Would really appreciate help choosing prep material

Just my opinion as someone who took the MCAT twice and succeeded the second time.

Use TBR if you already got content down and need a challenge. They got the most passages and will definitely make you think conceptually. Use TPR if you need a foundation for content and great passages.

I used TBR the first time I took the MCAT, but you know what, it was pointless going through all the passages and reviewing them. It's a confidence breaker to get more than half the questions wrong on EVERY passage and fooling yourself into thinking "Yes, if I just do all these passages and learn from my mistakes, then I'll definitely be ready for the real deal."

I switched to TPR the second go around and, while they are less conceptual than TBR (especially for bio), I actually understood what was going on in their passages and felt I was actually accumulating knowledge from my mistakes. It's not to say that TPR has "easy" passages. And it's not to say that TBR does a poor job. They're both fantastic if they suit your needs (are you really smart or do you need to refresh your brain?) I for whatever reason felt that I learned more from TPR without getting bogged down by extraneous material that is highly unlikely to make the test.

What's more important to you: (1) studying difficult material in the hopes that you will be able to make sense of it all in time for the test or (2) understanding the most necessary foundational concepts required for the test?

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Would really appreciate help choosing prep material

Would really appreciate help choosing prep material

So I've got 5 months to study for the MCAT. I've been reading a lot of the posts here and all of the plans that are stickied but there seems to be a lot of discrepancy about what books should be used. I would really appreciate some help. I made a thread earlier, with maybe a little too much information but only got one response.

I have the 7 book Kaplan 2015 MCAT series and I will be looking at this for content review but I'm confused on how I'm suppose to learn and retain 2000 pages of information. I didn't do so hot in my pre-reqs and I didn't retain much of the knowledge either. Anyways, many people recommend TBR and some recommend EK, TPR and NS. I'm kind of a crafty person and I should be able to get my hands on any supplemental books necessary.

There seems to be a lot of crave of the TPR psych/sociology book and the TPR hyperlearning book/EK 101 for verbal. There also seems to be a lot of people recommending TBR for the Ochem and Biochem. It's proving to be a difficult decision to make, especially since I have the Kaplan books and I'm not sure how I would mix that into the bunch. Is there a better way of determining what prep material would suite me best ? I'm kind of leaning towards EK since it is straight forward and seems like I would have a easier time following along and getting the basics down without all the extra in-depth knowledge the TBR has but I figured I'd get a final consult.

I would really appreciate the help. I'm trying to have a schedule set for November 1st. Also, I was planning on starting last November so I registered for my online Kaplan resources (videos, FLs) and it expires November 22nd. Is there something I can do about this? I'm sure the videos are nice and all but I'm more worried about losing access to 3 Full Lengths.

I also have the 2014 EK material. Would it be worth using? Or would it be worth it to get the 9th edition?

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Would really appreciate help choosing prep material