Customer Reviews

Examkrackers MCAT Complete Study Package

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This study package is marketed as the only one out there that gives you everything you need to know and nothing more. That's absolutely true. While studying for the MCAT, I used these books as my sole source of review material and found nothing lacking. I had friends who were taking Kaplan and Princeton Review prep courses, and I looked at the books they used: they all tell you to memorize way more info than you need. They're also a lot more boring than the Examkrackers books, because, face it: if you're going to spend three months poring over some review books, you might as well get ones with color pages, a really dorky cracker mascot, and at least some sense of personality behind the writing voice. The Examkrackers books won't ask you to waste valuable brain space on extraneous material, and the style of the books favors conceptual understanding over rote memorization (though of course the latter is used when appropriate, as with biological sciences).

I would suggest that in addition to buying this package, you also get the Examkrackers "101 Passages in MCAT Verbal Reasoning". It's probably the only good book out there for practicing MCAT verbal questions and it's an absolute must. I was scoring 9's on the Verbal before I worked through it, and 12's by the end.

I would say that if you can learn and memorize all the things that these Examkrackers review books tell you to, you are completely set in terms of knowledge. Everything else is just practice, and for that I suggest doing all the tests you can get your hands on. The AAMC publishes old MCATs which are DEFINITELY worth buying, despite the expense. For more practice I would also suggest Princeton Review's "Practice MCATs" and Kaplan's "MCAT Practice Tests" (each contains two complete tests) as well as Kaplan's "MCAT 45". Examkrackers also puts out a book titled "16 Mini-MCATs" which I found to be useful for additional practice. The only caveat I can add is that Princeton Review's practice tests are written to be harder than the actual MCAT -- they will ask you questions about stuff that is contained in their books but is NOT on the MCAT. Therefore, I wouldn't panic if you find that you don't do well on them. The Examkrackers and Kaplan tests ARE commensurate in difficulty to the MCAT so they are more useful for gauging your performance.

I did not use any of the Examkrackers 1001 Questions series, because I understand that all of the questions in those books are stand-alone, which is unrepresentative of the real MCAT, on which almost all the questions are passage based. However, if you're having trouble learning the science, they might be a good option because stand-alone questions really test your knowledge base. Just keep in mind that success on the MCAT is based just as much on how well you can glean information from passages as it is on pure knowledge. And learning how to glean is something that only practice with actual MCATs (either real AAMC ones or test company-made ones) can give you.

So basically, my point is that if you use this study package and practice the hell out of all the practice tests you can find, you should be fine. I never took a MCAT prep course (couldn't afford one) so all I did was shell out about $300 for books and tests, and I ended up with a nice 42R. (15P, 13V, 14B) It can be done. Examkrackers can help you do it. Go buy this study package now. ^_^

I used the EK set almost exclusively during my self-prep for the April 2004 MCAT. Here is what I thought about the sections. Biology was excellent, Organic was very good if you already have a good background in the subject, and Physics and General Chemistry were both very good, however, look to other sources for review over the topics of heat/energy/thermodynamics; those topics are presented poorly by EK.

Other than the last problem, the entire package was an excellent value and totally helped me get down all the science I needed for the test, on which I ended up receiving a 38 (11VR, 14PS, 13BS).

This gives you exactly what you need, and nothing else. It is a great condensed format that if read in full will prpare you for anything on the MCAT. I wish I had these book when I took orgo or physics, t would've helped me in those courses.

This was a great review for the MCAT and helped me significantly raise my score. But I found I still needed to look at text books to make sure I got everything on the AAMC list. It still gave me all the basics, and it's consice and easy to read.

I loved the way this review presented the material and reviewed with questions in mcat format every section. I chose to use this review set instead of spending a ton of money on review classes, and I am more than pleased with my MCAT score. It had very few errors and an accompanying web site for questions/corrections. It's easy to get through and has everything you need. All the other companies are overrated.

Recommend this highly - only had a few books available to study, used the o-chem book and the audio osmosis set and wished I had all the other books - cannot recommend this product too much - got a 13-15 Written (or whatever the reading section is) 13 Physicial Sciences, and 14 Bio on the MCAT - and I never took an O-Chem course until after I took the MCAT.