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.
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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 endof 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:
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."
Dr. Ken Tao, MCAT tutor
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.
Get ready for test day! MedSchoolCoach’s practice exams are the closest in the world to the actual MCAT.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Think you know your MCAT material? Put it to the test with our free MCAT Runner Game. Answer MCAT-style questions, clear obstacles, and see how far you can get.
Below are the main considerations you should have when choosing practice MCAT exams:
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 tutors have spent more than 10,000 hours with pre-med students getting ready for the MCAT. Students who work with MedSchoolCoach score around 12 points higher, on average, versus their diagnostic or previous exam attempts.