Customer Reviews

Kaplan MCAT Comprehensive Review with CD-ROM, 7th Edition : 2004 Edition

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This book provides a very good summary of everything that you need to know for the MCAT, but I didn't find it detailed enough to really understand the information well. It does have good tips, clinical examples that you might find on the MCAT, and connections between the different subjects. However, I think that the most important thing is to do practice problems on the material, so you know what you understand and don't. This book has very few practice problems. I would recommend this as a good summary book if you are taking an MCAT class or have learned the material very recently, not as a primary study material. If you aren't taking an MCAT class, the only series I have found to be excellent is Berkeley Review. I am studying from these books now. The quantity of material is similar to what you would get from taking the Kaplan or PR course for a fifth the price, and you can self pace. Unforetunately, you have to buy the books directly from them, so many people outside of California don't know about them.

Good luck!

First I'll introduce myself- I'm a 37 year old with a BA and MAT in biology who is planning on returning to school next year. I am using this as a study guide for the OAT, since 1) the OAT books are not well reviewed, and 2)they say if you can 80% the MCAT, you'll 90% the OAT.

The MCAT covers several years worth of material. This book- hefty as it is - is only a good starting point for studying. It outlines the material covered on the MCAT with some depth, but that's it - it's only an outline. If the material is somewhat familiar to you, you'll need no other resource, but when you get stumped, you will occasionally have to seek more detail elsewhere.
The book also does not have many practice problems- which again will cause you to open old text books. There is a single test in the rear, but I always feel like saving that to the end. The CD is ok. It also contains a test and some handy flashcards. The flashcards are nice, but you can't work with them by subject.

Again- this book is only a beginning. I purchased this book because I trust Kaplan and, with my limited expectations, I have not been disappointed. Some of the other MCAT prep-books had "reviews" which read suspiciously like planted advertisements. Some of the other MCAT prep-books had " review opinions" which were posted with near-identical wording on different web sites. ANY book which claims to have ALL the answers to your MCAT needs is lying, unless the tome is over 2000 pages, or has a font size of 8. So, suspicious of the competition, I bought this book and I have not yet been disappointed.

P.S. Being Kaplan, there are a lot of helpful hints and strategies as you read along, but, if you are familiar with Kaplan, you'd already expect that.

I did very well on the MCATs, and I attribute a large degree of my success to this review book. While it's important to have a solid base from your classes already, this book will make sure you know every topic covered on the MCATs, including areas my classes had left out (e.g. optics in the physical science section). It covers all sections well, includes test strategies and practice problems/essays, and if you take the time to thoroughly study the book, it will pay off. My only warning is that the practice tests and problems are deliberately more difficult than the MCAT so Kaplan can claim to have improved your score by a vast number of points. For example, they make the math deliberately time-consuming to slow you down (there was no long division on the real MCAT!). I scored a full 7 points higher on the actual MCAT than on the Kaplan test, so don't stress if you're not scoring how you'd like.

It's a good review book although it lacks some topics(check the topics' list from the official MCAT site). In my opinion it doesn't have enough practice problems and that's why I bought a workbook.

This book is a very good review of all the science topics if you have already learned them. I didn't find them very confusing. They were concise for the most part. Every so often, the author(s) would start naming body parts, or enzyme precursors that you really didn't need to know, but I have heard that other books are even worse. I think this book will reteach you just about everything you need to know for the MCAT. Good Luck!

Kaplan is like a rapist in a bar looking for a naive girl who needs a ride home. They will tell you that they help people improve their MCAT score by an average of 8 points by enrolling in their program. A little thought can help one realize however, that this is far from the truth. In fact they have no ideal about how writting is graded on the MCAT or what sophisticated biology material looks like because they know that they can sell the old stuff and make the same ammount of money. They forget to tell you that an added pressure of 1200 spent dollars sits on your shoulders as you are taking an exam where PRESSURE AND STRESS DETERMINE ALL. Needless to say, real statistics show that Kaplan hinders more than it helps. About 85% of currently enrolled medical student's IQ was reflected in their choice to have not used Kaplan. Try this out for your self. Ask around. It is true. Proceed with caution before purchasing anything from this company!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!