MCAT Study Tools Review Sheets

I'm a first year medical student at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and these are the review sheets I made for myself while studying for the MCAT. I've always liked using review sheets to go over everything I need to know rapidly so I can get a lot of repetitions on the facts. I didn't find anything like this for the MCAT, though, so I made my own. I took a review course and before every class I would highlight the reading and then attend the lecture and take notes. After the class I would sit down for several hours and go through what I had highlighted, my lecture notes, internet materials on topics I was confused on and material from old classes and pick out what was most important, rephrase it into the most understandable and concise terminology possible, organize it so that everything I needed to take away from that section was on one sheet of paper and add in any relevant diagrams. I spent a lot of time thinking through how to phrase things in the fewest words possible and organize it so it was easiest to understand. This gave me something I could review quickly in order to stay fresh on the different subjects. There are no explanations, just the bare bones. Unfortunately this test is so big that the bare bones takes 75 pages. Between reading, class, research and making a readable copy of the notes, you are looking at well over 300 hours of work. I used this a ton in the months leading up to the test.

Having everything you need to know in one place is a huge help when trying to wrap your mind around what all is on the test. If you have time, the best possible use of these would be as a reference for making your own review sheets. This is because, obviously, a huge reason this was helpful for me was that all of the concepts were expressed in my own words. If you have time to make your own, that will reinforce the material better than mine possibly could. Mine would definitely be a great resource throughout this process because it would serve as an example, show you one way to express the ideas, and help isolate what material is actually necessary. This took me an immense amount of work, though, and if you don't have time for that, aren't convinced it would be worth doing, or would rather use your studying time for practice questions, I don't think you'll find a better way to review the material than this.

These played a big part in my ability to score a 35 on the MCAT and helped my roommate score a 43 on the real thing, so between the two of us they have been extensively quality tested. This will certainly not give you everything you need to study for this test, but it will be an incredibly helpful companion to the work that you're going to be doing. It really allows you to use your time as efficiently as possible, which is a precious commodity when trying to get this over with.

Please note that because this is made from a scanned copy of the handwritten notes which has been reconfigured for the eBook format that it does not fill up the entire page on a Kindle Fire due to the Kindle Fire's having a different aspect ratio than a standard sized piece of paper. The notes will absolutely still work on this device, but I don't want users to be disappointed when they find that it doesn't utilize the entire screen. If you are using a Kindle, Paperwhite, iPad, iPhone or Kindle Fire HD (all of which have screens which more closely match the dimensions of a piece of paper), the notes will fill up a much higher proportion of the screen. The iPad in particular seems to have an optimal aspect ratio for these notes.