Mcat Verbal

[coldfall]

Hi everyone,

Im writing mcat on aug 19th and Im struggling with verbal a lot, my problem is mostly speed like i can finish max of four passages in one hour with 1-2 mistakes each!.. im pretty strong in other sections but i dont know how to increase my speed in just 6 weeks, is that possible by reading economist for example?.. I have both TPR and exam krackers but Im worried that 6 weeks wont be enough!! Im so stressed out right now, can anyone please tell me what to do

thank you, I really appreciate that

[MD2019_A]

dont worry about the time you have until the test; it's enough. i'd suggest you try to get the gist of the passage rather than reading for the details to memorize em. from the looks of it i think you're too bogged down on the details. and read normally at a regular pace; dont try too hard to slow or speed up.

 

practice reading the economist, yes. and any other academic (natural science, social science, humanities) articles you can find.

 

good luck

[coldfall]

Thank you so much for replying back to me, yea youre right usually I go into to much details... I was doing exam krackers today and there was one passage that had a lot of quotes which didnt make sense to me, most of the questions were specifically on those quotes that I didnt understand thats why I got sooo nervous. I was thinking to myself that no way I can even score 10 on it.. have done mcat yet?...my plan is to time myself for economists articles and then try to finish 6 with accuracy within three to four weeks then aim for 7 passage, is it good? like reading 30+ articles/day would help to speed up?

thank you agaaaain

[Asta]

To increase your speed, I suggest practising with a timer. Also, a lot of time is (often) wasted with going back to the passage too much.

 

It takes me 6-9 minutes to do a passage. Before each passage I take a little break to clear my mind and focus. Then I read the passage (every word). I don't re-read sections over and over if I don't understand - I move on. After the passage, I mentally construct the main idea. Then I do the questions. I don't need to go back to the passage very often (however, when I go back it is okay, because I know my timing).

 

I recommend practice practice practice, always timed. If you are stuck on a question for a long time, guess and move on. Mark it and come back at the end if you have time. It doesn't matter if a question is easy or hard - they are worth the same number of points. Your biggest increase in score will come from finishing the whole section. Also - never leave anything blank!

 

Hope that helps.

[Sebriz]

I agree with not focusing on the material in the sense of having a deep understanding of it. Try to get the overall point the writer is making and answer the questions from that. When you practice have a timer with you and record how long it takes you to get through each passage and the questions that come with it. If you can do the passage at 1.5 min per question then you are on schedule. I bet that you will find that the ones that take longer are the ones that are really filled with details and really confusingly written.

 

Practice practice practice and always with a timer and always try to do it faster without losing accuracy!! good luck

[coldfall]

To increase your speed, I suggest practising with a timer. Also, a lot of time is (often) wasted with going back to the passage too much.

 

It takes me 6-9 minutes to do a passage. Before each passage I take a little break to clear my mind and focus. Then I read the passage (every word). I don't re-read sections over and over if I don't understand - I move on. After the passage, I mentally construct the main idea. Then I do the questions. I don't need to go back to the passage very often (however, when I go back it is okay, because I know my timing).

 

I recommend practice practice practice, always timed. If you are stuck on a question for a long time, guess and move on. Mark it and come back at the end if you have time. It doesn't matter if a question is easy or hard - they are worth the same number of points. Your biggest increase in score will come from finishing the whole section. Also - never leave anything blank!

 

Hope that helps.

 

Hi Asta, thank you so much for your help, the thing is I try to not go back to the passage thats why im spending to much time on reading each passage, but im gussing for some questions even when I refer to passage out of two possible answer I usually choose the wrong one.. and its usually because of not understanding couple of lines in that specific paragraph... im just worried about the time left tho, cause im gonna do 30 articles each from now but im worried if 6 weeks would be ok. I wanna apply to western too so I need 11:( do u thing its possible by practicing super hard from now?

[coldfall]

I agree with not focusing on the material in the sense of having a deep understanding of it. Try to get the overall point the writer is making and answer the questions from that. When you practice have a timer with you and record how long it takes you to get through each passage and the questions that come with it. If you can do the passage at 1.5 min per question then you are on schedule. I bet that you will find that the ones that take longer are the ones that are really filled with details and really confusingly written.

 

Practice practice practice and always with a timer and always try to do it faster without losing accuracy!! good luck

 

Exactly, the ones that has a lot of ideas and details!!! and usually I cant relate them together to see what authors main point is by saying 4 different ideas. I also have problems in understanding political and Philosiphical (more abstarct content) passages except economist what do you recommend me to read?

[Wan2BMD]

I am experiencing the same problems with VR. I am also re-writing on Aug 19th. Doing the passages, timed, seems like the best approach. I found that I ran out of time during the last passage. I'm going to try to read the passage as though it was written to me. I think it may improve my attention and curiosity about the main point which may help to better grasp the purpose of the passage. Perhaps this approach might help you as well. I practiced TPR, Kaplan, EK etc. and found my mind wandering everytime because the passages did not interest me at all! Hope this gives you another perspective.

[jordan19]

Hey Guys,

 

I have had the same problem with verbal (i was super slow, couldnt pick out the main idea)... I just wrote the MCAT yesterday so i can't tell you how successful my strategy was but this it what it entailed...

 

i would read a couple articles of the economist each day, i would go really slow and really read the article to udnerstand it, writing down the main ideas of each paragraph. then i would try to come up with a theme and match it to the subtitles of the article (which I thought was the theme) this helped to see if i was getting the main ideas right... use a verb when describing the purpose of the article. is the author trying to criticize a theory? to refute? to explain? the present? use some sort of verb that is descriptive of the author's intent... i found that after doing this I was able to at least get the global questions

 

i then moved on to VR passages, I did a couple of them untimed and see if i could get most of them right (focusing on accuracy) then I'd do a couple of them timed (so 10 or so minutes per passage) note this is too much time, but i kept decreasing the time spent when timing until i sort of got (the timing) right. By test day, I was spending about 4-5 minutes reading, about 3-4 minutes for the questions... I did about 3-4 passages a day, 2 in the morning, and 2 just before i'd go to bed (note they were consecutively done)

 

it's probably been reiterated several times in the forum but really concentrate hard on what you are reading you have to attack the pasasge and really zone on the articles. sit up, don't slouch! FOCUS! and take breaks every 2 passages or so... try to understand the article, don't focus on details... if at the very least try to get a sense in what was the purpose of the article... if you can't start out with seeing if the author's tone is positive or negative, and use this fact + the question stems to help deduce the main idea

 

try to remain positive! that is all i can say is that if you are not doing well one day, just stick with it, perseverence pays off. i've had my fair share of hardship preparing for VR and at times i was so frustrated at myself, thoguht i couldn't read!

 

hope some of this helps