I took all of these tests last summer. Last summer I prepared quite a bit. I was prepping all May, started research in mid June until early August, and then continued to prep until the beginning of September. I decided not to take the exam because I was too nervous about my verbal score.

Kaplan 1 : | 11 PS | 10 VR | 10 BS| Total: 31
Kaplan 2 : | 13 PS | 7 VR | 11 BS| Total: 31
Kaplan 3 : | 11 PS | 10 VR | 14 BS| Total: 35
AAMC 3 : | 12 PS | 8 VR | 12 BS| Total: 32
AAMC 4 : | 11 PS | 10 VR | 9 BS| Total: 30
AAMC 5 : | 10 PS | 10 VR | 11 BS| Total : 31
AAMC 6 : | 11 PS | 8 VR | 14 BS| Total : 33

Currently, I am studying again. I did not have a chance to study at all for this tests over the fall and winter semester (Sep09-May10) and just started studying two days ago.
I re-enrolled in a Kaplan MCAT class. They finally have new books/materials so I think it should be a lot better now. And they are even in color! I took an MCAT diagnostic from Kaplan today. Its 50min physical and 50 min bio, and then 40 min verbal. I got my scaled scores back. So it’s been about 8 months and I started studying two days ago. These are my scores for the diagnostic. It looks like I remembered quite a bit from last summer, which is great.

Kaplan Diagnostic: |12 PS | 5 VR | 9 BS | Total :26

Now I understand that some of you may think Kaplan is not good. I looked at their scaled scores for this exam, and frankly it’s pretty close to what it would be on the MCAT. The physical sciences might be a bit inflated.
In general, it seems I’m OK with the physical sciences though.

Gen chem: Review solubility, electrochemistry, and some acid-base stuff.
Physics: Review magnetism, voltage/potential, optics, waves and light and harmonic motion

For biological Sciences I need to review content and memorize, memorize, memorize stuff.

I’m not that worried about the sciences. I believe I can succeed on the AAMC tests for PS and BS with enough review. It shouldn’t take me nearly as long as it did last year.

As you can see, my greatest concern is verbal.
Last year, I didn’t put any time into Verbal until 2 or 3 weeks before I sat for the test in September. So really I started VR around mid-august and I was frantic trying to "learn" the right thing to do. I bought the EK 1001 book and just did a ton of work, but I felt like I was getting diminishing returns. I canceled my scores on the actual MCAT because I was too worried about verbal.

I have no idea what to do. I feel like Verbal just doesn’t click for me. I read the stuff, but it doesn’t work, and to be honest I feel very incapable and not confident, even stupid, because I am scoring so poorly. I figured if ANYTHING my scores should be the same on verbal, but they got worse. This is terrible. I am not actually freaking out, I am calm, but I am extremely worried that I won’t be able to pull my test scores up enough, and that my VR score will look so bad with my PS and BS.

I welcome any advice. Be as harsh or as mean as you want, just give me something constructive for me to build off of.

I am excited to use the new Kaplan books because I think they should be really really helpful.