Exam Krackers Verbal

[metukah]

I have heard the the EK Verbal practice book is great prep for the MCAT. I was wondering if anyone can comment on the comparison of the passages/questions in EK compared to the the real MCAT.

 

Thanks.

[mattg]

This book is a bit misrepresented by people in my opinion. Yes, it is helpful in helping you to read passages critically, and the questions are relatively hard - so in that sense it is good practice. However, the passages, but more so the questions, are very different from the real MCAT in my opinion, and not a good representation at all.

 

I believe that the online MCAT's on AAMC's website are the best practice for the real thing. That said, there are only 10. Kaplan's verbal reasoning is easier than the real thing in my opinion, but still good practice.

 

My advice would be to start with Kaplan's tests - because they are similar in nature to the real MCAT, but easier. Then move onto EK, which are very different, but still difficult and will help cultivate your critical passage reading skills nevertheless. And finally move on to the online practice, because this is actual representation of the real thing (maybe do a couple online ones at the beginning, or throughout, just to get an idea of what real passages/questions are like)

 

the best advice anyone can give you though with regards to verbal is start practicing as early as possible. Verbal is hugely dependent on your comfortableness with reading passages quickly and taking out of them what is important, which will improve with practice. There is no way to cram verbal. Furthermore, verbal scores fluctuate quite a bit between tests (ie. maybe even between 8 and 12)... luck is a very big component (which is why it is so weird to me that Western set their verbal cut-off so high)... so all you can really do is raise your range (ie. you may start with a range between 7 and 10... you want to increase it to something like 10 to 13), so that should you be unlucky, you still do okay

 

good luck

[metukah]

thanks for the advice mattg. i am going in to re-write. i have previosuly used TPR's materials, but since I have already used them all up, I moved over to EK. I'm finding them a bit challenging! That's why I wanted to inquire

[The Law]

I find EK verbal harder than the others. That's not to say it isn't good prep. I find that it's helping me learn different things about passages.

 

The frustrating thing however is that 90% of the time, I will score either a 9 or 10 on EK, so it feels like I'm not learning anything. I doubt that this is the case though, because I feel it's helping me become more comfortable with different types of question stems. Hopefully this helps on D-day. When I finish EK, I'm going to switch over to AAMC. Two more months until D-day.

[Nobodycirclesthewagons]

I agree Law, EK verbal is at least harder than the AAMC ones. So at least if you get a 9 or 10, you can believe you would get at least the same or likely even better on an AAMC.

[The Law]

I agree Law, EK verbal is at least harder than the AAMC ones. So at least if you get a 9 or 10, you can believe you would get at least the same or likely even better on an AAMC.

 

I hope so. I've written 3 AAMC tests so far, gotten a 9/10/11 on them. Will write more after EK's done. Trying not to burn through them too quickly!