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MCAT Testing Timelines

How should I use my course with 3-4 months to study? What if I have 5+ months?

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Written by Blueprint
Updated over a week ago

We encourage all Blueprint MCAT students to move assignments around, customize your practice and exam schedule, and make it your own. Don’t forget about that ability to sync the study plan to your calendar. Setting up that linkage will make it easy to keep track of your study commitments as you plan out the rest of your activities, and will help you to hold yourself accountable to your study plan!

If you realize at the start of any week you can’t complete your study plan commitments, take 15-30 minutes to reallocate your time, focusing on balancing the work to make the week more manageable without overloading your future self.

Taking the MCAT in 3-4 Months

Live Course

If you are testing in 3 to 4 months, we recommend choosing an accelerated course that meets twice per week so that you will have 2-4 weeks between the end of the course and your test date for focused review and Full Length Exam practice.

Modules

When you first start studying, focus on content and strategy with frequent short bursts of practice. As you get closer to your test date, transition your focus from content to test-like practice. Your Blueprint study plan is designed around this progression and slowly shifts from heavy module and Qbank assignments at the beginning of your course, towards lots and lots of practice, including AAMC questions and exams at the end of your course.

If you feel overwhelmed, take a look at your module assignments as they are and shift them around to balance modules you feel confident in vs ones you struggle with. This should help you balance out to a more even amount of studying per day. Don’t skip those strategy modules though - having a mastery of many effective strategies is going to help you get more points on test day than having memorized any single topic! This is also an approach you can adapt on a week by week basis depending on your stress level.

Full-Lengths

You’ll want to have taken 3-4 full length tests by the month before you take your exam. In your final month of studying, plan on taking another 4 exams, spaced around 5-7 days apart. If your study plan doesn’t currently have that many full lengths assigned and sufficiently early, you’ll need to add some exams into your study plan.

Taking the MCAT in 5+ Months

Live Course

If you are testing in 5 or more months, we recommend choosing a course that meets once per week so that you can spread out your prep. The study plan is designed around a progression from content review to test like practice, and slowly shifts from heavy module and qbank assignments at the beginning of your course, towards lots and lots of practice at the end of your course.

Modules

You may find your study plan has big gaps at the beginning, at the end, or both. If you do have gaps, modules can always be moved earlier in the course and spaced out. We usually advise against moving modules much later in the course since content mastery should be one of the earliest parts of your prep. Just make sure that you don’t move topics too far out of order if they’re related. For example, a topic like amino acid-base chemistry could be hard if you haven’t watched the other earlier amino acid modules first.

Similarly, you can move the strategy modules earlier, but don’t move them out of their numbered order. Math and Formulas 3 is going to be overwhelming if you haven’t made it through 1 and 2. Moving these modules earlier should also create more space in your plan, which you should plan to fill in with test like practice and review, followed by a review of module content as needed. Essentially, you’re giving yourself room to be able to “polish up” your content knowledge later, after you know what you’re still struggling with a few months in.

Office Hours

You can also add in office hours throughout your study plan, which will not only give you time to ask questions and chat with our top instructors, it’ll also provide valuable content and skill review.

Full-Lengths

Most students should plan to take at least 7-8 full length exams, and if you have time, more may be beneficial. It also may help you to space the exams out more; if you take 2 weeks between each full length, you’re going to have more time to thoroughly review, build your Lessons Learned Journal, review content, and practice based on your results. You can also add AAMC assignments, End of Chapter Exams, and Qbank practice into your study plan. Working through practice sets between full length exams leads to the best score improvements.

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