The world of MCAT prep is a crowded space, littered with well-intentioned but often poor advice. How can we separate the signal from the noise?
Some students swear by a particular series of resources, others say you need to study intensely for six months straight, and still others say that almonds are the secret to improving your memory and critical thinking.
But here’s the thing: just because Katie on TikTok scored a 525 and says essential oils and AG1 Greens were her secrets, those techniques aren’t necessarily going to work for you.
Some high scorers get lucky. Some are naturally gifted despite suboptimal study methods. And some students get there by using study methods that reproducibly and reliably improve performance.
Let’s remove luck or talent from the equation. Anyone with the drive and proper study plan can achieve an outstanding score on the MCAT.
These are the top 4 MCAT study mistakes that will hinder your MCAT score.
1 | Not Using Evidence-Based Learning Principles
The first mistake that far too many premeds make is not using evidence-based learning principles.
In most MCAT study circles, the traditional study strategies still reign supreme—start with a content review textbook or series of videos, and when it gets closer to test time, begin focusing on practice questions and practice tests.
However, this conventional approach does not effectively incorporate key evidence-based tactics, such as spaced repetition, active recall, desirable difficulties, and interleaving.
With the conventional approach, students quickly forget what they just read or watched, leading to frustration and stagnating scores. But there are far more effective ways to study, and through our extensive experience working with students, we’ve found that the quality of your studying is the most essential factor.
That’s right—it’s even more important than the number of hours spent, your level of intelligence, or your test taking ability.
To elevate your MCAT score as quickly and effectively as possible, focus on evidence-based learning principles backed by validated scientific studies. Active learning and spaced repetition will help you reinforce and consolidate material, ensuring retention.
This is often where students say they’ve tried using spaced repetition and flashcards but it’s not for them. However, we have repeatedly found that these initial feelings can be misleading. This is one area of your life where your feelings shouldn’t guide your strategy—data on what actually works must be your north star.
If you’re early on in your implementation of active learning, I can almost guarantee that you will prefer passive forms of studying. I remember feeling that way too. Passive learning techniques are easier. They’re more comfortable.
Active learning, on the other hand, is uncomfortable and feels like added work and effort, particularly when you’re first starting out. That’s normal. Just like weight training in the gym, you have to push your boundaries to see meaningful growth.
Keep in mind that you may dislike the tool more than the technique. We’ve heard from dozens of students trying spaced repetition with Anki flashcards that despite their efforts, it never really clicked. These students, after using Memm, wrote to us about how it feels like an entirely different way of studying, despite similar core functionality of spaced repetition with active recall through flashcards.
2 | Suboptimal Flashcard Quality
Speaking of flashcards, the second mistake premeds make is using suboptimal cards.
Students repeat these two costly mistakes when it comes to flashcards:
One, they create their own suboptimal flashcards, and two, they use other students’ suboptimal flashcards.
The reality is that it’s impossible for a student studying for the MCAT to create flashcards at the highest level of quality. The best flashcards can only be created once you completely and deeply understand the material. That includes not only a comprehensive understanding of the concept, but its relationship to associated concepts, the relative importance of the concept, and most of all, the manner in which the concept is tested by the MCAT.
No individual can address all of these elements until they have studied extensively for the exam, completed the MCAT with a stellar score, and performed additional post-test analysis through further study or tutoring.
This isn’t to say there is zero value in creating your own cards. Card creation is an active learning exercise that, when properly executed, deepens comprehension. However, through hundreds of interviews with students, we have observed that the reality is rarely so straightforward.
An overwhelming majority of students struggle with card creation best practices, which ultimately results in countless wasted hours. Remember that with spaced repetition, every poorly written or irrelevant-to-the-MCAT card is reviewed multiple times, exponentially multiplying that wasted time. In these situations, compounding works against you.
This time could be better spent on higher-impact activities that translate into higher scores, such as practice questions, full-length exams, or reviewing high-quality flashcards. Even students who manage to overcome the flashcard learning curve could have more efficiently learned the material—and in most cases, achieved greater mastery—through using high-quality premade cards from the start.
