confident enough, you will see that you can complete various tasks quicker.
When working on practice problems, think of your accuracy. You can also record how much time every section takes to complete. Don’t rush and put accuracy first.
4. Learn to concentrate
It’s quite difficult to stay focused for several hours, especially under the stressful conditions of the MCAT. When preparing for the test, you should take breaks. Make these breaks shorter and increase the working time gradually, until you can focus for a few hours without a break.
5. Take full-length practice tests
The more experience you have, the more confident you become. Try to find full-length practice tests that will help you imitate the real conditions.
6. Simulate real conditions
When taking the test, you have only a few breaks between different sections. Thus, prepare for the fact that you will not have any food or water until a break. In addition, if you get hot or cold, you will have to wait for the break to take off or put on some clothes.
7. Prepare for distractions
During the test, you will not be able to sit in a perfect environment with no distractions. We suggest that you practice in a noisy environment. For example, choose a coffee house or a library where you will be surrounded by unnecessary sounds. You should learn to work under different circumstances.
8. Manage stress
Practicing and studying is important, however, you should also learn to manage your psychological condition. When you work a lot and practice every day, you can easily burn out. Make sure you have some time for relaxation and don’t forget about working out.
9. Evaluate your results
Self-evaluation is one of the crucial elements of self-improvement. Don’t just write answers to the questions but analyze your results and evaluate your score. You should understand what are you strong and weak sides. What questions are the most difficult for you? Why did you pick certain answers that turned out to be wrong?
10. Evaluate the right answers as well
Not only need you to analyze your mistakes, but also the right answers as well. Determine your MCAT strategy and think of what questions you are especially good at.