How To Cope With MCAT Anxiety

No excuses , just dominate . Alright , guys , dr Unchirp , I'm Ted here , d-studycom , and , as always , I'm here to help you be what More positive , more productive . Today we're talking MCAT . I asked a question on my Instagram , TikTok , all platforms but I asked a question on my stories today Say hey , what's up , guys , let me know what your goals are for 2020 .

Let me know what you help us . Why can't help you out ? And I got some amazing responses , so I'm going to address those today , and one of them is hey , dr Pines , I'm preparing my MCAT . I think I have a good plan , but I'm so anxious that sometimes I'm paralyzed and I don't study like I should and I procrastinate .

And this is a question and a comment and a feeling I get so often . How many of you guys out there get paralyzed into procrastination ? Anxiety is the best . You've got so much to do . I don't know if I can do it , so I better not do anything right and we shut everything down .

You've got to stop that , and the number one way you can stop anxiety in any situation , you can lower anxiety and increase confidence in any situation , including the MCAT is to be maximally prepared With the MCAT . The reason there is so much anxiety that surrounds it is because students don't put themselves in a position to be maximally prepared .

Stick with me now . It's so important . When you go to study for the MCAT , you must respect the three biggest factors and components that determine your MCAT score . There are three of them and I'll cover them all today .

And as we talk about those three components , right , the first being fund of knowledge , the second being your study skills and the third being your test-taking skills , all three of those things are going to determine how much you have to study for the MCAT and how well you can do .

The only way to get a great MCAT score is to be high level in all three of those things , and the problem that so many students do that causes all this unnecessary anxiety and pressure for the MCAT is that they put themselves in an unrealistic , unwinnable timeline of MCAT preparation . Right , you're a senior , you want to apply this year . June is coming up .

So you say , oh , I got two months , I'm going to do it . I got three months , I'm going to do it , not taking into account that wait a minute am I a two-month studying type of student or do I need more time ? Do I need more preparation ?

And , if we can ask ourselves some questions , some key questions about the three factors I just mentioned , we're going to and the second it changes our entire outlook and our entire ability to perform when we're studying and also on the MCAT .

So we have to take a look at ourselves and answer some of these three areas and say how much time do I need to effectively prepare for the MCAT ? And if we need lots of work , we need to give ourselves more time . And by doing that we take the pressure off , we allow ourselves to see the actual steps that we need to take .

Oh yeah , I got a lot of work to do , but I can see all those steps lined out over however many months these are , and I know I can get there . But if we use a short timeline , I don't see this path with a success and we get the anxiety that stirs up . So we have these three factors . The first one is that fund of knowledge .

So I want you to ask yourself sit down , wait a minute as I make my schedule , as I figure out when I should get the MCAT what is my fund of knowledge ? What is the fund of knowledge ? A fund of knowledge is the bank of information you have at your disposal to deploy on a test like the MCAT . You're going to hear it's a lot of metal training .

What is their fund of knowledge ? The fund of knowledge is the Information that you have at your personal disposal , in your brain , to utilize in a situation or on a test . As you get older , your clinical training gets like clinical situations . But right now it's the MCAT . So I want to ask you how is your fund of knowledge for the MCAT ?

How sharp are you ? How much do you know about the topics on the MCAT ? Ask yourself hey , have I been out of school for a long time ? That's going to hurt my fund of knowledge , because it was so long ago I can't remember that stuff . Hey , how did I do in my classes If I didn't perform ? Well , odds are I didn't learn that material well then .

So I definitely don't know what now . So my fund of knowledge will be weak . So the third thing ask yourself , listen , have I taken all the prerequisites to be prepared for the MCAT ? Otherwise , I have gaps in my fund of knowledge .

And as you go through those questions you can see oh wait , my fund of knowledge is low , medium , high , wherever it is in that spectrum . And you can say listen , my fund of knowledge is low . It's been a long time since I've taken classes and I do well to begin with . So my fund of knowledge is low . But it's not a defeatist thing .

That's the thing that now we can plan for accordingly and say , listen , I'm not going to do three months of studying because my fund of knowledge is weak , I'm going to do six months , I'm going to do nine months , I might even do 12 months , depending on just how weak my fund of knowledge is .

And by doing that I now can say listen , I don't have to get caught up with Joe Smough , the brainiac over here , who just got out of class , has got all A's . I can say to myself well , listen , he's there and he's way past me .