The most suboptimal, and therefore least useful, level of flashcards are the ones students make. These tend to include too much information and out-of-scope concepts, and on top of that, the prompts don’t precisely test the information you need to know. Instead, they often unintentionally promote pattern recognition.
With countless hours of effort, you may finally be able to achieve quality cards. But this is much easier said than done. I was still working on perfecting my flashcard making skills after 5 years of using Anki throughout medical school and residency.
With this amount of time, effort, and understanding, the quality of your flashcards will dramatically improve, and you’ll be able to take better advantage of spaced repetition with active recall. You’ll be consolidating semantic memories rather than using techniques that promote pattern recognition or result in suboptimal retention.
But you are still not at the highest level, and even the best premade MCAT Anki decks fall into this middle category, as they were initially created by students still studying for the MCAT.
The final and highest level is like a precise scalpel that surgically delineates the content and information you need to know, discarding the rest. It pinpoints not only what information you need to know but how it will be tested on your exam. And by following flashcard best practices, this level accelerates content retention and mastery to a far greater degree than the more common options.
3 | Not Enough Practice Questions
The third mistake students make studying for the MCAT is not using enough practice questions.
The traditional MCAT study approach focuses too heavily on passively reading content. Most students are afraid to waste their practice materials too early and feel they should save them for later, when they better understand the content.
But this could not be further from the truth. In reality, practice questions are key tools to understanding the content, and they should be implemented from the very beginning.
We know this works because this is how medical students study for USMLE, the next standardized test you’ll take after the MCAT. Practice questions are heavily utilized as a study resource, not just as an assessment or practice tool in the final weeks leading up to the exam.
The scientific literature is clear—testing is not only a way to assess knowledge, but also a highly effective tool to accelerate learning.
At the beginning of your study period, you’ll need to balance three separate domains.
Number 1: Content review focusing on comprehension.
Number 2: Spaced repetition with active recall focusing on memory consolidation.
And number 3: Practice questions focusing on a mix of application, comprehension, and consolidation.
As your study period progresses, spend less time on content review and more time on intermittent review for specific facts or concepts you need clarification on. This is more targeted and efficient than reviewing all of the content a second time. Do not expect yourself to be a master of the material after studying content review resources.
Simultaneously, gradually spend more time on flashcards and practice questions, as these are two active learning methods that, particularly when combined, will most rapidly improve your scores. Some foundational level of comprehension is useful, but remember that having this foundation is different than having everything down cold.
4 | Too Many Resources
Finally, the fourth mistake students make studying for the MCAT is using too many resources.
Some students think they need to use half a dozen different resources to get the best score possible, but they are actually spreading themselves too thin.
Again, take a page from the strategy of medical students. They only focus on the highest-yield resources and wring them out for all they’re worth, rather than superficially going through multiple resources of varying quality.
You’re bound to hear conflicting strategies when it comes to MCAT advice. If you’re seeking optimal performance on your MCAT, look to scientific literature for evidence-based study strategies and to experts who have not only achieved top scores themselves but helped others do the same as well.
Memm evolves spaced repetition combined with active recall to something much greater and purpose-built. Interactive review sheets with cloze deletions, sheet excerpts on the back of cards to overcome the limitations of traditional flashcards leading to isolated facts without contextual understanding, and top tier flashcard quality and scope are just some of the benefits. Our students consistently report substantial score improvements by heavily relying on Memm for content review and spaced repetition, with an average user score of 513.4.
If you’re a premed looking to rapidly accelerate your MCAT knowledge and memorization, the answer is clear—there’s no tool built like the Med School Insiders MCAT Course.
It’s the ultimate MCAT all-in-one prep tool that includes the industry’s first honest 510 score guarantee, bundles all the AAMC official materials with the best MCAT memorization tool that is Memm, gold standard content, and three top-tier full-length and two half-length practice tests with extensive explanations.
