MCAT Question style

[LikeDaniel]

Good idea or bad idea?

I'm now starting to prepare for the MCAT and have a general idea of what the questions are like, but not a full expectation. I don't have the budget room to buy dozens of practice tests, so I'm limited to the number I have.

My idea is, before really studying much more, reading a good deal of a (if not the whole) official practice exam. Not actually taking the test or looking at the answers, just getting a feel for the exam's question style.

I've heard that tests become viable to take again after four months of waiting. For various unavoidable reasons, i intend to test in late July, so I could use this test as either my midterm or the test close to the MCAT itself and should be past the 4 month mark.

Good idea? Or should my diagnostic test necessarily include me having never seen it before?

Thanks,
-LD

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[NextStepTutor_3]

Have you considered using a different AAMC resource (such as the Section Bank or one or more of the Question Packs) to get a feel for the style of the questions? I completely understand wanting to know what the exam is like as early as possible, but I'd advise against using one of the official AAMC tests for this purpose.

Yes, you certainly can retake an exam after 4 months (or even less time) and still benefit from it. But one of the most useful aspects of the scored AAMC tests is simply that they provide a score, and you'll want to be able to rely on this score as an indicator of how you're doing closer to your test date. If you've seen the exam before - even months prior - you'll almost certainly perceive this score as less reliable ("maybe I only did so well because I'd already seen the questions."). There's also the problem of conscious or unconscious "teaching to the test" - if you see a question about buoyancy, for example, you might pay extra attention when you study buoyancy during your content review later. Then your score on the same exam may end up inflated, since you were aware of the topics it was going to test (if not the specific answers).

If you used the Section Bank or Question Packs for this purpose instead, you wouldn't run into this danger, and they really are pretty cheap ($45 for the Section Bank and just $15 for one QPack). The Section Bank is a more difficult and "new MCAT-like" resource, but even the QPacks would give you a feel for that AAMC style.

There's also this question: how much will you actually benefit from knowing the style of the questions ahead of time? I'm a huge fan of taking practice tests early on, so you don't get blindsided by them too late in your prep. But many students would get little to nothing out of simply reading a practice test - unless they're unusually great at spotting patterns in writing style or answer choices. It might help you learn how specific vs. broad the MCAT tends to be when asking questions based on content knowledge, but even that would be difficult to discern at the beginning of your prep.

Anyway, great question! Best of luck with your MCAT journey

 

[LikeDaniel]

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it!

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