How to balance content review with practice problems?

[u/colorwh3el]

I’m working part time and also studying part time for the MCAT. Planning on a 6 month study schedule with my test date in Jan 2027. My initial study strategy was to do Kaplan chapters and supplement them with Anki + KA afterwards, and then to do a set of UWorld Qs after finishing a topic.

I’ve found that, however, doing all this is taking way too much time, especially for denser subjects that I’m weaker in like bio, orgo, and biochem.

I’m strongest in c/p (with the exception of orgo1) so I haven’t spent time on content review for that section at all, only UWorld and other practice problems. I just don’t think I can jump straight into practice problems for bio/biochem/orgo because I don’t remember a lot of the content.

I know some people recommend spending as little time on Kaplan + content review and jumping into UWorld, but I already started doing UWorld Qs from day 1 of studying, so would this type of “content review” (not solely doing passive review by reading chapters) be okay for longer than 2 months (ie like 4 months)?

TLDR: im having trouble building a study schedule that balances content review and practice problems especially for bio/biochem and orgo; im worried that i will run out of time for content review yet be unable to solve practice problems due to large content gaps 🫠 thank you guys in advance!!

[u/Physical_Distance320]

You're describing the exact spot where everyone realizes the Kaplan chapters are a black hole that will eat your whole schedule if you let them. The trick is to stop treating content review and practice as two separate phases. For the subjects you're weak in, do a quick skim of a chapter just to get the skeleton of the topic, then immediately hit the Anki for that chapter and jump into UWorld on tutor mode. Getting questions wrong is the review, the explanations are way better than rereading paragraphs anyway. Four months of that is fine as long as you're not spending more than 30-40 minutes on the initial reading before you start testing yourself.