1-Month MCAT Study Plan

With 1 month left before the test, you do not have much time. But some preparation is better than no preparation. And if some of the material is still fresh in your head (because you recently took BCPM courses), then 1 month may be enough for you to do well on the MCAT.

Since you don’t have much time, it is extremely important that you adhere to a strict schedule. Because if you don’t, you might not have enough time to go over all the material for content review, or you might not have time to take enough full-length exams. Having adequate time to take enough full-lengths is extremely important to doing well on the actual test.

In the article below, I will draw out a 1-month MCAT study plan that is achievable and realistic. But in order to get this done, MCAT prep needs to be your only priority. In the four weeks that you are preparing, you will be putting in approximately 10 to 14 hours a day, every day. So that means you may have to take some time off work or other engagements.

And because the amount of hours you have to put in per day is mentally taxing, getting good sleep at night is important. So don’t skimp on that.

What Is This Study Schedule?

This is a schedule outlining how you might study for the MCAT over the course of 1 month, or 4 weeks. This is a rather large undertaking, as there is a lot to cover, so make sure that you are ready to devote the vast majority of each day to studying. 

This might be common for people wanting to test in early summer without having to study during classes, or for people studying over winter break.

This schedule references the Kaplan books specifically, and also includes the use of the AAMC online materials. It includes 5 full-length practice exams. If you don’t want all of your full-lenghts to come from AAMC, you can use other sources, such as the free Blueprint full length.

How To Adapt This Schedule for You

This can be used exactly as written, or you might need to adapt it slightly to fit your needs and preferences. You can also feel free to shuffle days around or change the order of the subjects covered as it suits you. However, I would recommend going through all the books at once rather than finishing one subject before moving onto the next.

If I do not mention a way that you want this schedule altered, feel free to alter this schedule however you need to make it work! Whether this is restructuring a few things, or simply using this as a reference for your own schedule, this is meant to be a useful tool for you, so use it however is best for you.

Different Books

You might be using books other than Kaplan, which will require adapting this schedule some. Most other books also go through by subject, so you should be able to follow the subject schedule. 

This schedule has 12 chapters for each of the six subject books (CARS is not organized by chapter), with 72 chapters total. Figure out how many chapters your books have, and try to line up the chapters accordingly.

This might mean covering 1.5 chapters in your book for each Kaplan chapter listed, or something similar. This could also mean changing how many subjects are covered in a day if it makes more sense for your books.

Different Time Frame

I know that some people might not have exactly 4 weeks. Maybe you are studying over 5 weeks, or even over 3 (I would advise against doing this in 3 weeks or less if it can be helped). This example schedule can still be a good reference.

You can expand or compress this schedule as needed to suit you. If you have a little more time to study than what is listed, then you can do a bit less each day. You could also add in some extra content review or practice days if you feel that you need them.

Similarly, if your day-to-day time frame differs from this, you can push work from some days into other parts of the week to make room for work, courses, or other time commitments that you might have. 

Again, I will stress that completing your MCAT prep in 4 weeks does not leave much time for other commitments. I know for some people it is unavoidable to need to be doing other things (such as working) while prepping, so just do your best to stay on top of things and get the extra work done on days when you are off the job.

More/Less Practice Exams

If you wanted to take more or fewer practice exams than the 5 in this schedule, that can be altered as well. 

You could remove a practice exam day and use that to catch up on the rest of the day from the week, or as a rest day. However, I strongly recommend to include at least the 5 AAMC practice full-lengths in your prep.

Adding days is a bit harder, but you could do a bit extra each day during the week to clear out a free day for a practice exam. However, this schedule is so condensed already that that may be difficult to manage.

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Before we get to the schedule, I also wrote an article on how to do well on exams. So if you have a bit of exam anxiety, please do read that.

The 1-Month MCAT Study Schedule