You’ve studied for the MCAT before, but it didn't go as planned.
And so, you're starting over with a clean slate.
Do you quickly review content so that you can move on to practice?
Well, what if you missed something, or do you start over, guarantee that you're going
to cover everything, but in the process waste so much time!
In this Leah4sci video I'm going to show you how you can get the benefit of starting over
but also get the benefit of the Speedy review.
Why would you even want to start from scratch?
In my program, The MCAT study hall, I work with a lot of students who have studied before,
but for whatever reason, it didn't work out, and they come to me to have a strategy to
do it right so that it becomes one and done.
If you're like my students, maybe the last time you studied you just read through your
books but you didn't do enough practice to really drill it in or you read through the
Books but didn't actually understand or maybe you did study the right way, but it was so
long ago and then something happened that chances are you forgot a decent amount.
But because you want to get it right this time, by going back, that means having to
redo every subject, every chapter, every topic, every everything and that could take forever.
Don't get me wrong.
That is the ideal scenario.
But do you really have that kind of time?
On the other hand, if you just quickly review without starting over, yeah, you're going
to refresh a lot of the information but what about those things you didn't understand or
what if you just pick and choose the topics, you think you need to review and wind up missing
something so critical that it costs you a point on your MCAT in each section.
Let's agree that the only way to make sure you covered everything is to Cover everything.
But in a way that doesn't waste so much time and helps you easily identify what you need
to focus on in detail and what you can go through quickly.
If this sounds like a plan, make sure you give this video a thumbs up, subscribe to
my channel and hit that bell notification icon, so you don't miss out on any new videos
and let's see how to do it.
Back in my EMT days, when we brought a patient to the emergency room, we would check in with
the triage nurse.
We gave the triage nurse an overview of the patient’s situation, and they would decide
where the patient goes.
For the guy who called the ambulance a full week after falling down and bumping his head,
he got sent to the waiting room, but the kid who had an allergic reaction and wasn't breathing
only kept alive because I was actively squeezing air into his lungs.
He was so high priority that the ER staff met us at the ambulance and he was already
in the resuscitation room by the time I finished giving the triage nurse my report.
No, we're not going to resuscitate your books though I'm sure you’d just like to go poof..
Well okay maybe, but here's how.
Go in with the intention of redoing everything from scratch, but you're going to triage each
chapter as follows: Using your book as a guide, open to the chapter summary, look at the subtopics
and ask yourself, how do I feel about this particular topic?
Pretty good, Kinda sorta, not really.
If you feel pretty good about a topic, then the review is just a formality.
As you quickly fly through the book, I want you to think, got this, got this, got this.
And if you get to something where you think, I don't got this!
Well, great!
That’s exactly why you’re reading everything.
This is where you slow down, read it carefully, maybe even find a supplemental video to make
sure you really understand.
And then you resume flying through the rest of the chapter.
It's not enough to think you know it, you have to prove it to yourself by doing the
practice questions.
If you score at least 70%, review to make sure you understand what you missed and keep
going.
But if you score less than 70%, I hate to break it to you.
You don't got this, you have to go back and redo the chapter.
Then redo the questions to make sure you get them right.
I discuss the 70% rule on my website linked below.
This is the material that you kinda sorta know you're not ready to do a quick fly through
because you're not as comfortable with it, but at the same time, you don't want to go
through it in detail because it's not as unfamiliar to you.
Depending on the topic, you have a couple of options; If you’re an audio-visual learner
like myself and prefer to learn from video, then maybe watch the videos at 1.3 or 1.5
speed with the same thought in mind.
Do I understand this?
Do I know this?
am I good to move on? but the video will provide you with the extra explanations to make sure
that you really understand.
And hey, if you get to a topic that you realize you don't know, slow down, play the video
at regular speed, pause, let it sink in, re-watch if needed.
Then go back to the chapter and do the same thing as before.
Skim, skim, skim thinking, I got this, I got this, I got this, and slow down for anything
that you're not comfortable with.
And again, don't skip the questions, make sure you know the information by proving to
yourself that you can score at least 70%.
Number three, is why we did this method.
This is why you went through everything quickly, so that you have the time to slow down for
the topics you know you need to work on.
For a lot of students, it's that one topic that they never understood or they always
struggled with.
Think fluids or Optics in physics.
Spectroscopy in organic chemistry.
As I explain in my How To Study the MCAT Sciences post linked below.
This is where you need to take the time, start with a video to learn, watch twice if you
need to, find other videos if you need to, do whatever it takes to understand, then go
through the book.
Do that carefully and of course, practice questions.
If you’re starting fresh with MCAT content, does this feel like a less wasteful approach
to make sure that you get through everything in time?
Let me know in the comments below.
Using this method, How do you know that you're on track?
How do you know that you're making the progress that you need to?
This is exactly what I show you in this video on my website at Leah4sci.com/phases.
Again, that’s Leah4sci.com/phases