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To do well on the MCAT and make it into medical school, you need a comprehensive MCAT study plan that includes practice examinations. The MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) is run by the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges), which offers the best MCAT practice exam.
Full-length MCAT practice tests (from AAMC and other high-quality sites) are the gold standard for MCAT prep. Couple these practice tests with content review videos on each subsection, and you’ll be on your way to a great MCAT score and increased odds of med school acceptance.
Make sure you study for all 4 MCAT sections, especially Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS), which often gives people the most trouble. Below, check out our list of the best MCAT practice exams, or watch this video on acing the MCAT with a killer study plan, including practice tests.
Get MCAT help from our 99th-percentile tutors. They all scored in the top 1% and can help you join their ranks.
1. AAMC Practice Exams
Cost: Free options, over $300 for official prep bundle
Exam Length: Full-length, several options
AAMC’s practice MCAT exams are the gold standard for MCAT preparation. Your scores on these are completely predictive of what your actual MCAT performance will be. For this reason, you’ll want to take these at the very end of your study plan, right before you take the test. That way, you’ll be able to accurately gauge your performance in the lead up to the exam.
The actual writers of the MCAT make AAMC tests, so every student should review these in great detail, ensuring all covered topics are understood. One major downside is that there aren’t a lot of AAMC practice exams.
AAMC offers the following MCAT test prep resources and practice test products:
- Free — Practice test with previous MCAT questions, answer explanations, and a scaled score, but without the functionality of the current MCAT
- Free — Sample test that looks the most like that year’s MCAT but without a scaled score
- $35.00 — Official MCAT Practice Exams 1-4
- $335.75 — 1-Year Subscription to Official MCAT Prep Online+Print Bundle
- $310.25 — 1-Year Subscription to Official MCAT Prep Online-Only Bundle
- $76.50 — 1-Year Subscription to Official MCAT Practice Question Online-Only Bundle
- $34.00 — 1-Year Subscription to Official MCAT Prep Book, 5th Edition Print+Online Bundle
2. MedSchoolCoach MCAT Practice Exams
Cost: Free half-length exam, $49 for 1 full-length exam, $109 for 3 full-length exams
Exam Length: Half-length for free, premium full-length
MedSchoolCoach MCAT practice exams were created to mimic the content and difficulty of the real MCAT.
The key thing here is the difficulty. Most test prep companies do not have an incentive to make their exams the same difficulty as the real MCAT. Why would they? By making their MCAT practice exams artificially more difficult than the real thing, test prep companies reinforce the student’s need for their services.
As renowned MCAT tutor Dr. Ken Tao says:
“When you take a practice test from a third-party practice company, you’re almost for sure going to get a really, really low score, which is going to make you really concerned about the MCAT. The reason why test prep companies do this is to scare students into thinking that they really need help and need to purchase test prep.”
What separates the MedSchoolCoach practice exams from the rest is a focus on replicating the actual MCAT’s difficulty. This allows students to accurately gauge their progress towards their goal score. MedSchoolCoach also offers a free half-length MCAT exam to start with, and their practice exam simulator is spot-on to the AAMC one. There are also data analytics you get after each exam to break down where you are strong and where you need extra practice.
“I truly believe we have the best exams on the market,” says tutor Alex Starks, who helped build out the MedSchoolCoach practice exams after being recruited from Blueprint. “We put so much time and attention into making our material representative of the AAMC. No other company has done that.” Each MedSchoolCoach exam costs $49, but there’s a discount for buying all three at once.
MedSchoolCoach also has 99th percentile MCAT tutors ready to help you succeed.
3. Blueprint
Cost: $159 for 4 exams, $209 for 6 exams, or $319 for 10 exams (all with AI-powered Qbank)
Exam Length: Full-length
Blueprint offers a 4, 6, and 10 MCAT practice test bundle, with the option to choose either standard-length or shortened practice tests. They also offer 1,600+ free MCAT flashcards. Like MedSchoolCoach, Blueprint’s data analytics are really helpful.
Some users said that the CARS section “feels convoluted and cluttered to me. Blueprint just tends to pay attention to the finest details that shouldn’t even matter.” The questions tend to be a little harder than you may find on the actual AAMC MCAT, but they do a great job of capturing the core essence of how MCAT passages are framed.
Blueprint MCAT exams provide especially great science content and explanations. You can also try before you buy; creating a free account allows you to take 1 full-length practice exam. This first practice exam is counted in the 4, 6, and 10 exam packages.
