MCAT Maneuvers Part III: Time-Management Troubles
Shortcut to navigating the MCAT's mental stamina demands
Preface: Heads up, if you don’t plan on taking the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), then this Shortcut is likely irrelevant to you; however, it may be helpful to somebody you know who is prepping for the MCAT, so – as always – don’t be selfish, share.
If you’re a pre-med student reading this, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “the MCAT is unlike any other test you’ve ever taken.” And, especially unique to this infamous medical school gatekeeper is its long duration, which I found to be one of the most challenging factors during my prepping for and taking the test. However, I also found that, with a tailored training approach, you can adapt to successfully navigate this obstacle when it comes time to lock in your ear plugs and take a seat in your Pearson cubicle. Here are some strategies and tactics I used to overcome the MCAT’s demanding length and jump from a 507 to a 518 my second time around.
Bottom Line Up Front (B.L.U.F.)
I overcame the MCAT’s cognitive endurance demands using the following strategies and tactics:
Practicing how I would play: structuring my study days to simulate the repeated ~90-minute sections on the MCAT.
Using tactical pauses when I felt myself slowing down or losing focus on test day.
Leveraging a personally tailored caffeine protocol on test day to sustainably fight off fatigue and increase my focus.
Practice How You Play
Growing up playing basketball, I often heard coaches use the phrase, “practice how you play,” to instill the idea that the best way to prepare for competition was to simulate game day during training. After all, games aren’t won by nonchalantly knocking down 15-footers with no defense, they’re won by pulling up full-speed and sinking jumpers despite the hand in your face. The same applies to preparing for the MCAT, in that 30-minutes of focus doesn’t get you a top-percentile score on test day; rather, you’ll need to be able to lock in and execute for 90-95 minutes repeatedly to achieve a great score.
So, it makes the most sense to structure your studying according to these time requirements. For example, in the months leading up to my 518 MCAT, my studying days consisted of multiple sessions comprised of no less than ~90 minutes each. As a result, consecutively zeroing in for longer periods became second nature – turning what was once a challenging demand into the norm. In this way, I simply took what was unique to the MCAT in comparison to my previous experience and made it typical for myself. Hitting heavily contested shots in a packed gym becomes much easier when you’ve taken hundreds of similar, game-like shots in practice.
The Tactical Pause
In addition to acclimating to the test’s time demands throughout my prep, I used several tactics when actually taking the MCAT to manage my cognitive endurance. Of these, the most impactful was recognizing when I was slowing down or losing focus, pausing to regain my composure, and diving back into the problem at hand.
For example, particularly during the Critical Analysis and Reading section (CARS), I often noticed myself drifting off into thought or could sense that I was navigating passages and problems too casually. In these moments, I found that halting, taking a few breaths, and re-orienting myself to the mission – crushing the questions on the screen – was an impactful way to reset my pace. Though this would take my attention away from the test for a handful of seconds, it still led to a great net benefit, considering the time I would’ve spent zoning out and re-reading passages otherwise.
For me, this type of tactical pause functioned as a refresh, reloading my drive to push through the readings and problems efficiently and effectively – similar to a coach calling a timeout to get the team back into rhythm after a few consecutive bad plays.
Coordinating Caffeine Consumption
In addition to the techniques I described above, thoughtful caffeine consumption added the final touches to my approach to dealing with the MCAT’s stamina requirements. On the surface level, this tactic seems straight-forward: if you drink caffeine you can enhance your focus and cognitive endurance on test day; however, things become complicated when you consider that doing so carelessly can produce a caffeine crash half way through the test. In addition, taking too much caffeine can counterintuitively lead to overstimulation, which, for me, looks like over analyzing every sentence on the screen – the opposite effect we want in terms of time-management. So, I found two considerations were pivotal when it came to caffeine consumption on test day:
Distribution across time
Concentration
I solved for the first variable by spreading my caffeine intake across the different sections, in order to avoid a build up of energy on the front end and a huge collapse of focus on the back end. And, I handled the concentration factor in real-time, adjusting my intake based on how I felt during my breaks and how I graded my pace during the last section. For example, if I felt I was wide awake and firing on all cylinders during the last section, I would take little to no caffeine during my break; contrarily, if I felt I was accumulating mental fatigue and was dragging during the last section, I made sure to toss back some caffeine before heading back to my cubicle.
In the end, I relied on my practice exams, where I experimented with different strategies, to determine my final test day caffeine protocol.
As with all aspects of my MCAT journey, my ultimate tool for executing – whether it be reading through another review chapter, dissecting my last practice exam, or attacking another passage on test day – was reminding myself why I was taking the MCAT at all. In my case, visualizing my goal of becoming a surgeon, paired with recalling the pain of sitting on the waitlist after my last shot at the MCAT, was always more than enough to reignite my motivation for pushing through another passage and problem set.