Best MCAT® Prep Courses
There are numerous factors to consider when determining the best MCAT prep course for your needs. A quick look at the landscape will reveal tons of books, lengthy lecture videos, office hours, live classes, one-on-one tutoring, QBanks, and practice exams. The problem with so many resources is that you may easily get overwhelmed and never get through all of the material.
Among all of the available MCAT prep courses, the quality can vary greatly. With no concrete direction, many students end up purchasing more than one MCAT review course to cover their bases. To save you time and money as you prepare, we’ll break down what you can expect from some of the top MCAT prep courses on the market.
The Current Landscape of MCAT Prep Resources
Perhaps the biggest frustration we see expressed by students regarding many MCAT prep courses is the immense volume of material they need to sift through. Balancing pre-med coursework with such an overload of resources can be stressful. In many cases, such material is not fully representative of AAMC’s MCAT syllabus and is either too in-depth or too concise. We know this is true because the AAMC released the results of their 2022 post-MCAT questionnaire, which are shown below:
Source: 2022 PMQ Questionnaire Data by the AAMC
At UWorld, we aim to reverse these trends with our MCAT QBank, which contains integrated study tools, high-yield practice questions that adhere to the AAMC syllabus, and in-depth question explanations.
How Is the UWorld MCAT QBank Different from Other QBanks?
When considering which MCAT prep course to use, it’s likely that you’ll have stumbled across the AAMC MCAT resources, Blueprint Prep, The Princeton Review, Kaplan, Khan Academy, or Jack Westin, among others. Each of these courses has material and features that students will benefit from, but they tend to offer an abundance of resources that not every student needs. These courses are based on more traditional learning methods, take considerable time to complete, and can be overwhelming for pre-meds attending undergraduate courses, gaining clinical experience, or working.
The UWorld MCAT QBank, on the other hand, is built with students’ busy schedules in mind. We teach you everything you need to know for the MCAT; nothing more, nothing less. You will be able to cover the entire MCAT exam curriculum by taking all of our questions in an engaging and interactive learning environment designed to maximize your success. Our QBank includes many advantages over others, which you will see in the next section.
AAMC-Like Practice Questions and Comprehensive Explanations
All UWorld MCAT practice questions are paired with thorough explanations that explain why each answer choice is right or wrong. It is within these rationales that students can find award-winning illustrations that will help them remember critical MCAT concepts. The most notable shortcoming we see from other QBanks is the extraordinary lack of detail in question rationales. Students love our questions because they get to clearly learn the why behind the problem.
“Literally this has been the BEST resource for the MCAT. Every time I get something wrong, the detailed explanations have helped so much to understand knowledge gaps!” – Najifah T.
Illustrated MCAT Basics
The MCAT will require knowledge of scientific concepts across many different subjects. This means you need ways to absorb the material quickly as you take numerous practice questions. We differentiate our QBank by packaging all of the topics on the exam into educational images that you can add to our virtual notebook and flashcard systems. Tough MCAT concepts taught through images only take seconds to understand and are easier to remember.
“It's amazing! I LOVED the graphics, diagrams and labeled images. They helped SO MUCH because I’m a visual learner. The illustrations amplified the extremely well written explanations. It is an amazing platform and study tool and I definitely felt over prepared in a good way for the MCAT.” – Oluchi O.
Full Coverage of Laboratory Techniques and Experimental Design Methods
For our science subjects, the explanations for practice questions contain images and animations of laboratory techniques. You will need to master this content to strengthen your data analysis and scientific reasoning skills. We want you to feel confident on the MCAT, so you will have access to biotechnology-based images and visual experimental design approaches that you can quickly review and recall.
Annotated Passage and Question Data
One of the reasons the science section of the MCAT is so intimidating is that MCAT science passages contain detailed experimental setups, graphs, figures, and tables. On the MCAT, students are often asked to answer questions based on their analysis of these visual representations of data.
To maximize our teaching and your comprehension, we annotate and break down all key figures, tables, or graphs found in our MCAT-style passages and related questions. By using UWorld, you won’t ever feel lost while reading MCAT passages again.
Subject-Based Highlights
When reviewing MCAT subjects and foundations, students will also find the following useful features.
