Not enough time!

Hey Alex,

As the semester is progressing, I am finding myself busier and busier. There just aren't enough hours in the day to complete all of my school work and MCAT work to the extent that I feel is necessary to maintain good grades and adequately prepare for the MCAT. Lately I have been prioritizing the content aspect of the MCAT.

My strategy has been to do all of the reading and make my own flashcards to compliment the Kaplan cards based on the material. This takes me a LONG time. Normally about 2-3 hours per chapter. I feel like it is taking too much time, but in order to understand the material thoroughly and have good study aids in the future it seems necessary. This is leaving me no time to do quizzes and practice sections before or after class.

I do have about five weeks from the end of my finals until the MCAT to devote to studying, so I figure that I can tackle all of the practice then. I am thinking over winter break to study about 4 hours a day. 2 hours of content and 2 hours of practice and take a full length about once a week.

Sorry this is so long, but any advice on my strategy would be greatly appreciated!
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From one student to another...I totally agree with you. Wish there were more time!!
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Hey guys -


I hear ya.  Believe me, I hear ya.  There's just not enough time to be able to devote all the effort you want to each activity.  I wish I could tell you that it automatically gets easier later; it's not so much that the schedule gets lighter, but you definitely get more efficient at multi-tasking and learning lots of info faster and faster.


In the mean time, what you're suggesting sounds like a good plan.  I do have a few comments:
-I don't really hear anything up above about Verbal studying.  I strongly encourage you to try to find some time for a passage or two each day.  We're looking at about 17 minutes (per passage pair), so it should be doable.  In reality, studying a bit for Verbal will also help with your critical reading skills elsewhere on the test, and will help offset the fact that you can't do practice tests a bit.
-Make sure that you do find time to work on Full-Length #1 before Thursday.  It's really key at this point to know what else is remaining for you that's highest-yield.  What types of questions, what content areas, what passage types are the most challenging for you?  There's really no way to know without taking the Full-Length.
-If most other practice tests aren't happening until the five weeks before the Test, make sure you are SET on content before then.  You want to make it so that those last weeks are as efficient as possible -- and you want to be in pure practice mode at that point.
-Flashcards are great!  Always keep them on you and refer to them frequently.  This gives you an easy way to constantly absorb material; just remember, every little factoid you get under your belt will help give you more ammo for critical reasoning on the MCAT.  And if they happen to ask a question on it -- that could be one more point!


In the end, it is all very worth it.  I hear how you can get discouraged at this stage of the game, but keep the motivation going.  You can do this!


Also, props to the person who also updated.  The power of positive thinking at work!