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 About the Author

KEN TAO
DIRECTOR OF MCAT PROGRAMMING
AT MEDSCHOOLCOACH

Ken Tao graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science in

Bioengineering and a Bachelor of Arts in Molecular and Cell Biology. He was
a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi as well as the recipient of the
Jeffrey A. Winer Memorial Prize, the award given to the top graduating senior in
the Neurobiology. Ken is now pursuing his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard
University.

Ken is nationally recognized as a premier MCAT mind. He has worked with

thousands of undergraduate students as a graduate teaching assistant and
MCAT instructor/tutor for the Princeton Review. At Princeton Review, Ken was
the only tutor certified in all subjects, was one of the highest rated MCAT
tutors ever and was a teacher trainer for Princeton Review’s MCAT division.
Additionally, Ken was the founder of Magoosh’s MCAT division. He has written
content for dozens of MCAT books and guides.

Ken’s track record for improving student scores on the MCAT is exceptional.
Scores of his students have achieved MCAT scores >40 on the old exam and
>520 on the current exam.

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 Study Plan

1 2
Create a study plan. The MCAT is a big deal Identify your target score. Check out the
and not a test you want to take without an MCAT scores for your top choice medical
action plan. schools to determine your goal score.

3 4
Take a diagnostic test. It’s helpful to know Make sure your study plan gives you ample
how far you are from your target score time to prepare your exam. If you realize you
and which sections that will require extra won’t have enough time to study, consider
attention. pushing back your test date.

5 6
Include break days in your study plan. We Ask your pre-medical peers for personal
all need study breaks and it’s best to pre- study tips. It’s great to get advice from
plan them, so you don’t fall behind in your others who have conquered the MCAT
studies later. exam!

7 8
Front-load your studies. Studying hard Make sure your study plan involves content
early on is much less stressful than review. Let’s be honest. You’ve forgotten a
cramming later. lot of content from your college courses
and need to review.

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 9 10
Switch subjects for content review on a Complete all the MCAT prerequisite
regular basis. You do not want to study one courses. Even harder than reviewing
subject at a time, as the MCAT will not test content you’ve forgotten is learning
you on one subject at a time. content for the first time.

11 12
Make sure your study plan involves practice Do practice passages and questions in
passages. Memorizing scientific facts alone the morning. The MCAT starts at 8 AM and
is not enough to get you your target score. you want to get your brain used to doing
practice questions in the morning.

13 14
Make sure your study plan includes multiple Do your best to simulate test day
full-length practice tests. Practice tests conditions when taking full-length practice
are important for building up the mental tests. This includes waking up at the same
stamina to take the 7.5-hour long MCAT time that you’re going to wake up on test
exam. day, using a computer with a mouse (not a
trackpad), and making sure to follow all the
breaks between the sections.

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 15 16
Pick up a set of MCAT books. College Make sure you’re using MCAT books for the
textbooks are great but contain too much new MCAT. The MCAT only changed a few
information that you don’t need to know for years ago and you want to make sure that
the exam. you’re not using MCAT books for the old
exam.

17 18
Time yourself when completing practice Make sure to complete all the AAMC
passages and full-length practice tests. The practice questions. There are no better
MCAT is a timed exam so you need to get practice questions than those written by
used to doing questions timed as well. the creators of the MCAT.

19 20
Find a study buddy. A study buddy can Find a reliable study buddy. Studying can
provide motivation to keep you focused in be fun but make sure that your study buddy
your studies. doesn’t distract you so much that you
aren’t making progress.

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 21 22
Help yourself by teaching your study buddy. At some point during your studies, make
You know you understand the material well sure to go through the AAMC MCAT
if you can explain it to someone else. Content Outline and compile a list of all the
unfamiliar terms that you need to study.
The AAMC MCAT Content Outline contains
23 a comprehensive list of all the topics tested
on the exam.
Include review days in your study plan.
You’re bound to forget material as you
study, so it’s good to reserve a few days
in your study schedule to review previous
topics.

24
Eat healthy and get exercise. Good nutrition
will provide the energy you need to study,
and exercise will help you relieve stress.

25
Consider getting an MCAT tutor. The MCAT
is a tough exam to prepare for and getting
a tutor to guide you through the process
can be tremendously helpful.