4. The Princeton Review
Cost: $199 for 6 practice tests, $299 for 10 practice tests (also available as part of a bundle with other MCAT preparation materials)
Exam Length: Full-length
The Princeton Review offers several options for full-length MCAT practice exams, plus single-section tests to help you answer sample questions from specific trouble spots on each test.
Unlike some of the options, your subscription to The Princeton Review’s MCAT prep materials expires 180 or 365 days after your purchase (the shorter length for practice tests only), so avoid buying it until you’re ready to dive into studying.
Most of their practice test options are also available bundled with other resources like Qbanks, custom flashcards, and MCAT prep videos.
Redditor @big_cattle9780 shared concerns that the exams from The Princeton Review may be artificially deflating his score, stating that he was scoring roughly 5-10 points lower on the practice exams than he should be. However, the brand has been around for quite some time and has a fairly positive reputation overall.
5. Kaplan
Cost: $329 for 3 exams, $449 for 6 exams, $549 for 10 exams
Exam Length: Full-length
Kaplan exams are popular for a reason. Kaplan offers an online free MCAT practice test where students receive a detailed score report, test-taking strategies for improvement, and in-depth explanations of every question and its corresponding correct answer.
Kaplan tests are adequate for preparation, but a few pre-medical students stated that they felt their practice exam scores were deflated compared to their performance on actual AAMC material.
6. Altius
Cost: $40 for 1 exam, $169 for 5 exams, or $199 for 10 exams (extra cost for tutoring sessions and other resources)
Exam Length: Full OR Half OR Sample
Altius has a 10 full-length practice test bundle which costs $199, or $40 each. That’s a fairly good value for fairly high-quality MCAT practice exams.
According to a Reddit user, they “definitely felt that Altius was more challenging than AAMC, but the detailed answer explanations and very heavy experimental questions (for C/P and B/B) prepares you very well. I don’t take the real thing for another 3 weeks though so I can’t speak on how similar it is to what you see on test day! Altius also gets a bad rep for the CARS. It’s challenging, but nothing out of reason.”
Read Next: How Many Times Can You Retake the MCAT?
What to Consider When Choosing Practice Exams
Below are the main considerations you should have when choosing practice MCAT exams:
- Make sure the practice exam you use is from a reputable source like the ones listed above. While there are many free online resources, not all of them are created equal.
- Take an MCAT practice exam that is similar to the actual test, in terms of content and format as well as the software format. It’s important that the practice test software mimic the MCAT exam exactly so that you are really comfortable on test day.
- Take multiple practice exams so that you have more chances to identify areas where you need improvement.
- We recommend taking a half-length MCAT practice exam rather than a full-length exam first.
Try the most representative half-length MCAT practice exam on the market.
FAQs
MCAT practice exams matter because they prepare you to score well on the MCAT, which is the most important pre-med test when applying to medical school. If you take the MCAT without doing practice exams, you may score too low to make it into medical school.
Taking a practice test from a 3rd-party MCAT prep company can give you a baseline of knowledge you have and don’t have.
You’ll want to take all of the AAMC practice exams (6 total, including the free practice test and sample test before your test date. This is a bare-minimum best practice for every MCAT student, no matter how confident or prepared you are.
Some students can get away with just using the AAMC materials, but most will want to supplement with third-party practice exams as well. In general, purchasing a bundle of 3 practice exams or more is a great investment for most students. You can use them as extra MCAT practice or to simulate real testing conditions.
No. The questions on the AAMC practice exams are taken from previous test administrations, so there probably isn’t a big difference between the difficulty between the actual MCAT and the AAMC practice materials.
Remember that both practice exam and actual MCAT exam scores are scaled to adjust for differences in difficulty between exam forms. What matters is not the number of questions you get correct, but how your performance compares to all test-takers as a group.
Get MCAT Help Now, Boost Your Chances
MCAT practice exams are critical to your MCAT prep study schedule. Picking the right ones can make the difference between a required gap year and getting into a dream school.
AAMC exams should be your first priority, along with other practice exams. Give yourself plenty of time to content review. Every question and detailed explanation of the answer is a chance to study for a topic you may see on test day!
Our 99th-percentile tutors are ready to help you prepare for the MCAT. Sign up today to start building your personalized study plan for MCAT success.
Ken Tao, PhD
Ken is the Director of MCAT and Research at MedSchoolCoach. He is an alumnus of UC Berkeley and Harvard University, boasts degrees in Bioengineering, Molecular and Cell Biology, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. Ken previously worked with undergraduate students at Princeton Review where he was the only tutor certified in all subjects. Ken was one of the highest rated MCAT tutors ever and a teacher trainer. He founded Magoosh's MCAT division and has written content for dozen's of MCAT books and guides.
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