But by working for the next six months , nine months , I can catch him and we can create confidence through our timeline that way . Does that make sense to everybody ? It makes sense to you right now .

Take a second to like this video and let me know you understand what I'm saying right now about the importance of establishing a baseline of who you are as a student , in particular your fund of knowledge , first . The second component we have to ask ourselves about is our studying skills .

So with the MCAT , much like what makes the medical school difficult , what makes the MCAT difficult it's a lot of information in a perceived tiny window of time for us to get at it . In medical school that window really is small . In MCAT prep we make the window small by rushing our MCAT prep .

But you have to learn a lot , right , you have to do a lot of studying , a lot of learning . First of all we have to understand . We have to create understanding first . Then , once we create an understanding , we have to remember that information and we have to remember it for a long time .

That retention over the two , three , six , however long we're studying , months until we get to the MCAT test date , because there's so much information and so how great of a studier you are is really going to determine how quickly from wherever your fund of knowledge is , how quickly you can get to a top level fund of knowledge that will allow you to excel on

the MCAT . So how quickly can you take in information ? How quickly can you make that information memorable so you can hold it and retain it for the whole time ? That's going to determine your length of your MCAT prep and for you as a student . I want you to ask yourself , hey , am I going to be able to make ? Am I a good student ?

Have I shown in the past my ability to learn things quickly ? If not , it's not defeatist , but it just tells us where they span that timeline . I want you to ask yourself , hey , have I been a consistent high level student ? So am I able to put multiple days successfully back to back in my studying ? Or am I a master procrastinator ?

Wherever the day is a missed day , I feel like ugh , tickle my throat , I can't study today . Ask yourself , what are your study habits ? I also want you to say , okay , wait a minute . So , yes , maybe I learn quickly or maybe I don't learn quickly , but once I learn something , how sticky is that material to me ?

And this is important as a sidebar , I'm always going to teach you guys a sidebar For learning . There are two parts of learning we got to take in right with the receptive learning and then we have to have that retention part where we remember it right .

The key to remembering things well and remember for a long time is organization how we organize that material and creating a functional , partially meaningful understanding of that material . So if we could organize the information and we can stick it to something I call it my material matching , that is meaningful to us .

It allows us to hold that information for a whole lot longer . I talked about this on a previous episode of Sight Doc Show where I was talking to a Swedish memory champion . We got into some of these nuances of memory and how to do it . So check out that episode if you haven't already . But you have to be able to create that stickiness .

That is not something . Some people have a more gifted brain at baseline , right , they have a higher starting point . But the rest of us we're able to build that capacity . It's a skill set to be able to create retention and so this is encouraging .

So if you say to yourself , listen , I'm someone , when I study something I can't remember it , it's not because your brain is broken , you can't have capability to do that if because you don't have the tools to organize the information , to make it meaningful and to bring it into your brain and hold it and store it , and so that is a skill set that can be

learned and I teach a lot of this in my five pillars course . My fellow students are studying less than getting a degree how to my material match , but it's so important for you guys to understand that's a skill and you can get there .

But if you are not there right now , you need more prep time because you're gonna need more repetitions and you're gonna need more approaches to that material to be able to make it sticky . So that's gonna elongate your window . But if you elongate your window and you recognize your tremendous capacity to become great students , we can all be superstar students .

But we have to have techniques and we have to practice those techniques to become skilled studyers , high level studyers , and we can get them information very quickly . So fun of knowledge . One . Number two is our studying skills . Do we all understand this ? If we're good on this , like this video right now , let me know . Dr Pyssa , you're spitting it today .

I understand what you're saying , because I've been confused about how long my MCAT timelines should be , and this is giving me tangible things . I should check box . I should go down and say listen , where is my MCAT prep and how can I get there ?

The third and final factor in your MCAT preparation speed , and also how well you'll do in your MCAT test , is your test taking skills . How many of you guys out there are terrible test takers ? Is it the anxiety that gets you ? Is it your inability to think and crunch time quickly ? Is your inability to read critically ?

Is your inability to sift through large volunteer vision ? What's the issue ? Are you a master test taker or are you not great at test taking ? I myself am a master test taker and , again , it's a skill I've worked on it actively to say how can I attack tests , how can I take it to tests so not taking it to me ?

So because of that right , what qualifies me as a great test taker ? One ? I'm fast , y'all Rrrr fast . Why ? Because one of the things that test makers do to make tests more difficult is they time crunch you . They make it so that , yeah , you know what .

