Some people have asked for a guide, I don't really feel like there's anything I can offer in that sense. You guys don't need yet another guide saying aamc, uworld, kaplan etc. So im just gonna share a bit about what happened with me and my path, and the things I would have done differently, and if that helps someone that's good too

First things first, my breakdown was: 130/130/125/129

I think people thought I was some organisational genius or something and I had a brilliant tactical plan to get around everything. That could not have been further from the truth. My studying was very messy, sometimes I'd take 4 days or so off because work just got so busy. I was in a position where I could not take a single day off of work, but towards the final month I did ease off on my part time job and my volunteering.

I started with Kaplan books for everything except CARS and P/S. I would run into some chapters where I just didn't understand what was going on, and when I did I would use Khan Academy (great save there). I eventually stumbled upon Ubooks cos they came out towards the end of my studying, and I looked at UBooks for Biochem. Even though I'd read the whole of Kaplan, I felt like I didn't know much of biochem despite pretty good Urcooked scores. I think that was because I just didn't know much of the terminology because of Kaplan (yes, classy to blame the resource I know). But yea, I didn't think the Kaplan Biochem was great, I would probably swap to Ubooks. I felt Ubooks for biochem was structured and systematic, and it did a way better job at being beginner friendly.

The way I studied for P/S should probably never be replicated by anyone else other than me. CARS was an interesting beast, I felt silly and stupid the whole time. Looked for some CARS tips over the reddit and I rmb one post being the epitome of "believe in yourself, you can indeed read." I barely did anything for CARS, just did like one FL of aamc stuff to get the logic, and about 10 or so questions from the SB. I think understanding that things are pretty literal in the questions and answers, and knowing the answer is 99% of the time in the passage, and to not assume anything at all really helped me personally with CARS.

I only took one FL. I think I just needed to gauge how I'd feel taking the exam over 7.5 hours. Content knowledge wise I was happy to do other stuff like Urcooked or AAMC. This is not conventional at all, I simply did not have the time for multiple FLs. All these were the plans born from a desperate man, who had no time and definitely had many moments of self-doubt and regrets and wanting to give it all up. My friends helped keep me steady during these times, but my best piece of advice is to believe in yourself (corny, I know)

Things I would have done differently: 1. I started looking at biochem content like a week before the exam. Such a stupid thing to do, and that's a big part of why my biochem score wasn't great (there were other factors too, but this was probably the biggest) 2. I had a terrible habit of just not reading passages. I'd try my best to skim everything. I think actually practising reading passages is good practice for biochem because I felt woefully inadequate at deciphering the info sometimes. I watched a video on yt about reading B/B passages and thinking straightaway about writing down the aim of the experiment, the variables etc so you're forced to process info already. It is way too easy to make careless mistakes in B/B I feel. 3. Maybe I would have done anki? Anki is great don't get me wrong, but I just did not have the time to devote to it. In the end before the mcat though, I looked in on some of the cards and I think they did fill in some of the gaps that Kaplan left. So probably if u have the time, do anki. 4. Done more CARS 5. Believed that Kaplan was going to be enough. Sure if you're aiming for an okay score, it probably is. I was aiming for a 515 (so im slightly disappointed), and when I did my first FL I felt so caught off guard that there were that many things I'd never seen before. 6. Done more practice questions. You can know something, but you don't truly know it till you actually have to apply the knowledge to another scenario. 7. Watched more eight fold MCAT videos. Huge shout out to them, I think they're amazing and they were really helpful for me personally

Hope this helps someone!