Are you a pre-med who's looking to jump into your MCAT prep and you are confused on where to start ? This is the video you've been looking for , guys . In this video , I'm going to break down key steps that you must do to set your prep up for success , to make it easy , to make it breezy and make it successful .
Let's hit the intro and we'll get right to it . But stop making excuses , stop whining , stop right , get at it . No excuses , just dominate .
All right , guys , like I said , I'm dr arthur pines and I'm the pre-med productivity expert and every single week I'm here bringing you strategies , bring you high level expertise to help you reach your goals as a pre-med , as a student , including getting into and through medical school .
And this we were talking mcat because it's early in the year and for many of you guys , you said listen , this is my year , I'm going to apply . And one last thing standing in front of my application is the MCAT . So you're like , man , I gotta get in this prep . I'm going to use these months , get ready for the application . What do I do ?
How should I start ? Well , number one , guys the first thing we must do is we must fix our mindset , our approach to the MCAT . I tell students all the time the MCAT is actually the hardest exam you'll ever have to take , because it represents a shift in the exams of your life .
In college , in high school , you had exams where you could easily get your hands around all the material . It was easy . Right , there's a lot of stuff , sure , but you get your hands around it .
The MCAT leading into medical school , leading into your board exams , is a shift in your mindset where you must go into the test knowing you are not going to know everything , and that's okay .
Instead , what I want you now to do is shift and I want you to focus on knowing every single thing you see and knowing the highest yield elements , such that you can score as high as possible without losing your mind in the hopelessness of oh my gosh , I can't remember everything . Okay , so we got to shift that perspective first .
That's the first thing we want to do . Let's get that out of the way . Now that we have our mindset to say listen , we can't remember everything , but we're going to remember the most high yield stuff for this test and we are going to be ready and we're going to score amazingly .
The first step we must do now is , we must see where we're at as a student . The MCAT exam is a cumulative exam and a lot of students miss this part of it right .
They spent all their undergrad focused on the pre-med activities and they haven't even thought about the MCAT , not recognizing that the MCAT is cumulative and that it tests to see do you have the study skills that you should have acquired over four years of college ? Do you have the test taking skills that you should have acquired after four years of college ?
And do you have the fund of knowledge ? Do you know the bio , the chemistry , the physics , the psychology all the things you should have been learning in your classes ? And so , for many of you guys you've heard of this MCAT . You're like wait a minute . Oh my gosh , there's so much stuff I've never .
Yes , you have learned this stuff before , but you haven't looked at it in an MCAT context . So , knowing this is a cumulative exam , let's figure out where we are on the spectrum of preparedness for this exam . We do this by taking a practice test , so step number one is our mindset . Step number two we're going to take a practice test .
For this practice test , I highly recommend that you use one of the few AAMC official full length tests . Some people will tell you this is a waste of a test .
However , I disagree , because in my professional test-taking study expert opinion , most people get it wrong when it comes to the MCAT and comes to full lengths , and that most people will tell you , the more full lengths you take , the better .
Instead , what I want you to recognize and realize is that the more questions you do in the right way in a question based learning context , the better you will be , and full length tests don't serve you in that way . If you want more information , more clarity on this , I have an amazing . It's a short , highly powerful , super affordable MCAT jumpstart course .
I have the link down below in the description . You can check that out and get my full breakdown of how to use full length tests , how to use questions to magnify your score .
But for our purposes , we want to understand that these full-length tests are there to assess our readiness , and so how do we know where we're starting if we don't take one of these exams ? The first thing , take that AAMC practice test . Let's see where we're at . And as you take that test , I want to warn you your score is gonna come back super low .
There'll for you to feel devastated , don't ? That's why you're just now starting your MCAT prep . Right , we have to prepare to get to our score . We shouldn't be at our score day one . If you are , then you're done , no need to prep . Turn the video off right now and go take your MCAT . But for most of us , our score is going to be very low .
