How I destroyed the MCAT with minimal study time: a ragecomic post

After all the useful posts about "How to Destroy the MCAT with Minimal Studying", I decided to write about how I actually got through with minimal studying. In 2010, I decided to take the MCAT in May, giving myself exactly 18 days to study for the MCAT. In hindsight, it was stupid and insane- I originally planned on studying during the school year, but second year was too much so that all went to hell... but thankfully, things worked out better than I expected.

Here is a graphical + text representation of how the studying went down:

Figure 1. Started studying for the MCAT

Figure 2. Days 1-10- Reviewing general chemistry, physics, biology section, and solving problems for each section.

Figure 3. Day 11- First practice MCAT (Kaplan)- PS 7 BS 10 VR 7. Printed out dozens of practice exams for PS, and went through those for the rest of the day.

Figure 4. Day 12- Second practice MCAT (Kaplan)- PS 13 BS 9 VR 10. For the rest of the day, solved PS problems, started on VR and BS as well.

Figure 5. Day 13- Third practice MCAT (Kaplan)- epic fail, PS 8 BS 6 VR 9. For the rest of the day, solve BS problems until some sort of hemorrhage.

...and the rest:

Day 14- Practice MCAT- PS 9 BS 7 VR 9. Continue practicing BS, PS.

***Massive panic- realized I've barely practised for verbal reasoning. 

Day 15- Practice MCAT+ rest doing VR practice.

Day 16- D-4. AAMC MCAT #10, started mental prep for the actual thing.

Day 17- D-3. AAMC MCAT #8. Verbal reasoning still not good.

Day 18- D-2. Still in panic for verbal reasoning, resulting in 4 EK VR exams in a day. NOT a good idea (Refer to Part 2 of MCAT series). End of studying.

Figure 6. D-1- Dead for the entire day.

D-Day- The MCAT was a traumatic experience and my memories of it started to come back weeks later.

Figure 7. Self-portrait after writing the MCAT.

As you can see, it was a mad, frantic rush of desperation and frequent bouts of hopelessness and depression.

But by the end...

Figure 8. After receiving test scores three weeks later.

Thanks to all my previous research and the resources I got from that research, I somehow pulled it off... but this approach is too risky, and I think (and I should have as well) anyone should put aside at least 1.5 months to prepare (up to 4 depending on your major). In the end, I ended up studying ~8 hours per day, totalling ~1800 pages of work while completely fried by the end of the day, every day.

Thanks for reading, good luck!

Matt