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 Strategies and Techniques

26 27
Use mnemonics to help memorize difficult Instead of doing one practice passage at a
concepts and terms. The more outrageous time, do a set of several passages in a row.
your mnemonics, the more effective they Pacing is an important skill to develop for
are. the MCAT and you can’t learn it by doing
one passage at a time.

28 29

Set up checkpoints for yourself during the Try different approaches for highlighting
exam (e.g. ~42 minutes after passage 5, ~18 the passage text. There are many ways to
minutes after passage 8). With checkpoints, use the highlighting tool and you need to
you can make sure that you don’t end up find a method that works for you.
with 5 minutes left and 2-3 uncompleted
passages!

30 31
Don’t highlight everything. Highlighting Come up with a plan to organize your note
everything is the same as not highlighting board booklet (i.e. scratch paper) during the
at all. exam. Good organization can save you time
when reviewing questions by allowing you
to more efficiently find your work/notes/
calculations for questions.

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 32 33
Don’t expect score improvements Before reviewing the solutions to practice
immediately when trying new strategies. It questions, try re-applying your strategies
takes time to get used to new strategies, to all the questions you got wrong. If your
so it may be awhile before you start to see strategies still don’t work when you have
improvements. unlimited time when reviewing questions,
you may need to adjust your approach.

34 35

Review all the questions you get wrong AND Keep a record of all the questions you get
all the questions you get right. Sometimes wrong. This will allow you to identify trends
you get questions right with flawed logic in your weaknesses and come up with
and that flawed logic may not work with strategies to get those questions correct in
other questions. future practice passages.

36 37
Use process of elimination when Know when to skip questions. Every
approaching questions. You don’t have to question on the MCAT is worth the same
figure out the right answer if you can find amount of points, so you want to make sure
three wrong answer choices! you complete all the easy questions first
before coming back to the harder ones.

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 Chemistry /Physics

38 39
Take biochemistry before you take your Try to connect the different science
MCAT. Biochemistry was not a big deal on subjects together. Unlike college courses,
the old MCAT. On the current exam, there the MCAT will require you to synthesize
are more biochemistry questions than concepts across multiple scientific
general chemistry, organic chemistry, or disciplines.
physics questions.

40 41
High Yield Biochemistry Topic: Amino acids. High Yield General Chemistry Topic: Acid/
Make sure you know the one- and three- Base chemistry. Make sure you know the
letter codes, can recognize the chemical difference between strong vs. weak acids/
structure of the side chains, and are be able bases, know what buffers are, and can
to classify each side chain as acidic, basic, calculate the pH of solutions.
polar, or nonpolar.

42
High Yield General Chemistry Topic: Periodic
Trends. Make sure you know the trends of
and can define each of the following terms:
effective nuclear charge/shielding, atomic
radius, ionization energy, electron affinity,
and electronegativity.

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 43 44

High Yield General Chemistry Topic: High Yield Organic Chemistry Topic:
Electrochemistry. Make sure you are able to Isomers. Make sure you know how to
recognize redox reactions and understand classify isomers as constitutional/
how they are applied in electrochemical structural isomers, conformational isomers/
cells. rotamers, geometric isomers, stereoisomers,
enantiomers, and diastereomers.

45 46

High Yield Organic Chemistry Topic: High Yield Organic Chemistry Topic:
Separation techniques. Make sure you Structure and stability. Make sure you
know all the different types of separation understand how the structure of an organic
techniques, including chromatography (TLC, molecule, particularly the distribution of
column, HPLC, size-exclusion, ion-exchange, electrons, can affect its stability
and affinity), distillation, extraction, and
resolution.

47
High Yield Organic Chemistry Topic:
Analytical techniques. Make sure you
know all the different types of analytical
techniques, including mass spectrometry,
ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, IR
spectroscopy, and proton NMR.

48
High Yield Physics Topic: Fluids. Make sure
you understand the concepts of hydrostatic
pressure, buoyancy, and ideal fluid flow.

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 49 50

High Yield Physics Topic: Waves. Make sure High Yield Physics Topic: Optics. Make sure
you understand the general characteristics you understand how lenses and mirrors
of waves and the properties of light and produce images from objects.
sound.