Don't be disheartened by this . That's what happens to everybody . The score is low because we need to prepare ourselves . Now that we see our score , what this allows us to do is to see where we are , and it allows us to map out a realistic timeline of our preparation .
So we can say to ourselves wait a minute , looking at my exam , I'm really far from my ideal score of 515 or 518 or 520 , whatever it might be for you . So if you're really far from that score , then what should you do ? We shouldn't panic . We should tell ourselves whoa , I need more than a month to make up those 20 points .
We should give ourselves ample time . What I also wanna say about your exam as you go to review it is look at and see wait a minute . In this exam , let's break it down and look what areas was I strong in what areas was I weak in ?
And the reason we look at that is because then we can take those results and we can use it to balance out our study schedule such that we are doing some subjects that we're strong in , some subjects that we are weak in , and that way we can feel in aggregate , like we are getting prepared . It is hard if we're constantly attacking our weakest subject .
It is too easy if we're constantly attacking our strongest subject . We want to do a mix of both to balance out our schedule and to progress in our prep . So , like I said , we're taking this exam to see where we are , to set up a realistic timeline , our third step right . So first we have our mindset , second , we take this full length exam .
The third step , if you want to get your prep off to the right start , is to set a realistic timeline based on your readiness for this MCAT exam . As I said , if you have a long way to go , set a realistic timeline . This is so crucial to your success .
Don't overlook what I just said If you don't have a realistic preparation timeline , if you say , listen , I'm going to study for two months and that's going to be it , but your 30 points from your ideal score .
It's not going to happen for you in that time interval , and so what you've just done is set yourself up for failure , and you're going to feel that failure every single day , and your preparation is going to feel so uphill .
Every day is going to feel like defeat , every day is going to feel like a smack in the face , and so you're not going to be motivated to get up and study , you're not going to be consistent in your studying and you're not going to be effective on that MCAT test date .
Instead , you're going to get into this endless cycle of delaying and delaying and delaying your MCAT and this endless cycle of frustration . Don't do it to yourself . Instead , tell yourself I'm going to take the MCAT once and I'm going to get it right . So instead of rushing myself and doing one month , I'm going to take my time and do three months . I'm going .
You guys , there's no shame in taking longer to prepare and in fact , the longer you prepare and prepare effectively that's a big caveat your score will improve .
I have not had any students who have taken six months or nine months for the mcat who have regretted it , and so they've all said man , it was amazing because my preparation wasn't as stressful , because I knew I had plenty of time , and also it allowed me to do all the things I wanted to do to make sure I could do my best on my mcat testing .
So establishing that realistic timeline allows us to avoid the enemy of successful MCAT prep , which is time pressure . How many of you guys already haven't even started ? Maybe you just started ? How many of you guys feel time pressured in your MCAT study ? And what I mean by that is you feel like man , I don't have enough time .
You feel like you're rushing to keep up with what you're supposed to be doing . And when we're rushed like that , when we're focused on our lack of time , the clock becomes our focus instead of the learning we should be doing , the growing we should be doing . And if you're not focused on learning , guys , you ain't going to learn .
Instead , you're like , oh , I got to get through this , I got to get through this , I got to get through this , and we're focused on getting through things as opposed to learning from them . And it's a big , big problem for a lot of students .
And if you're one of these students , you've gone through a lot of questions or you've gone through a lot of books and you can't remember what you read or what questions you did , and you're constantly forgetting things .
It's probably because you're not as focused on learning as you should be , because you're more focused on the time , the lack there of it and how that is complicating your day . So we've got to shift our focus away from that . Are you , guys , enjoying this video ? If you are , take a second . Like this video right now .
Let the algorithm know that Dr Pinted is on here , helping you reach your MCAT score goal and helping you reach your ultimate goal of becoming a doctor . Share this with someone who needs this MCAT message right here , right now . Guys . Thank you so much for joining me . That's it for another episode of the Pre-Med Productivity Podcast .
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