Need some frank advice

[enmeds]

Looking for some advice. I have written the mcat a few times. In practice I am able to score between 8-10s (usually around 9), but during the real test have not been able to get my VR score above 7 (my ps and bs scores are fine). Now each time I have done the test, the strategies that I go in with have failed (e.g due to longer passages and the convoluted nature of some, I get confused, lose my timing and well the scores show it). Now I am having a hard time just moving on and going to an int'l school because I have a 3.85 gpa with a solid number of research projects, publications, club executives, board of director positions, volunteer work int'l/domestic, etc etc. Now my question is for my position, is it recommend that I do my mcat one final time or just move on from it?

 

Thanks

[thirty6ix]

Depends on a few things:

 

1) How many times have you written the MCAT, and when?

2) What were your score breakdowns in each section?

3) When you say 'international school', do you mean American, Carribean or other?

[future_doc]

Stick with it, the reward is for those who have relentless tenacity! Nearly all of us face setbacks, a temporary situation.

[mattg]

no one can answer this for you... are you up to writing it again?

 

my advise would be if you feel that there is any chance you can get your verbal to 9+ (which i don't see why not), then i would practice verbal intensely for an extended period of time (along with reviewing the other stuff), and write it again... to be in this position is much better than the oppisite (i.e. fine MCAT that is useless due to grades, which can never be recovered for some schools, and will take years for others)... you just have to get a score on a test which you are able to do in practice

[enmeds]

Thanks for the advice.

I was thinking of attending a school in Ireland (due to the high success rate of their students in Canada) or Australia. In terms of verbal I have studied most of the sciences but haven't got to verbal. Would rewriting on the 13 of August be feasible at all. I am just not sure if it will go up I have used kaplan, princeston, ek, gold standard, etc, anything I could get my hands on studying every summer for the past 3 ones. Any more insight would be amazing.

[YorkMan]

Thanks for the advice.

I was thinking of attending a school in Ireland (due to the high success rate of their students in Canada) or Australia. In terms of verbal I have studied most of the sciences but haven't got to verbal. Would rewriting on the 13 of August be feasible at all. I am just not sure if it will go up I have used kaplan, princeston, ek, gold standard, etc, anything I could get my hands on studying every summer for the past 3 ones. Any more insight would be amazing.

 

if verbal is killing you, why would you leave it so late?

[enmeds]

Good question, well I was pretty determined that I was done with applying to Canada and doing the mcat but I dunno just seem to get a pit in my stomach knowing how close I am to applying to some of the schools here. Basically I think that the science scores and composite can be increased with studying, after spending 3 months straight last summer on verbal it seems to me that basically alot of verbal is luck and what happens on the day of during the exam.

[shin]

verbal is not luck and doesn't just happen on the day of the exam. It requires a lot of practice. You should do as many verbal passages as you can if you decide to write again. If you do so, you will see a steady increase in your verbal score, albeit a slow steady increase. It takes time and effort, just like everything else.

[enmeds]

I have done I would say 1000+ passages in verbal. however, i need some advice on strategies and ways to tackle wrong answers.

 

Thanks

[Turkelton]

A strategy I'm using now is ranking the passages. I was hesitant last year to try this because I simply thought "you have to do them all anyways, might as well just go in order." Surprisingly, my score has increased 1-2 points since employing this new strategy. You build a lot of morale and confidence by tackling the easier-to-read passages first. Also remember that you kill a lot of time and energy trying to go through those "killer" passages that you just feel drained and de-moralized, leading to silly mistakes on the easier passages. Also, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but the killer passages are curved differently since it is more likely that people will do poorly on those. Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

[runningdoc]

What I used to prepare for Verbal was to read a bunch of non-field related journal articles and essays. Coming from a science background, I spent a good portion of my "studying" reading articles on JSTOR from PoliSci, English, Music Theory, Visual Arts, and Linguistics. I found that it really bolstered by efficiency at reading comprehension as it made the different writing styles less foreign. It got me away from the more compact scientific journal style of fact, fact, fact, justification, fact, fact,etc. so I wasn't spending as much time trying to pull out concepts. When I went back to do sample verbal passages, I found that it was a lot easier to read through them quickly which hilighting important arguments.

 

While VR is certainly not easy, its mostly because it is a bunch of science kids, who are used to reading scientific literature and textbooks, being forced to read stuff that you would encounter a lot more often in the social sciences and arts programs.

[dreamer]

I would certainly keep going at it. How many times have you written it? I'm not certain how soft the cut offs at U of T are, but if you can hit an 8 or 9 and with strong sciences American schools are certainly an option.

 

There are people on this board who have written the MCAT 4 or 5 times before getting into meds here.

 

Have you tried the skip one passage strategy? I know personally of one guy who did this and pulled an 11. But, I'm in the exact same boat as you, strong sciences but weak verbal. I'm in the 7,8,9 AAMC zone myself.

 

I'm contemplating of doing strategy, but I'll admit you're gonna need a lot of nerves for that...

 

Also, in terms of strategy if there's a particular subject you're weak in, or the passage is particularly unreadable, skip it and come back to it. EK thinks you should just crunch through everything, but to me, a few seconds hitting the next button and coming back to it is time well saved. This can make or break a verbal score...

[nosuperman]

Keep going.

 

If you move on and go international you'll spend years regretting it, dreaming about how different and more easy it'd be if you were a CMG and not an IMG.

[enmeds]

Great advice. My thoughts are as follows, if you go to an irish school for instance some of them like limerick are identical to canadian schools (only prob is img designation). The tuition for such schools is actually lower believe it or not that most American schools. My problem is this, my past verbal scores are 5,6,7. I am sure I can pull off a 8 or 9 in verbal but highly doubt above that unless I get really lucky. Do you feel that it is still worth it? Will my past scores in any way be an issue to ad coms?

 

Thanks

[charmer08]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO don't do that to yourself... your gpa is awesome! Try it once more and you can always apply to uofottawa or mcgill with that gpa if you dont do so well.

[enmeds]

Thanks for the advice, I did in the last cycle but no luck

[oto]

Looking for some advice. I have written the mcat a few times. In practice I am able to score between 8-10s (usually around 9), but during the real test have not been able to get my VR score above 7 (my ps and bs scores are fine). Now each time I have done the test, the strategies that I go in with have failed (e.g due to longer passages and the convoluted nature of some, I get confused, lose my timing and well the scores show it). Now I am having a hard time just moving on and going to an int'l school because I have a 3.85 gpa with a solid number of research projects, publications, club executives, board of director positions, volunteer work int'l/domestic, etc etc. Now my question is for my position, is it recommend that I do my mcat one final time or just move on from it?

 

Thanks

 

If verbal is the only thing stopping you, then just improve 3 points, the rest of your stats are impressive enough to give you a fair chance of admission.