Physics, Biology, and Chemistry:
Step-by-Step Calculations
Students will encounter various MCAT questions that require mathematical proficiency. For these question types, our explanations follow a simple methodology: we do not skip steps. We want you to perform at your best on the MCAT, so you will get a clear walk-through of all mathematical practice questions. Are you worried about statistics and probability? Don’t be, we teach you those too!
CARS:
Realistic Questions and Integrated Explanations
The critical analysis and reasoning skills (CARS) section makes up 25% of the MCAT, and many students worry about how to study for it. UWorld CARS questions mimic AAMC logic and include highlighted passage excerpts to showcase where to find the correct answer. This evidence-based approach helps you build the reasoning skills needed to succeed on MCAT CARS.
Organic Chemistry:
Detailed Reaction Mechanisms
Organic chemistry is one of the most difficult subjects you have to take to get into medical school; so for our MCAT QBank, we made sure to depict all steps of a reaction using step-by-step mechanisms that are easy to read and understand. Our educational content is designed to be remembered so you can feel ready on exam day.
Flashcards With Spaced Repetition Technology
As you navigate our QBank, you have the option to copy our award-winning content and quickly transfer it onto a flashcard. When you practice with your customized flashcards, you will be asked how well you understand the material on each card.
Our spaced-repetition technology shows you difficult concepts more frequently until you master them, then these concepts are shown less frequently. UWorld’s MCAT flashcards (also available on Apple and Android) are fully customizable to help you study smarter while on the go.
My Notebook: A Customized MCAT Study Guide
My Notebook lets students quickly transfer QBank content (text and images) into a virtual notebook. The note-taking features we provide are crucial to exam preparation, as students can annotate text and consolidate related topics.
We suggest that you create new notebook pages as you complete our QBank, and organize tabs by topic. If you use My Notebook consistently, the end result will be your own illustrated study guide on MCAT concepts. My Notebook content is saved and synced across devices through the UWorld MCAT mobile app, so you can study from anywhere!
Content Always Up-To-Date
No matter when you subscribe to our MCAT QBank, you will receive the latest version of the product via automatic updates. When the AAMC releases a new MCAT syllabus, we modify content and question types as required. In addition, because our material is written by leading subject matter experts and researchers, it will always be scientifically relevant.
Proven Results
Thanks to our dedication to product quality, 4 out of 5 students ranked the UWorld MCAT QBank in their top 2 prep resources, with the other being the Official AAMC practice tests. Students often pair these two together. By utilizing both resources and building a study plan to practice with MCAT-level questions, many students see their scores increase.
Your success is how we gauge the quality of our product. We receive hundreds of reviews from pre-med students every day. Here is what they’re saying:.
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My score has improved 13 points since starting using UWorld MCAT Qbank. These questions are great and have given me a lot of valuable experience reading and analyzing scientific passages! ”
Best explanations I've ever had for nearly every topic. I wish I had this resource for some of my courses in college; some concepts that never made sense to me in college and while studying for the MCAT using Kaplan, have finally clicked thanks to UWorld.”
This program has made my MCAT studying so much more streamlined. The difference before using UWorld to after using UWorld cannot be overstated! It is an easy- to- use program with great explanations!”
How to Choose the Best MCAT Prep Course?
With how competitive the marketplace for MCAT prep courses has become, it can be difficult to choose the best one for your needs. Below are several items we suggest you consider to narrow down your options.
Perhaps the best feedback you can get is from students who have recently taken the exam. They will have just tried out various MCAT prep courses and seen how well the material translated to the exam. These students should have a good idea of what works under current circumstances.
Your pre-health advisor is another resource you can lean on to determine what works and what doesn’t. They should know whether a prep course is credible or not, and help you figure out where to start. They might not be up to date with all of the latest industry trends, but they can point you in the right direction.
Do the MCAT prep courses you’re considering have a strong history of guiding candidates to success? If not, why would you risk your time, money, and exam results on them? A benefit of the UWorld MCAT QBank is we draw from our experience as a worldwide leader in online learning and leading medical exam prep course provider.
While everybody has learning preferences, recent studies indicate that visual learning plays a crucial part in retaining and recalling complex information. Unfortunately, many prep courses underperform in this area. For these reasons, our MCAT QBank answer explanations are full of high-yield graphics and interactive elements. Those who learn by reading and writing will still benefit from thorough written explanations, while kinesthetic learners can excel using our flashcards feature.
