Hey everyone,
I am really struggling to make a comprehensive MCAT study plan. Next Step seems like a good fit for me but is it actually legitimate? I haven't seen any reviews about them that don't seem fake, scripted, and/or written by individuals who are employed by them.
Thanks in Advance
I never used nextstep tutoring, just their books and tests. The books were ok. they had tons of practice Qs but the black and white pictures and extra information I was not sure was going to be on the real exam turned me off. I ended up using a mix of EK and TPR for content review.
However, their practice/strategy books and FLs were right on point. Nextstep has ~ 5 books just dedicated to practice qs and strategy so I would recommend those over the content books since, aside from the sheer # of practice Q, the nextstep content books don't really have any major advantage over Kaplan, tpr, ek. I personally loved EK for most, but used TPR for psychology.
I took a bunch of different practice exams and NS and EK were head and shoulders above the rest. They both were very representative of the AAMC in terms of style and tone. The difficulty I can say much because we only have 2 aamc exams but the general SDN consensus is that they are tougher than the AAMC exams, I would agree.
The Khan videos are free and it shows. Almost all their videos pre-date the new mcat so you end up watching hours and hours of material that will never show up on the exam. The same errors I saw when I used them for bio, genetics 3 years ago are still there. Unless you have a serious hole in your science knowledge, I'd avoid them as a primary content study resource. Their psych sociology stuff is probably the most useful.
The khan passages are also free and you also get what you pay for. Most of them have small errors, pictures that do not match what the aamc uses, and very poor or inadequate explanations. When I would reach out regarding the many errors or typos I saw, I never got feedback from Khan. I think once they got all the initial materials up, they moved on. Khan is a massive company and the mcat is not a priority to them, it never will be. I do appreciate the free angle though.
Overall Khan passages are like their videos, a decent supplement but they are useless in terms of learning to read passages, attack questions, and do timed practice, which is the most important part of getting ready for the exam.
The NS and EK full lengths were great. Nothing will beat the AAMC ever but it seems to be quite easy to capture their same style, tone and difficulty. One of my organic professors wrote some mcat-style Qs for us one semester and they were pretty good. Kaplan and some other companies seem to have mastered it prior to the exam change and I don't think that going to be any different moving forward. It is clear that some companies have done a better job at adapting quickly to the new style and feel of the exam, go with them. No matter whose exams you use though, ignore your scaled score. This is where every company is pulling stuff out of thin air. Not even the aamc has been able to predict and stick to their score forecasts. If the aamc is f-ing up, then what do you think the prep companies are doing? it will years of testing before the aamc can have reliable score curves/charts whatever you want to call them, and prep companies will likely need to wait even longer. Stick with analyzing your % correct.
The AAMC is in no rush to come out with more material it seems. Half of the "new" passages they have released are just recycled from the old tests they used to sell. This is fine as at least it is still relevant and means less new stuff to worry about but it shows even the AAMC, put $ near t the top of their priority as well.
Sure, many smart kids can teach themselves and be fine, but many more of us need structure, organization or even study help to do our best on this exam. Do not feel bad if you want to take a class or tutoring. College, med school, the mcat, you will always do the bulk of the work on your own, but we all end up needing some structure and direction, and that costs $. Someone has an expertise you don''t, you pay them. You won't magically get their expertise on your own just be working real hard. And if you do every succeed at it, you likely wasted a tone of time and effort figuring it out on your own. Acknowledging the authorities in a given area and listening to professional advice is just smart thinking. With the mcat, I was self-studying, but it helped to have a schedule and set of reliable resources to work from. If you need more go for it. If you need less, go for it.
Overall AAMC Section Bank > AAMC Full Lengths > AAMC OG > AAMC Q pack > nextstep/EK FL >>> everything else
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