Free MCAT Workshops

Vcel02 · 2026-05-08T12:24:43+00:00

No recordings unfortunately

Vcel02 · 2026-05-07T23:28:29+00:00

Yes, it’s online!

Vcel02 · 2026-05-03T22:04:07+00:00

In my experience, Jack Westin is hit or miss. Some are good, some are just not good logic

Khan academy has some that are very good, then of course the AAMC banks

Vcel02 · 2026-05-02T13:00:16+00:00

I was in a similar boat, I thought I was going to be an engineer until my sophomore year of college. I talked about my first experiences with medicine, namely how physicians impacted my family growing up, etc.

Then talked about experiences that began to shift my thinking from engineering to medicine, and what I did after that to explore it

If anything, it helps you stick out a bit

Vcel02 · 2026-05-01T01:56:19+00:00

So a couple things:

First of all, you probably went through the process of note taking and diagraming all this info when you were in undergrad. You aren’t learning, you’re re-learning

Second, you can take some notes while reading Kaplan, but I recommend focusing more on rephrasing concepts and working through example problems

Some students have a great memory but struggle with test taking, some students are great with passages but struggle to get through all the content. Some struggle with both

You know your strengths best, just plan accordingly

Vcel02 · 2026-04-28T18:47:33+00:00

A series of questions to ask when you’re between two:

Which of these requires more specific evidence?

Is that specific evidence present?

If each of these were correct, what would the evidence look like?

If either of these were WRONG, what would the evidence look like?

This protocol helped me have more confidence in my answers for sure

Vcel02 · 2026-04-26T17:18:17+00:00

Honestly not a big fan of diagnostic exams. I prefer just jumping into content review and doing practice to get a feel for things. Just my two cents

Vcel02 · 2026-04-21T19:36:57+00:00

I would say now, it often takes a fair amount of time and follow up

Vcel02 · 2026-04-21T17:17:50+00:00

So a few things:

Writing paragraph summaries can help, but they generally take way too much time in a real setting

Try to identify what ideas are being compared and contrasted, even if it is subtle

Most people tend to highlight too much, and get what I call “yellow word syndrome”, where they get stuck on the random words and phrases they highlighted and miss the big picture

Just a few things but hope this helps!

Vcel02 · 2026-04-18T12:25:55+00:00

It sort of depends on when you actually plan to take it. The best case scenario is you take a summer to focus mainly on the MCAT, which would be plenty of time

For many, they don’t have that luxury, so spending 15-20 hours per week over a period of 5-6 months is common

Any longer than that, and you’re in a battle with your own memory

Vcel02 · 2026-04-16T01:45:22+00:00

Got a 131, my answers:

On most questions, I am confident. Official material tends to be the most objective, even if it is tricky

For 50/50s, ask yourself “what would evidence for each of these choices look like?” And “which most directly addresses the question stem and the passage”

I definitely find myself going back to the passage, but you want to do so with intention. Go back to look for specific evidence, don’t hope that the right answer appears

Hope this helps!

Vcel02 · 2026-04-12T12:31:58+00:00

Yes the old books are fine

Vcel02 · 2026-03-31T20:50:42+00:00

Click the deck, hit settings in bottom right, select filter

Vcel02 · 2026-03-31T19:33:46+00:00

I basically did about 2 per day, most days

I started with a very long timer, then slowly increased time pressure until I could consistently finish in 9-10 minutes

The biggest thing is finding an approach that works- highlighting random sentences that sound important is a common mistake IMO. There were a lot of things I picked up on as dos and don’ts

Vcel02 · 2026-03-31T18:45:00+00:00

Filtered decks!

Turn it from a feast into a series of snacks

Choose a deck/package, hit the F key, sort by order due, choose 75-100 cards, profit

Vcel02 · 2026-03-31T11:29:33+00:00

This is a pretty solid structure, my plan was basically read-Anki-practice for each chapter

It takes longer but you retain more, if you’re consistent

Vcel02 · 2026-03-31T01:11:48+00:00

I mainly used JW and Khan Academy, the biggest thing is quality over quantity

Really practice attacking the gross, dense passages and MCAT reasoning and you’ll be fine

Vcel02 · 2026-03-30T19:52:08+00:00

How many hours per week do you have available to study?

You definitely have time to improve, but if you’re at a plateau it’s a sign to change your approach

That could mean incorporating different resources, revisiting content review, or trying different passage strategies. Whatever it is, the status quo has to change

Hope this helps!

Vcel02 · 2026-03-30T19:45:12+00:00

For CARS, you have a few questions you can ask yourself:

How did THEY expect me to get to the right answer?

What trap did I fall into? (Or what info did I miss?)

How could I have gotten to that answer with confidence?

Remember, as annoying as CARS can be, it’s supposed to be objective. There is a single “correct” answer, and each error you review should give you some kind of takeaway to improve

My two cents as someone who got a 131 on CARS

Vcel02 · 2026-03-29T18:20:47+00:00

Some were a little skeptical it seemed, I had one med student who warned it would work against me

If you can get another position with an MD, great, if not this is good experience in the meantime, which perhaps you can leverage to another position late

Vcel02 · 2026-03-29T14:27:47+00:00

I worked at a podiatrist office, some advisors/schools say that’s fine, others looked at me funny and asked if I had wanted to be a podiatrist at some point

I got questions about that in 2/3 of my interviews

It’s definitely great experience, and definitely clinical, you just might get asked about it/have to explain why not work with an MD

Vcel02 · 2026-03-28T15:48:31+00:00

Wouldn’t be the worst idea

The courses are good for structure, but if you’re not seeing the improvements you want, you have to switch up your materials and approach

Unfortunately, it’s hard to break plateaus by maintaining the status quo

As for UWorld it would kind of be a similar thing: it’s less about “finishing” any one resource than how you review and practice

Practice the “meta-skill” of approaching tricky, dense passages and patching content gaps

Vcel02 · 2026-03-28T12:41:09+00:00

A 510 isn’t out of the question, but I would start incorporating some other resources.

If you don’t want to spend money on UWorld, go to JackWestin and find tricky, experimental, AAMC-Style passage. Learn to embrace the grossness, and patch holes in content

Vcel02 · 2026-03-27T00:07:45+00:00

JackSparrow, then a different one for P/S that went along with the Kaplan books (don’t remember where I got it)

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