New verbal method

[O'Neill]

Hey everyone, I've been lurking for a while (years), and decided to create an account seeing as my MCAT is coming up.

 

Ok, before you answer, I understand that my practice scores are fine, but my GPA is such that I need a high MCAT score to try to compensate (in the eyes of adcoms). So posts saying my score is fine won't help me (I'm not trying to be arrogant or anything, just looking for help with strategy).

 

My AAMC's are ranging from 36-38, but my verbal score is not improving (I mean, at ALL). When I first started studying, I used EK stuff for verbal and I started at 10. Months later I'm at 11 in VR meanwhile my PS/BS have increased from 10 to 13/14. At this point I'm not sure if it's a weakness in my strategy that is hurting me, or simply lack of practice. I've done about half of the EK 101 book so far (all 10's using EK verbal tactics ).

 

So, with all that said, you people who are getting 12-13's in VR, what is your strategy? Are you getting lucky with questions? Should I be doing something different? I'm sorta annoyed that my score is so unbalanced, even if it is fine.

 

Right now I'm just reading the passages to get a understanding of the topic and main idea, then answering the questions based on that. Should I change this or just keep at it practicing?

 

Thanks.

 

PS - I apologize to those of you who came in here looking for a verbal strategy, I'm only using EK so that's nothing new. I don't know how to change the title.

[madskillz99]

Definetly take your time to read the passage thoroughly and understand the main idea. To get into the 12-13s is pretty difficult. My advice would be to not second-guess yourself when it comes to getting those extra marks. I found the answers I intuitively jumped at ended up being the correct ones as opposed to the ones that I tried to reason out because I didn't trust my gut feeling. In these cases, my reasoning was incorrect and I was trying to fish for an answer.

 

Also, really try to engage what you're reading. Don't read passively but actually as if you care about the topic or something your really interested in. If you look back at your performance, you will have already seen that you have done better on passages you were interested in than those you were not. So try to engage what you are reading. And if you see a passage is about art history or myths or something obscure don't dismiss it right away as (ohh this is a hard passage...). Treat it like any other. Confidence is important to verbal. Many times you can be your worst enemy.

 

And keep practicing...you might have to go through hundreds of passages before getting the scores you want.

[O'Neill]

Definetly take your time to read the passage thoroughly and understand the main idea. To get into the 12-13s is pretty difficult. My advice would be to not second-guess yourself when it comes to getting those extra marks. I found the answers I intuitively jumped at ended up being the correct ones as opposed to the ones that I tried to reason out because I didn't trust my gut feeling. In these cases, my reasoning was incorrect and I was trying to fish for an answer.

 

Also, really try to engage what you're reading. Don't read passively but actually as if you care about the topic or something your really interested in. If you look back at your performance, you will have already seen that you have done better on passages you were interested in than those you were not. So try to engage what you are reading. And if you see a passage is about art history or myths or something obscure don't dismiss it right away as (ohh this is a hard passage...). Treat it like any other. Confidence is important to verbal. Many times you can be your worst enemy.

 

And keep practicing...you might have to go through hundreds of passages before getting the scores you want.

 

Thanks for the tips. I totally agree that it seems I tend to do better on passages I'm interested in. The last verbal I did for example was AAMC 10, and the passage about concepts/prototypes was my worst one (getting 2 wrong). All the others I either got zero or one wrong, and the ones I got zero in were topics I liked. I've been trying to pretend I need to explain the passage to someone else during reading to make myself connect things within the passages more so hopefully that will help.

 

I also agree with the intuition bit. Looking back at the ones I got wrong, they're sometimes ones I had initially had right but changed my answer after thinking too much about it. I'm also finding that a lot of my answers "feel" right when I select them, but I can't articulate why they're right, they sort of just jump out at me for no concrete reason.

 

The ones I'm getting wrong seem to be ones where I've mis-read something, or come to a faulty logical conclusion based on misunderstanding the passage meaning (or maybe just one sentence). There was a Picasso passage where I got a couple wrong for missing the meaning of a couple of words.

 

Anyway, I'm keeping at it. I've got EK verbal test 8, 9 and AAMC 9 planned for today.

[Addy K]

I'd suggest doing some heavy post-game analysis, reviewing the questions you've been getting wrong thoroughly. Maybe you can find a pattern, and find certain "types" of questions you're getting wrong. By doing that and with what madskillz said, I'm sure you can improve.

[O'Neill]

Yeah, thanks. Been trying all that but I'm still stuck at 11. I will probably have to hope I can keep it there for test day because it looks like it might not go up further.