Best MCAT prep books

[LeonardHaggin]

Hey, med-lovers! Could you recommend  prep materials which would be the least painful? I did the research, here are the results: https://studypreplounge.com/best-mcat-prep-books/, but I'd like to hear other opinions and experiences. Also, what about prep courses? They are not cheap and I wonder if they are worth the money. 

[atm14834]

I used a combination of NextStep and Kaplan books, and I bought a NextStep self-paced course. My MCAT score was trash (498), but I also focused more on my GPA than my MCAT score.

For NexStep I would recommend the 108 CARS Passages book. It's great CARS Practice with explanations for every question. They also have one for discrete questions that was okay. However, there content books seemed to be a little wishy-washy on some material. Like one book would say one thing about a topic but a separate book would say the opposite on the same topic. But other than that their content goes pretty in depth in my opinion.

For Kaplan, I used an older version of just an MCAT Prep set. I though their information was a great overview of everything, just not quite as in depth as NextStep.

For the prep course I bought, you get 10 practice tests through NextStep plus an additional 3 through AAMC. You also get the standard AAMC prep materials (Q-banks, practice tests, etc.) which I though was really helpful. You also get a bunch of NextStep q-banks and whatnot. You build the course according to you schedule. I would trust the NextStep exams. All of mine (roughly 8ish) that I took with NextStep were similar to what I got with my AAMC (all 3) ones and my actual MCAT was about where I expected based on those. There are videos of literally every topic that you can access at any time and they give pretty good explanations. Personally, I think that if you really commit to sticking to the course and doing every single thing they tell you, you can get a great score. I just didn't do that. I put off my studying and tried to mostly study on my own. 

[cephalexin]

I agree with what atm said, and would only add that the MCAT subreddit and Student doctor network forums are better places to ask about mcat strategies.  Most people here are grad school focused and not  med school focused.