I really think idea #8 is a crucial one, “Simulate Test Day – After covering all the subjects and feeling comfortable with the content, you MUST do practice tests.” I practice this idea and it kills all the pretest anxiety. When there are example exams available people need to take more time to use that option to know how the questions will be structured and answered correctly. Thanks for the great article.

Kent
Webmaster: kellys-blue-bk

This is a great post. In response to what you have written, here’s what I would like to mention that either adds or summarizes what you said through my experiences.
I am a graduate from Molecular Biology at UofT. I had not intended to go to medical school when I decided to write my MCAT in 3rd year but did so anyways from the social pressure and performed poorly (i think 8,8,7, N) because I tripped over every line of folly setup.

This time around I began studying for the MCAT for a few weeks but I realized I may have to push up my GPA entirely so I put the studying to a halt. However, without going too much into my story since its serves little use here, I want to illustrate a few choices that I made to prepare to study for the MCAT that HUGELY benefited me while I was studying a second time around and had realized 3 things: 1) my ability to take in information, reason, and conceptualize had markedly increased and it showed on the diagnostics I used (the same ones I used a few years earlier and had performed poorly on. and no, I did not memorize the diagnostic tests 2 years later). 2) Anxiety was easily overcome which compounded my performance, and 3) I did enjoy learning because I was learning stuff.

Like every guidance counselor, teacher and most university educated people will tell you, study habits matter. For me that meant a few things. I wanted to learn as effectively as possible and efficiently so I had time for other things, also I wanted to sever the feeling of fear that overcome me before big performances whether that was a test, a public speech, breaking the news, or interviews.

Here’s my formula: 1) meditation + 2) layered reading + 3) consistency + 4) fun.

Meditation, for anyone who knows how to practice it, is INCREDIBLY powerful at calming the mind, opening it up to learning, making more rational decisions, retaining focus, keeping refreshed, and increasing insight and gratitude which decreases our fear. I already know many will think this is silly. But for the skeptics, go check out the benefits of meditation on google, in academic journals, with your family doctor, anyone educated in relaxation. The biggest hurdle is that many get anxious when they close their eyes and rest quietly for 30 seconds cause a billion thoughts come to their mind. This is actually a normal process of meditation. It will happen, and the frequency will decrease with experience and you will more rapidly reach your higher consciousness faster – the portion that monitors your consciousness (emotions, attitude, influences) which is directly linked to your actions. If you have the budget, get a Transendental meditation teacher for 675 bucks. The beginning ritual is not for everyone but their technique works, takes 15 mins 2x daily and most importantly, can be done by anyone. In fact they even proved this technique still worked at reaching higher consciousness in people who dont believe in it! The other option is to learn it for free through reading books or typing meditation into youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0rSmxsVHPE). Essentially the reason you overcome your fears is exactly the reason as medaholic says so, you relieve yourself from that myopic vision every MCAT student suffers from and put things in perspective. (If you’re standing an inch away from the painting, don’t expect to see the big picture.) If you’re not anxious, you will read naturally as you have for over 20 years for most, follow along, get the main idea of the passage and not get stuck dwelling on questions.

The layered reading technique was something I learned on google when studying for the best study habits. Instead of linear reading like many of us do (1 page and 1 word at a time), you will read the same content in the exact same amount of time, but your method of doing so will cause you review the material many times increasing your retention gigantically. In fact this is how many humans learn, which is why most of use skip lines or pages or loose focus when reading copious amounts. Also many natural speed readers and people who can retain tons don’t realize, but actually study in this matter. Google the topic for process details. For the sake of explanation it teaches you to learn information how we naturally do, by taking in the big picture first so you know where you’re going, then smaller chunks to understand the fundamentals, then finally into bits to get the reasoning, then wrapping it all back up into the big picture so you have understanding with a purpose – the only case in which we really ever learn, not just understand.

Consistency is imperative. Dont get boiled down into living a life optimized with a stopwatch. That’s over done. But make some decisions and stick to them for the entire schedule. Decisions like what time to sleep, when to wake up, what material to study each day, what days will be breaks, what learning resources will you use. Simply said, if you change any of these in the middle of your study schedule, consider yourself inconsistent. Admit it, but don’t around and pity yourself in this fact. Forgiveness is a virtue. As for the topic of sleeping, you may wonder how much? Here’s how much, go to sleep and look at the time without setting the alarm, and when you wake up naturally is how many hours of sleep YOUR body requires. Everyone is different so dont try and compete with the kid who only needs 4 hours a day. The goal is live life EFFECTIVELY not efficiently. If your brain is drained, consider the entire day wasted. Also diet, eat well and dont read within 30 mins after eating so the food can digest.

Finally fun. Schedule it in. The most successful people who work super hard have fun. Everyone who enjoys their life has fun. Fun is subjective to everyone, but as long as you enjoy what you’re doing its fine. Do not try and calculate the net worth benefit of fun, its meant to be recreational, that is, it allows us time to RE CREATE ourselves. Make time for it every day.

As for the anxious populations, either educate them on this, or keep your distance. An unhealthy psychology is the root of the large majority of chronic diseases. Keep your mind clear and strong by keeping wary of those who only complain, compete, compare, and are cynical all day long. These emotions like any other are contagious.