How to study for the MCAT with only free materials

03 December 2023 - 9 mins read time
Tags: Med Guide

Anki

I took the test on Jan 15, 2022, and I scored a 524 (132/131/130/131). I remember when I first began studying, I felt really overwhelmed. I didn’t know where to start, and reading through the online forums, it seemed like dishing out some cash for study materials was unavoidable. But I decided to take an unconventional approach and only use free materials during my studying (no UWorld, no textbooks, nada). Ultimately, it paid off! Now I want to share how I was able to achieve this score on a budget.

Table of ContentsOverview Timeline Guide Conclusion Materials

Overview

Whenever people ask me about my MCAT process, the conversation usually goes like this:

Them: How did you study for the MCAT?
Me: I used Anki.
Them: But how did you do content review?
Me: Pretty much just through Anki.

People are often surprised that I didn’t dedicate a block of time specifically to content review. Here’s my thinking: if you start with weeks of pure content review, you can get overwhelmed by all the information (“where do I even start?”). Instead, my philosophy was to focus on flashcards and practice questions, and dive deeper into subjects as they come up. This seems a lot more manageable than forcing yourself to read dense textbooks and watch videos for weeks on end.

Here are some other general principles that I stuck to while studying.

  1. Prioritize your health. I’m putting this first because I’ve seen what this test can do to people’s mental and physical health. Take lots of breaks! Socialize! Even when I was in my most intense phase of studying, I still took 1-2 days off a week.

  2. Learn from your mistakes. Whenever you make a mistake, make a flashcard so you never make the same mistake again. Whenever you take a practice test, go through every single question and make a flashcard for terms you don’t understand.

  3. Take advantage of free materials. I’ll list the free materials I used down below, but there are plenty on the internet. Also, if you think you might qualify for financial aid, apply for the AAMC Fee Assistance Program! They provided all four full-lengths (FLs) and more to me for free.

  4. Pay attention in class. One of the reasons I was able to get away with skipping content review is because I retained a lot of information from my classes. The more you retain, the less you have to study!

Timeline

This was my general timeline, to give you an idea of my experience. I began studying during my sophomore year of college, and took the test in my junior year. I was taking full-time classes throughout.

Jan 2021: This is when I began lightly studying. At this point, I was only doing Anki—no practice questions, no deep dives, just flashcards. As a baseline, I took a Blueprint half-length diagnostic, and scored a 509 (125/129/125/130) (but if we’re being honest, I definitely cheated during this diagnostic so that’s an overestimate).

Aug 2021: This is when I sat down and came up with a serious plan. I made a schedule for taking all of my FLs (approximately two per month). I went through the list of MCAT topics and evaluated which ones were high priority for me. I began using free “question a day” websites for practice questions. I was still doing Anki every day. Around this time, I took another Blueprint diagnostic, and scored a 514 (129/128/128/129).

Dec 2021: This was grind time. I was on Winter Break, so I spent 5-8 hr per weekday just doing MCAT prep. On my first AAMC FL, I scored a 518 (130/131/128/129).

Jan 2022: The real deal! I scored a 524 (132/131/130/131).

Guide

If I could go back in time to when I first started studying, here’s the step-by-step guide I would give myself.

Getting Started

  1. Take a low-stress diagnostic test, like the free half-length diagnostic from Blueprint. This will give you an idea of what you’re studying for, and also what you need to work on.

  2. Go through this spreadsheet of MCAT topics, and rate how confident you feel about each topic. It’s a long list, so this might take you a few days. Don’t be discouraged! This is just so you know what the test could possibly cover.

  3. Sign up for Blueprint’s Question of the Day emails. Out of all the question-a-day websites I used, this one was my favorite, so you might as well do them from the start.

  4. Create a schedule of some sort. Don’t overthink it. I mainly just used mine to keep track of when I was planning to take my FLs. My thought process was: I want to save my five AAMC FLs for the last six weeks (one per week, plus one retake at the end for confidence). Then distribute the other practice tests throughout the remaining time, something like two per month.