51 52

Make sure you know all the equations Learn how to use unit analysis. There
and constants for physics and general are many lengthy calculation questions
chemistry. While some MCAT questions will that can be solved quickly and easily by
provide you with equations and constants, analyzing the units.
there are many others that will not be
provide them for you.

53
Focus on understanding the general concepts and trends. The MCAT covers a wide breath of
topics but doesn’t require a comprehensive understanding of each topic.

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 CARS

54 55
If you are a slow reader, consider using Read every MCAT CARS passage as if it is
speed reading software. Learning to the most exciting text that you have ever
increase your reading pace will not only read. You can’t expect to understand a
help you answer more questions but can CARS passage well if all you’re thinking is
also increase your accuracy. how boring it is.

56 57
Focus on understanding the main idea of Skip hard passages and come back to them
each passage. Knowing the main idea alone later. Running into tough CARS passages
will help you answer many MCAT CARS can be like running into a wall. There’s no
questions. reason why you can’t run around the wall
and revisit it later.

58
Eliminate extreme answer choices. Between
a moderate and an extreme answer choice,
the answer is almost never the extreme one.

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 59 60

Eliminate confusing or obscure answer Read MCAT-like text on a regular basis. The
choices. With these answer choices, best CARS test takers are those who read
students often think: “Hmm…I don’t really regularly. There are multiple online websites
understand this so maybe it’s the answer?” with MCAT-like text that you can read on a
Watch out for these traps! weekly basis.

61 62

Focus on improving your accuracy before Don’t be afraid to ask for help. For many
worrying about pacing. If your accuracy is students, it may seem impossible to see
still low with unlimited time, then you have any improvement on the CARS section. An
more important issues to deal with than MCAT tutor can teach you new strategies
passage timing! and approaches that you never considered
before.

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 Bio/Biochemistry

63 64
Try taking physiology and other advanced Read a few peer-reviewed scientific
biology courses before your MCAT. While journal articles. Familiarizing yourself with
these courses aren’t required for the MCAT, scientific jargon will help you with MCAT
they give you a better understanding of passages adapted from scientific journal
the topics tested on the Bio/Biochemistry articles.
section.

65 66
Be familiar with common laboratory High Yield Biology Topic: Biological
techniques in biology. Many of the Macromolecules. Make sure you know
research passages on this section will the physiological roles of proteins,
require a general understanding of the carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids.
different techniques used in biotechnology,
including western/southern/northern blot,
immunoprecipitation, gel electrophoresis,
and fluorescence microscopy.

67 68
High Yield Biology Topic: Genetics. Make High Yield Biology Topic: Eukaryotes vs.
sure you understand the central dogma and Prokaryotes. Make sure you know the
how genetic information is inherited. major differences between eukaryotic and
prokaryotic cells.

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 69 70
High Yield Biology Topic: Organ Systems. High Yield Biology Topic: Hormones. Make
Make sure you understand how all the sure you know the glands that secrete each
key organ systems work, including the hormone, the target cells of each hormone,
nervous, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine, the effect exerted by each hormone,
lymphatic, immune, digestive, excretory, and how the release of each hormone is
skeletal, skin, and reproductive systems regulated.

71 72
High Yield Biochemistry Topic: Enzyme High Yield Biochemistry Topic:
kinetics and inhibition. Make sure you are Carbohydrate metabolism. Make sure
familiar with Michael-Menten kinetics and you know all the major biochemical
the different types of enzyme inhibitors pathways for carbohydrate metabolism,
(competitive, uncompetitive, mixed/ including glycolysis, the Krebs cycle,
noncompetitive) electron transport chain, gluconeogenesis,
glycogenesis, glycogenolysis, and the
pentose phosphate pathway.

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 Psychology and Sociology

73 74
Memorize a bunch of a terms. Compared Be able to recognize the key figures
with the other sections of the exam, the associated with major psychological and
Psych/Soc. section is the only one where sociological theories. Unfortunately, you
you can expect significant improvement in do need to know the names of famous
your score from memorizing a whole bunch psychologists and sociologists for the
of terms. Psych/Soc section.

