Eggyscove2 Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 Hi, I will be rewriting my MCAT next month due to a very poor verbal score on my first test. I have been studying verbal for a couple of months now and I am still getting the same score (mainly between 6 and 8- I had a couple of scores that were 9,10s but that may be just luck ). I went through EK101 twice already and did numerous Kaplan, TPR and LSAT practice passages but I do not know here I am going wrong. I am very disheartened right now. Does anyone think it will be possible for me to improve to at least a 10 over the next few weeks? Also, are there any GOOD schools outside Canada that would take me in if I got a verbal score of 6-8 again (my GPA is around 3.86 and my E/Cs are decent to good). I know I should be optimistic and continue to try harder but it just feels very difficult right now. Thanks! - Eg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tupacandbiggie Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 Hi, I will be rewriting my MCAT next month due to a very poor verbal score on my first test. I have been studying verbal for a couple of months now and I am still getting the same score (mainly between 6 and 8- I had a couple of scores that were 9,10s but that may be just luck ). I went through EK101 twice already and did numerous Kaplan, TPR and LSAT practice passages but I do not know here I am going wrong. I am very disheartened right now. Does anyone think it will be possible for me to improve to at least a 10 over the next few weeks? Also, are there any GOOD schools outside Canada that would take me in if I got a verbal score of 6-8 again (my GPA is around 3.86 and my E/Cs are decent to good). I know I should be optimistic and continue to try harder but it just feels very difficult right now. Thanks! - Eg Very was the most desperate section for me as well back in the days . But there really isn't a way to improve it in a short period of time, at least I don't know one. It really takes years of experience and maturity sometimes to do well in this section. Just for the sake of satisfying my own curiosity i did another verbal section a few weeks ago to see how much I have improved over the past 3 years since my last MCAT, and scored a 12 on it. Now i think that's maturity kicking in. Your ability to understand material increases so much since your early 20s (now I m 23). But i also notice a decline in my ability to memorize stuff as a trade off . So I guess you just have to hope that you get lucky on your MCAT day since the difference between a 9 and a 10 is just 2 Qs. If MCAT doesnt work out for you, you still got Ottawa and hopefully Toronto med schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomSmasherXVIII Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 The VR is mostly just to weed out the immigrants, english as a second language people, and kids born into crappy homes and who went to crappy schools. If that describes you, you're going to have a bad time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 The VR is mostly just to weed out the immigrants, english as a second language people, and kids born into crappy homes and who went to crappy schools. If that describes you, you're going to have a bad time. ah - really? You implication is that VR isn't something you can improve upon (among other things) and that isn't supported by any of the evidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mithril Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 ah - really? You implication is that VR isn't something you can improve upon (among other things) and that isn't supported by any of the evidence.Don't deign him a reply, rmorelan. He's more or less a troll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 The VR is mostly just to weed out the immigrants, english as a second language people, and kids born into crappy homes and who went to crappy schools. If that describes you, you're going to have a bad time. At least have the decency to troll for someone who doesn't have only 1 post. OP, Although I don't believe in "practice makes perfect" but practice certainly does make better. VR is not something you can improve over a short period of time. Make sure you read newspaper/journal articles regularly so that you get used to the flow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 Don't deign him a reply, rmorelan. He's more or less a troll. well sure - although I still hate leaving comments like that open for people with such a short posting history they may not know that VR is an arts based skill - like most of those cramming doesn't work very well. It is something developed over time with practise. Ask a math whiz how they solve complex problems quickly and when you get right down to it they cannot easily tell you - they just "know" how to solve those sorts of problems - and really just give you some hints and shortcuts. The rest is practise. As a arts major the same thing about VR and they can give you pointers but in the end it is similar thing. You read, you critically think, you read some more. You just improve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holiday1001 Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 that's what good citizens do Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomSmasherXVIII Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 I didn't imply that you can't improve. You're just going to have a really bad time when you try because your score is mostly determined by cultural, socioeconomic, and choice of major factors. It's not so much a test of your abilities than a test of your background. But by all means, keep working at it. After I did hundreds of practice passages, I managed to increase my score 2 points on the real thing compared to my first practice test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niceshrp Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Lol I'm an immigrant, and I raised my verbal from 9 -> 13 in 3 months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mashmetoo Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Lol I'm an immigrant, and I raised my verbal from 9 -> 13 in 3 months. Good for you, there's also examples of other immigrants who can't improve on a VR 7 after multiple rewrites and months of prepping. More often than not, it is the immigrants (even those who have been in North America for many years) that have problem with VR. Occasionally, there's also native born Canadians that also have problem with the VR, but they aren't the majority. There's even a DO school in the US whose clinical dean said that they don't care much for VR