  5. Download Anki.

Anki

Anki is a free flashcard program that uses an algorithm (spaced repetition) to show you high-priority cards. Since Anki comprised the bulk of my studying, here’s a guide on how I used it.

  1. Download the MileDown Anki deck. I like this deck because the cards are short, and each card includes a link to an in-depth video that you can watch if you’re unfamiliar with the content.

  2. Download the heatmap extension for Anki. Sounds silly, but this little heatmap was the only thing motivating me to study sometimes.

  3. Check how many total cards are in the deck (should be around 2900). Count how many days you have until your test. Divide to determine how many new cards you need to see each day. Then set the “new cards/day” limit to exactly that. There’s no reason to do more than that—you’ll just get overwhelmed.

  4. Set the “maximum reviews/day” limit to 9999 (infinity). This is so that you can fully benefit from the spaced repetition algorithm; if the card is scheduled for today, then you will definitely see it.

  5. One quirk about Anki is that it shows you new cards in alphabetical order by deck. So by default, Anki will show you all the psych cards first, because the name of that deck is “Behavioral.” If you want to change the order, rename the decks to have a number at the start, e.g. “1. Behavioral”.

  6. Start doing your cards every day. If a term/topic shows up that you don’t recognize, write it down in your study plan. That way, when you’re done with flashcards for the day, you have a list of topics to do “content review” (watch the videos on the cards, look it up, etc.). By simultaneously doing flashcards and content review, you’ll get through everything without having to meticulously plan out your content review.

  7. Use lots of mnemonics! If you can’t find a mnemonic, make your own!

Throughout my studying, I followed two simple rules: (1) if it’s in my Anki deck, then I will memorize it, and (2) if I want to remember it, then I will put it in my Anki deck. This means every time I got a question wrong, I made a flashcard for it. By the end of my studying, I had made 524 cards. Learn from your mistakes!

In fact, while I was studying, I didn’t really take notes—I only made flashcards. Notes are static; you write them down once, and you may or may not remember them. But Anki forces you to memorize your flashcards. The only exceptions for me were organ systems and biochemical pathways—these are so complicated that it’s worthwhile to have some clean notes to refer to.

Grind Time

When you’re ready to pick up the pace (~1.5 months away from test date), your main priority should be practice tests. Here is a guide to making the most of them.

  1. The MCAT is largely a stamina test. Therefore, you want to simulate testing conditions as closely as possible. Figure out whether your test is in the morning or afternoon. Take your practice test at that time, in a quiet environment, wearing clothes similar to what you expect to wear, etc.

  2. Nail down the timing. Everyone has their own strategy, but my strategy was to dedicate 10 min max per passage for CARS, and 20 min for every 15 questions in the other sections. I drew a little timetable on my scratch paper to keep track of the time (checking off every 15 questions), which worked really well for me.

  3. When you’re done with an FL, congrats! Rest up. Next is the hardest and most important part—over the following week, go through everything again, and make flashcards for everything you got wrong and every term you don’t recognize. This is how I improved my score from 509 to 524. The test itself takes 8 hours; reviewing the test will probably take even longer than that.

  4. Side-Note: I’ve seen some people make a spreadsheet for the questions they got wrong, including things like the reason why they got it wrong. Personally, that doesn’t seem super useful to me. Like I said, my rule is: if I want to remember it, then I will put it in my Anki deck. But do whatever works for you.

Conclusion

My MCAT journey proves that with the right mindset and resources, you can achieve your target score without spending a fortune. By focusing on effective strategies like Anki flashcards, free practice materials, and learning from every mistake, I turned what seemed like an overwhelming challenge into something much more manageable. Remember, it’s not about how much you spend, but how smartly you utilize what’s available. Good luck on your MCAT journey!

Materials