The Princeton Review Science Workbook Review [MCAT]

The Princeton Review MCAT Science Workbook is an amazing addition to your MCAT prep stockpile. This blog post will outline why.

When preparing for the new MCAT, it is important to balance these two steps: content review and practice problems. 

How much time you devote to each step depends on various factors, but in the end, practice problems are what is going to give you that edge you need to ace the exam. They put you in the “MCAT Mindset.

Finding good practice problems is crucial, and The Princeton Review Science Workbook is a great addition to your practice problem stock.

Lots and lots of problems

For starters this book has tons of problems. TONS of problems. It would be an accomplishment to get through all of them.

And they are all passage problems which is about 90% of the MCAT.  On average people study about 2-3 months for the exam, so depending on how much time you spend doing content review, you may end up with almost 2 months of practice time.  During this time period, you should be doing as many problems as physically possible.

Quality of the problems

You should definitely start with the official AAMC practice problems because they are the creators of the test and their questions are most accurate to the real deal.  However, the AAMC does not offer nearly enough to get the right amount of practice in. The Princeton Review Science workbook is a perfect addition. 

The MCAT questions are still very fresh in my mind.  Even though the questions on the TPR SW were designed for the old exam, they are actually very pertinent to the new one.  In general the difficulty is about the same as the MCAT, so you don’t have to worry about wasting your time doing easy questions.

What topics does The Princeton Review Science Workbook cover?

The Princeton Review Science Workbook covers physics, chemistry, biology, and organic chemistry.

These are very important subjects for the MCAT exam, but you will need other MCAT practice question books to have a comprehensive review.

You won’t find any psychology or biochemistry in this book.

TPR SW also has the occasional “advance passage,” which really tests your knowledge.  If you can figure those problems out then you are in a good position for the MCAT in terms of the sciences.

In conclusion

TPR SW is a very good addition to your practice problem database.  Even though the questions are outdated,  it reinforces the content you have already studied. The vast amount of MCAT practice passages will keep you busy for a long time.

If you want to take your studying to the next level and really get into that “MCAT mindset” you should work on the AAMC’s MCAT material or other advance books such as the Kaplan 528

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