Read about 3 practical ways you can increase your MCAT score by using practice tests and quizzes.
Your brain, just like your body, gets better at things it’s done many times before. And the cognitive process of taking tests—reading a question, recalling relevant content, synthesizing it with given information, eliminating wrong answers and picking the correct one—is no exception. There's established research showing that testing yourself increases scores more than passive studying, and that this principle scales with more testing: the more tests you take, the more final scores go up.
So how can you most effectively apply this principle to increase your MCAT score? There are many schedules and testing plans you can find online, but whichever you follow (or if you're making your own), remember three key points:
Most MCAT study resources have built-in quizzes or question sets. Don't skip them! These smaller quizzes are win-win: if you get the questions right, you've proven you can apply what you just learned and are less likely to forget it. If you get them wrong, it shows you where you missed a concept or zoned out on the previous content, so you can look back and fill in the gaps.
Does Sketchy have practice questions? Yes! Use Sketchy’s quizzes for the lessons in our MCAT course to test your knowledge and strengthen your visual memory.
Sometimes quizzes haven't been created for a certain topic in the resource you're using, or you exhaust the questions available, but don’t let that stop you. Create every opportunity you can to check your knowledge.
You don't need to write official, AAMC-style MCAT questions to do this. Think about how to ask yourself micro-questions. A few ways to do this are:
You can use Sketchy's interactive Review Cards as mini-tests: push yourself to define the next symbol before clicking ahead to reveal the answer.
Full-length MCAT exams put it all together: the long day, the passages and questions that bounce you between topics, the variety of question types and difficulty, and all the rest (except maybe that test-center smell).
Full-lengths help you tone down your nerves and tone up your skills and endurance for the real exam. But perhaps most importantly, you get realistic results. The score from a full-length practice test lets you know how close you are to your goals, and analysis of your results lets you know where your gaps are, so you can efficiently focus your further studies.
(We at Sketchy don't make our own full-length exams, but our friends at Blueprint do! You can get Sketchy's groundbreaking, research-proven MCAT course and Blueprint's MCAT exams – the most representative on the market – at a special price by buying them together in the Blueprint x Sketchy bundle. It even includes an integrated study calendar and deep analytics on each test you take.)
If you follow these principles, you're pointed in the right direction! And if you combine them with a healthy study schedule and the persistence to stick to that schedule, you'll be seeing higher scores in no time.
This article is part of a series of collaborative posts with Blueprint Prep. They've just published a brand-new article on proven approaches to memorizing tough biochemistry content—a topic near to our hearts at Sketchy. If that sounds interesting, go check it out! And if you want to get cracking on your own MCAT practice using the tips in this article, make a free account for Sketchy MCAT today, and make the Sketchy X Blueprint bundle a part of your prep program!
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