Kaplan MCAT Comprehensive Review [With CDROM]

Personally, I found this book pretty helpful, and I have no complaints about it as I scored high having spent about half of my prep. time with this book. As I said, it's a good place to start. Beware, though, that this book alone will not be enough. As some reviewers complained, this book is not all that thorough, so it helps immensely if you have taken classes on the covered subjects and actually remember what you've learned. I personally had to use my old textbooks a bit to understand some things outlined in this book. But, MCAT being as comprehensive as it is, I don't think you can expect a single book to thoroughly cover everything you need to know. With that said, I would recommend this book and a few other MCAT practice test/workbooks be used together. Kaplan has couple books that just has practice tests, and I can say they are helpful also from my experience. And unless you're a genius that never forgets anything you've learned in class, you will need your old textbooks from bio, chem & phys. More than anything, what you need to do as you get close to your test day is you should pretty much be working on practice test most of the time and just occasionally look through this kind of review books. Start with review books and finish with practice tests. This strategy made the most sense to me, and it worked for me, but I suppose everyone has his own style of test preping. Good luck!

This book neatly summarizes all of the subject material for the MCAT. Its strong point is lots of information in a readable format. The one weakness is the small number of practice problems. There is one set of questions for each section (Bio, Phys, VR, etc..), and only one practice test. If you want lots of practice problems you should use this book as a starting point for knowledge review, but supplement it with something with more opportunities for practice.

This book is simply the best! It does a great job telling you all about the MCAT, gives your great MCAT strategies, has amazingly thorough yet simple reviews of all of the subjects covered on the MCAT, and has great practice tests, as well as additional online programs!

I can't compare this book to other MCAT Prep books, because I didn't use any other one to study for the MCAT. I didn't need to. I sat down with this book for 4-5 days a week from December to April studying for the April 2001 MCAT. I didn't have enough money to take [an expensive] course, so I just bought [an inexpensive] book and scored in the mid-30s. You don't need to waste all that money on a course. You just have to keep your ultimate goal in mind, (which I presume is) doing well on your MCAT to get into med school.After completing all of the premed courses, except biochemistry, I studied with this book for the MCAT and it provided a good review for the science subjects. The verbal sections also provided good practice, but I also reviewed plenty with AAMC's MCAT tests.Don't waste [a lot of money]. Just budget your time.

I purchased this book about a month ago and am delighted with it. I have several other MCAT prep texts, and this one surpasses them all in terms of accuracy of material, clarity of presentation, and thoroughness of content review. The software that comes with it is also well written, and includes a set of computer based flash cards that are a very nice bonus. I did have a little bit of difficulty with the software based exam the first time I used it, but that was just a matter of familiarizing myself with its features--unfortunately you can't pause the timer while you acquaint yourself with its features. I ended up scratching my scores for the first quarter section and then restarting the timed exam.If I could change anything about the book itself, it would be to include several full length practice MCATs, and not just one. Otherwise, I highly recommend this as a solid base for MCAT preparation.