75 76
High Yield Psychology Topic: Development. High yield Psychology Topic: Emotion and
Make sure you know all the major Stress. Make sure you know all the major
psychological theories of development. psychological theories of emotion and the
biological nature of emotion and stress.

77 78
High Yield Psychology Topic: Personality. High Yield Psychology Topic: Psychological
Make sure you know all the major Disorders. Make sure you know the
psychological theories of personality. difference between the major psychological
disorders and the known biological bases of
neurological disorders.

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 79 80

High Yield Psychology/Sociology Topic: High Yield Sociology Topic: Theoretical

Self-identity. Make sure you understand the Approaches. Make sure you know the
different aspects of self-identity and how major theoretical perspectives of
self-identity forms during development. sociology, including functionalism, conflict
theory, symbolic interactionism, social
constructionism, exchange-rational choice,
and feminist theory.

81 82

High Yield Sociology Topic: Demography. High Yield Sociology Topic: Social inequality.
Make sure you understand the different Make sure you understand the different
demographic characteristics and processes. types of social inequality and their impacts
on society.

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 Test Day Preparation

83 84
Get used to the keyboard shortcuts on the Consider visiting the testing center before
MCAT. Learning the keyboard shortcuts your test day. Doing a dry run of your MCAT
can save you time going the passages and test day is helpful for relieving stress.
questions on the exam.

85 86
Plan out your transportation to the testing Plan out your snacks and lunch on test day.
center. You don’t want to have to scramble The more you figure out before your test
to figure out how you’re going to get to the day, the less stressed you will be.
testing center on the day of your exam.

87 88
Be careful of burn out. Studying for the As you approach your test day, focus on
MCAT is a tiring process and sometimes memorizing all the things you need to
a break can be more helpful than doing know for the exam. This includes the amino
another practice test. acids, hormones, organic functional groups,
biochemical pathways, and more!

89
If your practice test scores are far below your target score, consider pushing back your test
date. Even worse than pushing back your test date is having to retake the MCAT.

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 Test Day

90 91
Get a good night of sleep before test day. Eat breakfast! Your brain needs energy to
The MCAT is a 7.5-hour long exam and you function optimally.
need your rest to stay focused throughout
the entire exam.

92 93
Make sure to bring valid identification. You Make sure to bring snacks and a lunch! It’s
will need this to take your exam! tough to stay focused when your stomach
is rumbling.

94
Plan on arriving to your testing center early.
Traffic can be unpredictable at times and
you don’t want to be late for your MCAT.
Don’t bring study materials with you.
You are not allowed to bring any written
materials to the testing center.

95
Turn your cell phone off. You are not allowed
to use your cell phone at any point during
the exam, including the breaks.

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 96 97

Take advantage of your breaks. Eat your Don’t panic. If you get to a tough passage
snacks, get a drink of water, use the or question, take a few deep breaths to
restroom, or at least walk around a bit calm yourself.
during your breaks.

98 99

Remember, you’ve done a ton of Check the review screen before the end of
practice tests. Approach it as such and each section. You don’t want to leave any
you’ll do great. questions unanswered!

100
Celebrate! Once you finish, stop thinking about the MCAT for a few days! Go out with your
friends and hug your family members!

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 Proven Results

93% 96%
of our customers found of our customers would
MedSchoolCoach “very helpful” recommend our services to a
or “extremely helpful” in the friend
application process

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 Meet Some of Our Tutors

KEN TAO DOUGLAS MCLEMORE

Ken is nationally recognized as a premier Doug served as the Assistant National
MCAT tutor and MedSchoolCoach’s Director of Content Director for the MCAT at Princeton
MCAT Programming. He has helped thousands Review prior to joining MedSchoolCoach
of students through the MCAT process.

KATHRYN HENSHAW THEODORE MORALES

Kathryn scored in the 99th Percentile Theo is an experienced teacher and scored in
on her MCAT. the 99th percentile on multiple MCAT sections

RISHAV ADHIKARI NAYNA SHAH

Rishav is a passionate educator, having Nanya has been tutoring for MCAT for several
worked for Teach for America. He scored in years and scored >97% on her MCAT
>99th percentile on the MCAT.

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 Learn About Our Award
Winning MCAT Tutoring

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