MCAT Study Schedule: A 3-Month Plan, Week by Week

How the MCAT is built

The MCAT has four sections, each scored from 118 to 132 for a total of 472 to 528: Chemical and Physical Foundations, Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS), Biological and Biochemical Foundations, and Psychological, Social and Biological Foundations. With breaks, test day is about 7.5 hours.

Before you start: take a diagnostic

Take one full-length practice exam, untimed if you need to, before planning anything. It shows which sections need the most time. Many students plan 300 to 500 hours in total; your diagnostic tells you where in that range you are.

Weeks 1 to 6: content

Review content by section, giving the most time to your weakest.
Do CARS passages every week from the start. Reading skill builds slowly, so it can’t wait until the end.
End each day with practice questions on what you covered, and keep an error log.
Use flashcards for facts like amino acids, hormones and equations, reviewed a little every day. The free flashcards space the reviews for you.

Weeks 7 to 11: practice exams

Take one full-length practice exam a week, at the same time of day as your real test.
Spend at least as long reviewing each exam as taking it. Every miss goes in the error log with the reason.
On other days, go back to the content behind your misses, and keep CARS practice going.

The official AAMC practice exams are closest to the real test, so save some for these weeks.

Week 12: taper

One last practice exam early in the week, then light review of your error log. No new content in the last two days. Sleep well the night before; test day is long.

Make it fit your dates

Not exactly 3 months? The free MCAT study schedule generator builds the same structure from your test date and daily hours, with CARS every week and practice exams where they belong.

Source: AAMC. What’s on the MCAT exam, and official MCAT practice exams, students-residents.aamc.org.