In April of 2013, a partnership was announced between the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and Khan Academy. The goal of the collaboration was to develop free MCAT study resources. Khan Academy has a great reputation for its free online videos that students watch to prepare for their classes. Some students have claimed that they learn more from Khan Academy than from their actual classes! Among the pre-medical community, Khan Academy is considered one of the best free online MCAT study resources. In this post, we do a review of Khan Academy MCAT prep, explaining the pros and cons.
Khan Academy MCAT Videos
The online videos are the heart of Khan Academy. As an MCAT expert, I can honestly say that the majority of the videos are great. The content of the videos is accurate and at the appropriate level of the MCAT. They are informative and even engaging. A strength and weakness of the videos is that they use a lot of colors. Color makes the writing more clear and organized. However, it is also tough for students to copy down unless the student has a pack of multiple color pens. Another downside is that the quality of the videos varies. There are some videos where the speaker goes very in-depth into the content and others that skim the content briefly. This makes it difficult to use Khan Academy as your only MCAT study resource. Don’t get me wrong. Khan Academy is great. I recommend all students use Khan Academy but as a supplemental study resource.
Khan Academy MCAT Practice Questions
Khan Academy also contains thousands of practice questions for the MCAT. As a pre-medical student, you know that practice is important preparation for the exam. The Khan Academy MCAT passages are very good for this purpose. They test content at the level of the MCAT and the passages are similar to those that students would see on the exam. The major downside to the Khan Academy questions is that they are not presented in the same format as the MCAT. The questions are located at the bottom of the passage as opposed to the right side on the MCAT. There is also no highlighting or strike through features. You cannot highlight the text in the passage or question stems to practice active reading. You cannot strike through answer choices to practice process of elimination. The biggest con is that you have to answer each question correctly before you can move on to the next. This is very different from the actual MCAT. As a result, Khan Academy MCAT passages are very useful but mainly as a content review tool.
Hopefully our review has explained how helpful Khan Academy is as an MCAT study resource. We do not recommend using Khan Academy alone to study for the exam. However, it is definitely a great supplement to any MCAT study plan. While you are figuring out how to prepare for the MCAT, make sure to also read What Classes Are Needed for the MCAT.
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