applicant5 Posted August 18, 2013 Report Share Posted August 18, 2013 If you have 8+ months to prepare for the MCAT VERBAL, would you think that its a good idea not to directly go to MCAT materials (in order to save them for last) and instead start practicing for LSAT READING COMPREHENSION for a little while in order to get into good reading habit and improving reading comprehension? Or do you think LSAT is useless and you should just read newpapers articles / books and novels in general (like The Economist) etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intrepid86 Posted August 18, 2013 Report Share Posted August 18, 2013 If you have 8+ months to prepare for the MCAT VERBAL, would you think that its a good idea not to directly go to MCAT materials (in order to save them for last) and instead start practicing for LSAT READING COMPREHENSION for a little while in order to get into good reading habit and improving reading comprehension? Or do you think LSAT is useless and you should just read newpapers articles / books and novels in general (like The Economist) etc? The best thing is to practice with both official and commercially available MCAT VR materials. Reading newspapers, magazines etc is useful, but the main people who see tangible benefits from this are those who have already been doing it for years (i.e., as a habit). If you were to just practice with passages, then 8 months would be too long to prepare; you'll peak way before your test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
applicant5 Posted August 18, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2013 Thats right, if I just start doing VR materials (like EK, TPR, etc) I will run out of them well before 8 months, thats why I'm trying to see if I should just increase reading comprehension and improve my reading habits and then start with VR materials Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hockeynut Posted August 18, 2013 Report Share Posted August 18, 2013 I don't get why people study so far ahead for the MCAT. I studied for 5 weeks and scored very well. I wouldn't recomend studying for such a short period of time but by no means do i think the material merits months of studying. just my two cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penguin92 Posted August 18, 2013 Report Share Posted August 18, 2013 I don't get why people study so far ahead for the MCAT. I studied for 5 weeks and scored very well. I wouldn't recomend studying for such a short period of time but by no means do i think the material merits months of studying. just my two cents. It's cause premeds are a neurotic/intense group of people lol. Personally I wasn't like that about the MCAT but a guy in first year once asked me if he should start studying for the MCAT verbal now hahaha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helloman1 Posted August 18, 2013 Report Share Posted August 18, 2013 I don't get why people study so far ahead for the MCAT. I studied for 5 weeks and scored very well. I wouldn't recomend studying for such a short period of time but by no means do i think the material merits months of studying. just my two cents. I agree. You need to chill with the MCAT. Med schools really don't care much for it (e.g. in the eyes of UoT, 14, 14, 14 is the same as 10, 10, 10). I likewise studied for less than a month, and scored very well on it (and almost perfect VR score), but it's not like it actually helped me much in the admission process Waitlists and rejections hit me left and right... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exocytosis Posted August 19, 2013 Report Share Posted August 19, 2013 Ah, subtle bragging disguised as advice. Wouldn't be a premed forum without it OP - if you'e that concerned about VR, you might want to consider trying an MCAT verbal section to see how you do (test #3 is free). If you do okay, don't worry about it. If you do poorly, and you feel that your doing poorly is related to poor reading comprehension, then it might be worthwhile to try reading more in your spare time. However, a lot of the trickiness inherent in VR is related to the wording of the questions and not necessarily the passages themselves, so reading comprehension will only take you so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helloman1 Posted August 20, 2013 Report Share Posted August 20, 2013 Ah, subtle bragging disguised as advice. Wouldn't be a premed forum without it OP - if you'e that concerned about VR, you might want to consider trying an MCAT verbal section to see how you do (test #3 is free). If you do okay, don't worry about it. If you do poorly, and you feel that your doing poorly is related to poor reading comprehension, then it might be worthwhile to try reading more in your spare time. However, a lot of the trickiness inherent in VR is related to the wording of the questions and not necessarily the passages themselves, so reading comprehension will only take you so far. I deserved that Although my point was that OP shouldn't stress out too much about the MCAT (for the most part, I felt as though as it was inconsequential beyond a certain threshold), and there is certainly no need to be studying for that many months. After 4 weeks, your returns will diminish greatly. I agree with the advice above- the only remaining good thing in test 3 is VS. BS and PS are both outdated and completely unrepresentative of your score.... Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
applicant5 Posted August 20, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2013 Thanks for your great advices -- I tried couple VR passages, and I'm scoring ~6 ! That's why I'm being worried about it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helloman1 Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 Thanks for your great advices -- I tried couple VR passages, and I'm scoring ~6 ! That's why I'm being worried about it A couple of passages are not really enough to know where you stand. If you're really worried about it, you could try examkrackers 101 passages. Do a few now and then for practice... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exocytosis Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 I deserved that It's all good broski <3 Thanks for your great advices -- I tried couple VR passages, and I'm scoring ~6 ! That's why I'm being worried about it What type of passages and how many? Were they official AAMC passages? If you did a lot of them that's a pretty reliable indicator of where you are. But if they were from a 3rd party prep company they might not be representative. What do you find difficult about verbal, the questions or the passages? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
applicant5 Posted August 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 I did around 5 passages from Kaplan and 2 passages from EK. You are right in that they may not be representative and I didn't do post-analysis - I just did them for fun to get a taste. I rather save them until closer to my actual test -- but you are right! Any more thoughts? If you guys had + 8 months to study (part time), would you read articles/novels over a long period of time or do you think practicing Reading Comprehension section in LSAT would be more useful? -- this is only to save real MCAT materials for last. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exocytosis Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 EK tends to have easier (maybe not easier to read but less boring at least) passages than actual MCAT stuff, but more difficult questions. They really like to throw you off with the way they word things. Post analysis, actually, would be a good place to start. See where you made mistakes. There's a big difference between getting a question wrong because you didn't understand the question and getting one wrong because you didn't understand the passage. They're different skills that are strengthened different ways. But if it's passages you're having trouble with, then article reading might help. Even if just to get you used to reading long pieces if you're not someone who has good "reading stamina." If you're already pretty good at understanding them but you have trouble with the questions that won't help as much. I found the tips in this post really helpful (check out the other ones in his signature too). I have no idea what the LSAT material is like so I can't say anything about it. Good luck though! Improving VR is definitely doable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
applicant5 Posted August 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 Thanks for your help ! Much appreciated... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.