as it is basically "racist". (i.e., as long as you have a VR6 and above, you are good for their school). The end result is that the majority of student in their school are people of color. I noticed that immigrants from India, common wealth countries tend to fare better on the VR than immigrants from non common wealth countries - most likely due to the basic English system they have being a British colony for all those years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markov79 Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 yeah, i was gunna say... n = 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 I think people with a history or political science background find verbal much easier than others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hackintosh Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Improving in verbal requires lots of practice. Anyone who says it is innate probably did poorly and is looking for an excuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holiday1001 Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 immigrants will, in general, have a harder time. doesn't mean you necessarily will, but VR relies on language subtleties that are simply harder for those who have been reading english for less time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niceshrp Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Idk, I think verbal is perfectly doable whether you are an immigrant or not. I went to undergrad at an Ivy League school and most of the immigrants actually did better at critical reading portion of SAT than non-immigrants. However, they were not as proficient in speaking & rhetorical skills compared to non-immigrants. Just my experience lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Immigrant or non-immigrant, People generally suck at verbal That's life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
broom Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Good for you, there's also examples of other immigrants who can't improve on a VR 7 after multiple rewrites and months of prepping. More often than not, it is the immigrants (even those who have been in North America for many years) that have problem with VR. Occasionally, there's also native born Canadians that also have problem with the VR, but they aren't the majority. There's even a DO school in the US whose clinical dean said that they don't care much for VR as it is basically "racist". (i.e., as long as you have a VR6 and above, you are good for their school). The end result is that the majority of student in their school are people of color. I noticed that immigrants from India, common wealth countries tend to fare better on the VR than immigrants from non common wealth countries - most likely due to the basic English system they have being a British colony for all those years. Do you have any statistics to prove any of those assertions? I know a surprising number of immigrants who have better command over the English language than native English speakers. Now granted, I don't know all of their VR scores (most are not planning to be physicians), but I do know that a few of my friends who are immigrants have gotten 10+ on VR (which I at least consider a decent score.) I think Verbal Reasoning is just a difficult section and requires students to do something they are not used to. Yet this is true for native English speakers and immigrants alike. No one is ever asked, outside of the MCAT that is, to read a timed-passage and answer 6 multiple choice questions about it. It's just a skill that is undeveloped for so many people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mashmetoo Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Do you have any statistics to prove any of those assertions? I know a surprising number of immigrants who have better command over the English language than native English speakers. Now granted, I don't know all of their VR scores (most are not planning to be physicians), but I do know that a few of my friends who are immigrants have gotten 10+ on VR (which I at least consider a decent score.) I think Verbal Reasoning is just a difficult section and requires students to do something they are not used to. Yet this is true for native English speakers and immigrants alike. No one is ever asked, outside of the MCAT that is, to read a timed-passage and answer 6 multiple choice questions about it. It's just a skill that is undeveloped for so many people. I'm not saying that immigrants can't do well on VR, no, of course there'll be immigrants who do extremely well on VR. What I'm saying is that from what I've seen, immigrants tend to have more difficult time with VR on average than non immigrants. And no, I don't have a placebo controlled, randomized, double blinded study to confirm what I said. And again, people can have an excellent command of the English language, read write extremely well as an immigrant, but when you place them under VR conditions - they don't do so well. Schools notice this - as indicated by the Tauro NY DO school's pre-clinical dean that I mentioned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mashmetoo Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Idk, I think verbal is perfectly doable whether you are an immigrant or not. I went to undergrad at an Ivy League school and most of the immigrants actually did better at critical reading portion of SAT than non-immigrants. However, they were not as proficient in speaking & rhetorical skills compared to non-immigrants. Just my experience lol. lol... MCAT VR is to SAT VR, like chess is to tic tac toe... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cclawfjj Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 SAT Critical Reading and MCAT VR are two tests of different nature. You need to drill vocab for SAT whereas you need to be skilled at extrapolation for MCAT VR, IMHO. Of course, these two skill-sets are valuable for either exam, but the degree of emphasis is the difference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharmingHedgehog Posted July 2, 2012 Report Share Posted July 2, 2012 Not sure how this topic managed to deviate into whether immigrants can do well or poorly on VR. The thing that I found very helpful to do well in VR was to read a lot. It doesn't have to be scientific or educational books/articles, anything you enjoy would do. More reading would give you the practice to read quickly, and retain the central ideas/themes/tone of the piece, which is often what gets tested in VR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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