You could probably get this question right in the vacuum , but if it takes you every first in five minutes , I'm gonna give you two and a half . That's what the MCAT does . So if I'm a fast test taker , if you are a fast test taker , that means you are gonna be a highly skilled test taker , because they can't shorten the window enough to make you rush .

So for me , I'm always out of my tests . First , I take my board exams For anesthesia . I was out in half the time . Why ? Because I'm rrrr rapid . Fast . That's the first side . The second part of being a great test taker is fidelity , meaning can I decide for questions , get to answers on a consistent basis ?

So when I'm attacking a test with speed , am I not sacrificing my correctness and my ability to get the right answer by moving so fast ? And so when the MCAT asks yourselves right , how many of you guys ? You're so busy trying to rush through the passage ? You skip over things Trying to be able to go through the passage that you miss the retention .

You miss exactly what they're meaning . You caught up in those double nose like which is not not the correct answer , right ? Those kind of things . That's sacrificing the fidelity of your test taking . So to be a high level test taker , you have to be not only fast , but you have to have high fidelity , meaning you can execute at that high level speed .

Are you a great test taker ? If not , you can develop that skill , but it's going to take more time . So in your MCAT prep , not only are you working on your front of knowledge right , you also have to work on that test taking aspect . So that's gonna be another layer and more time you're gonna have to put into your studying .

You're gonna elongate your MCAT window .

And again , through all this , guys , the big takeaway take this to note no matter where you are as a student , with your front of knowledge , your smartness , with your academic ability , with your studying and with your test taking , no matter where you're at , you can improve and you become the master , you become the dominant .

Dr Pinesay , you can do that , but it takes work . It takes learning a strategy , then taking that strategy and practicing it to make it a skill your study skills , your MCAT test taking skills , and so if we take into all these accounts , we know to extend our window . The average MCAT prep it spends about three to four months preparing .

So if you are a below average front of knowledge , study skills or test taking skills , you should spend more than that To be safe . Give yourself nine months y'all .

Give yourself 12 months just to focus on the MCAT and see how your anxiety drops , see how your confidence rises , see how you're able to be more consistent , more effective , get more into the flow of MCAT prep and put yourself in a position to get a great score after that time period . And I'll tell you this as I leave . And now I've been going .

I've been going , I've been going .

I've been trying to be out of here If you're with me still like this video right now but I have never , in all the time that I've worked with students , I've never had a student who spent nine months or longer strictly focused on the MCAT and who was actually studying consistently I didn't say studying a whole lot consistently Every day , put in some hours for

at least nine months . I've never had a student like that not reach their score goal . Facts in all the years , in almost 20 years working with students on testing and studying , I've never had a student not reach their MCAT goal if they said at least nine months and they were consistent . Can you give me five days a week consistently for nine months ?

If you can do that , you can get your MCAT score goal . I show you exactly how in my MCAT course , how to dominate the MCAT . That expensive prep class is the most affordable , most effective MCAT prep out there . I created because students were like man , dr P , you're kicking this knowledge .

Everybody needs this and I put it together for you and it's amazing that I break the course discrete stages of your prep .

However far away you are , I allow you to create a personalized , effective , not only study schedule but study plan for executing , because at every stage we have different goals and in the meeting shows goals we have specific strategies we wanna get at to maximize our ability to reach those goals and prepare for the next stage .

So that way , when we're ramping up right through the MCAT , we're at peak performance and we can dominate it . So my impact course is available for you on my website . Go check it out right now . Learn some more . It's affordable . Like I said , super affordable and it's super effective for you guys as students . Have you enjoyed this video ? Do you feel like ?

Oh , you know what ? Dr Pints , I thank you . I got a better grasp on what I need to do to prepare , to make my schedule , to have a timeline that's realistic , to take the pressure off , but also put me in such a position to succeed big time on the MCAT .

If I've done that , if I've reached my goal , let me know right now , like the video , comment on this . Hey , dr Pints , you've hit it today . You got me . My MCAT will be better because of this video . I appreciate you being here with me . Guys , if you don't know already , subscribe to this channel .

If you're on the podcast right now , hey , leave me a comment . Let me know a rating , let me know if the podcast is amazing . Thank you , guys , so much . I'll catch you , guys next time . How do we end each and every single video ? No excuses , just dominate , guys . See you next time . That's it for another episode of the Study Doc Show .

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