Guest bunnismith Posted May 21, 2005 Report Share Posted May 21, 2005 hello, just wondering if anyone had any advice on improving in verbal reasoning. i wrote the mcat last summer and did terribly in verbal reasoning (i got a 6) so obviously i was out of luck for all the mcat-requiring ontario schools. anyway, i decided to rewrite this summer but i just don't know how i can improve this skill. last summer i did a million practice passages and that didn't seem to help so what can i do this time around? read the new yorker/harper's? is 3 months really enough time to become a better/faster reader? my problem is both speed and comprehension. i'm a slow reader and i have trouble understanding some of the art/political/historical passages since i'm used to scientific reading. any advice would be much appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jochi1543 Posted May 22, 2005 Report Share Posted May 22, 2005 I have not yet taken the actual MCAT, only practice tests, but the strategy that I used to get better at the practice passages is still the same I used years ago to ace my SATs. English is not my first language, and the first time I took a practice SAT, I completely bombed my Verbal score - I got something like 300 out of 800. Next thing you know, 3 months later I take the actual test and get a 680 on Verbal - a score higher than 90% of students at my school whose first language is actually English. Similarly, when I first tried to take a practice MCAT, I got about 6 or 7 for the reading section, and a month later I was able to score a 12. What I believe you have to do: 1) learn to read every sentence. It may sound stupid, but most of us are used to huge amounts of reading in school and tend to skim rather than read thoroughly. You will realize if you have not read everything, because you will suddenly notice that you can't repeat some of the argument chains in the text you just read a minute ago or have trouble defining the main arguments. Concentrate on every sentence you read and register the meaning in your mind. If you suddenly find you've lost the train of thought, you will only need to come back to the previous sentence rather than reread the entire passage. 2) Always look up words you don't understand and make sure you memorize the meaning. 3) Learn to think like the MCAT guys do: analyze the questions referring to practice passages and try to divide them into groups. You will find that while questions deal with very different material, their nature is very similar. For example, you will almost always be asked a question that wants you to define the main topic of the passage, and a question concerning the feelings of the author in regards to the subject he's covering. When you learn what the MCAT people want, you simply need to train yourself to think the same way. When reading the text, ask yourself what the main topic and subtopics were, note any adjectives that convey the author's attitude towards the subject. 4) Continue doing what you are already doing - reading texts that you are not used to. Scientific texts differ greatly from texts in humanities or social sciences - oftentimes, there's a lot less of an author's presence in a science text, and the main topic is defined right in the beginning, while non-science texts may dwell on other things for a passage or two before getting to the actual topic, to think of a few differences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bunnismith Posted May 22, 2005 Report Share Posted May 22, 2005 thank you for the prompt and detailed response. i will try your tips! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest svp2k5 Posted May 22, 2005 Report Share Posted May 22, 2005 Practice reading anything you can get your hands on. I did fairly well on the verbal (11), and I think it was largely due to the amount of things I read. I am in engineering, but i enjoy reading newspapers, magazines, essays and novels. Doing the practice passages are obviously a great way to improve, if you already are a somewhat quick reader. If not, I don't think that they are as effective. You should try reading a wide range of literature (essays actually might get you in a better mindset). As you probably know, the MCAT passages can be based on just about anything, last summer there was one about archaeology, about funding in schools, etc. and I don't remember any passages that were based on anything scientific whatsoever. Just practice reading, its a somewhat slow process of building your reading pace and comprehension. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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