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Common Error Themes In Passages


Locke

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I have been doing TPR hyperlearning passages for Gchem and I find myself getting destroyed quite frequently. My mistakes are mainly misreading the question (eg. it asks which atom will have a shorter half-life Be-10 or C-10 and I pick Be-10 thinking that it said longer half-life but the answer is C10), and not remembering what it said in a passages, or not knowing how to solve a question that tells you how to solve in the passage.

I was hoping someone could give me tips on how to improve on my weak points, because I have no clue how to do it.

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Most of these mistakes can be fixed quite easily. First of all make sure you aren't rushing too much. You should be spending approx. 2 minutes reading the passage and 1 minute per question (e.g. psg with 6 Q's should take you 8 minutes). Try taking your time a little bit more while reading a passage, highlight some key points as you go along but don't spend more than 2 minutes reading it (especially for PS). Slow down even more when reading questions. A lot of the time, the MCAT tries to trip you up on small details that you can easily gloss over while reading a question so it is absolutely essential to read every single word of a question stem.

 

Another thing that helped me was to write things down for question if it's a bit hard to keep in your head. For e.g. Some questions might ask you to list things in decreasing order or increasing order so I would write down "smallest on the left side of the page and biggest on the right just so I don't make the easy mistake of putting things down in decreasing order and vice-versa". 

 

So try slowing down, reading more carefully and before answering any question always make sure you know exactly what it's asking you to do and try and have a mental plan of how you're going to solve it before you start doing any calculations. 

 

Good luck and hope that helps you a bit. 

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Most of these mistakes can be fixed quite easily. First of all make sure you aren't rushing too much. You should be spending approx. 2 minutes reading the passage and 1 minute per question (e.g. psg with 6 Q's should take you 8 minutes). Try taking your time a little bit more while reading a passage, highlight some key points as you go along but don't spend more than 2 minutes reading it (especially for PS). Slow down even more when reading questions. A lot of the time, the MCAT tries to trip you up on small details that you can easily gloss over while reading a question so it is absolutely essential to read every single word of a question stem.

 

Another thing that helped me was to write things down for question if it's a bit hard to keep in your head. For e.g. Some questions might ask you to list things in decreasing order or increasing order so I would write down "smallest on the left side of the page and biggest on the right just so I don't make the easy mistake of putting things down in decreasing order and vice-versa". 

 

So try slowing down, reading more carefully and before answering any question always make sure you know exactly what it's asking you to do and try and have a mental plan of how you're going to solve it before you start doing any calculations. 

 

Good luck and hope that helps you a bit. 

Yes it does! Thanks!

 

I am wondering, how do you remember passage details/understand difficult passages, especially if they are experimentally based?

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Actually, for PS, I try NOT to focus too much on the nitty-gritty and try my best to extract what concept/s they are testing me in the passage. I skim the passage and highlight some key things (e.g. numbers, new concepts or laws given, etc.). I think the trick is to understand that a lot of the time a really dense experimental passage is used to try and confuse students and it is those who succeed in extracting pertinent information and understanding which PS concepts are being tested that score the highest. So in other words, read the passage carefully but don't worry if you don't understand everything since they may not even test you on that part of the passage and most of the questions can be answered without passage info. 

 

Just try and remember that each question is testing you on something that you already know (a concept or combination thereof) or is in the passage (in these Q's are usually quite obvious), it just may not be immediately obvious to figure out. 

 

Be careful of using this technique for BS though as most of the passages there require in-depth understanding--especially if they are experimental. 

 

Also, take my advice with a grain of salt as I'm no PS expert but I usually score in the 11-12 range. 

 

Maybe some other premeders can chime in on their techniques/strategies as well. 

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Actually, for PS, I try NOT to focus too much on the nitty-gritty and try my best to extract what concept/s they are testing me in the passage. I skim the passage and highlight some key things (e.g. numbers, new concepts or laws given, etc.). I think the trick is to understand that a lot of the time a really dense experimental passage is used to try and confuse students and it is those who succeed in extracting pertinent information and understanding which PS concepts are being tested that score the highest. So in other words, read the passage carefully but don't worry if you don't understand everything since they may not even test you on that part of the passage and most of the questions can be answered without passage info. 

 

Just try and remember that each question is testing you on something that you already know (a concept or combination thereof) or is in the passage (in these Q's are usually quite obvious), it just may not be immediately obvious to figure out. 

 

Be careful of using this technique for BS though as most of the passages there require in-depth understanding--especially if they are experimental. 

 

Also, take my advice with a grain of salt as I'm no PS expert but I usually score in the 11-12 range. 

 

Maybe some other premeders can chime in on their techniques/strategies as well. 

 

Much thanks! 

 

I am wondering how you recognize which questions require going back to the passage?

 

I am going to try what you said and try to understand what the passage is talking about and what it will be testing on!

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