Drop Medicine because of Verbal Reasoning?

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Omg, I just did that philosophy passage an hour ago. I also missed more than half the questions on that passage. If I just understood the main idea of that passage, I would've missed 5 questions less and gotten a solid 11 instead of a 9. It's all about understanding, but sometimes the passages are written in weird prose that I'm just not used to. I wish I took some more literary classes...

Originally Posted by Forthefuture

Omg, I just did that philosophy passage an hour ago. I also missed more than half the questions on that passage. If I just understood the main idea of that passage, I would've missed 5 questions less and gotten a solid 11 instead of a 9. It's all about understanding, but sometimes the passages are written in weird prose that I'm just not used to. I wish I took some more literary classes...

Yeah, in the first 3 passages he is advocating his own thing. Then, he begins to critique an alternative way of thinking for the rest of the passage. But the transition in paragraph 4, where it turns into a critique, simply IS NOT CLEAR. I read this about 10 times before I finally understood what the **** was happening.

Once you know what is going on, it's easy to answer the questions. But many of the passages, particularly the philosophy stuff, simply is not clear enough

Originally Posted by AttackNME

The trick is practicing speed-reading. Try subscribing to a sciencey magazine like SciAm and go through as many passages as you can. The MCAT takes a lot of their passages out of that mag. I did that for weeks and nailed a 12 on VR

Speed reading is not necessary. I'm a slow reader and I never ran out of time on TPRH, EK, or AAMC VR sections. I finished my MCAT VR section with ~7 minutes to spare and was able to review the questions I wasn't sure on.

The important part of VR is understanding what the author is trying to say, how he is trying to say it, and what his feelings are about it. If you have a perfect understanding of those three things, you can get a 15 on VR. Obviously a 15 is near impossible, but so is having a perfect understanding of something you have 7-8 minutes to read and answer questions about, but the questions all test your understanding of the author and his writing sample.

VR is more about understanding and critical thinking than speeding through the passage. That's why it is called verbal reasoning and not verbal first-to-finish-wins.

Also, as an off-topic comment, I'm still waiting for that one guy (or girl) to tell me the magical third way to become a physician. Apparently you can be a physician without going to MD or DO school.

I just read the whole article and time myself. I sometimes copy and paste some random article online into word doc so i can count how many words i speed read per min. I would force myself to read 700 words per min and then sit and try to recall as much as i can. Its a good drill to train ur eyes to read in chunks/groups instead of word by word. I actually learned that trick by buying a book about speed reading, but really u just need to practice readin a lot. Realistically i was reading at 200-300 wpm for the mcat

MedPr - for those that struggle to understand the article due to pressure of an exam, speedreading serves multiple purposes:
- go thru more material than you would otherwise for more practice
- get comfortable to the timed circumstance of an exam
- practice moving forward instead of dwelling on a question or confusing sentence

Originally Posted by MedPR

Speed reading is not necessary. I'm a slow reader and I never ran out of time on TPRH, EK, or AAMC VR sections. I finished my MCAT VR section with ~7 minutes to spare and was able to review the questions I wasn't sure on.

The important part of VR is understanding what the author is trying to say, how he is trying to say it, and what his feelings are about it. If you have a perfect understanding of those three things, you can get a 15 on VR. Obviously a 15 is near impossible, but so is having a perfect understanding of something you have 7-8 minutes to read and answer questions about, but the questions all test your understanding of the author and his writing sample.

VR is more about understanding and critical thinking than speeding through the passage. That's why it is called verbal reasoning and not verbal first-to-finish-wins.

Also, as an off-topic comment, I'm still waiting for that one guy (or girl) to tell me the magical third way to become a physician. Apparently you can be a physician without going to MD or DO school.

I think with 7 minutes to spare, you lose a lot of credibility in saying that you're a slow reader

This is to recap where I think I am at, and what I am going to do to budge this heavy rock. Never before have I hit something this hard in my life.

Summer of 2011 I studied for the mcat, got better in the sciences, noticed I was having consistently lower scores than what I wanted/expected. Consequently did not take it because it was just verbal verbal verbal in my mind, plus I wasn't real good at physics. June 18, I got 8 on physical science and 8 on verbal. I thought I had time to get better but verbal didn't really go anywhere. A few weeks ago, took the same test (I'd forgotten it for the most part) , and got an 8 in verbal! Felt way too shaky

Now, late spring of 2012, I am solid/comfortable with physical sciences and the biological sciences (bio never was that difficult from the beginning) although I am not doing the 13/14 caliber !

October I bought an extensive book on improving in the verbal section and one of the methods was to read read read, hard dense - so I started that in January - reading all these awful books, literary theory and what not, till February 6 when someone told me I shouldn't have to doing that, so I quit the daily basis thing (didn't totally drop it). Late february started doing passages and didn't really feel any better. Later started doing full 1 hr tests and invariably got 14 wrong per section. That always gives a 7/8 or worse. Kaplan, EK, you name it. Then I would focus on Princeton verbal strategies, then reconfirm what EK would say, then see what sdn would say. (PR and EK do clash as far as methods). I have started mapping the passage. From what I can tell, mapping is a good idea and keeps me more engaged. Nevertheless, efficient mapping on paper takes lots of practice. I'm not there yet.

I think it is pointless to keep doing passages when I keep getting the same consistent results. Yes, I miss certain question types like complex analogies and complex inferences. But the bottom line is I have to become a better reader, and become better at inferences and quickly possess the author's main idea.
I am not going to do MCAT passages as often right now, because I have to back to step 1 and they just aren't returning like people say they will. Today I was reading from 2 books on increasing reading comprehension and doing passages and mapping them. I simply have to be better at recall too. It's not rocket science. I pretty much dropped reading when I was a growing kid and teenage years. I detested the deep stuff. Now I regret it, but all I can do is look forward.

Now, as far as the real Mcat, I feel like I am in no position to take the real thing when I am still shaky on practice scenarios. I am going to work from 6:30 - 2:00 pm each day, and then come to the library and prepare. Do very focused reading of humanities, philosophy, etc, while mapping the passage, and work through reading comprehension books. Working all day at verbal is just not as effective as the sciences, for example. I will submit the amcas at the beginning of June, even if I don't have a mcat score by then.

Earlier on I would have had a fit on how long this is taking, but better reading skills can only help me in the event of getting into medical school and life in general. A solid verbal score and my application will be solid. All I want to be is a rural family doctor, and please MD at all costs, even if it means preparing every afternoon/evening of the summer for a retake in september. The DO route could complicate things when returning back to Canada to practice.

Sound good?




Ryan

Originally Posted by MedPR

Speed reading is not necessary. I'm a slow reader and I never ran out of time on TPRH, EK, or AAMC VR sections. I finished my MCAT VR section with ~7 minutes to spare and was able to review the questions I wasn't sure on.

The important part of VR is understanding what the author is trying to say, how he is trying to say it, and what his feelings are about it. If you have a perfect understanding of those three things, you can get a 15 on VR. Obviously a 15 is near impossible, but so is having a perfect understanding of something you have 7-8 minutes to read and answer questions about, but the questions all test your understanding of the author and his writing sample.

VR is more about understanding and critical thinking than speeding through the passage. That's why it is called verbal reasoning and not verbal first-to-finish-wins.

Also, as an off-topic comment, I'm still waiting for that one guy (or girl) to tell me the magical third way to become a physician. Apparently you can be a physician without going to MD or DO school.

DUDDEEE FINALLY someone that agrees with me. When I started studying, I was making 6s. I only attempted to "skim the passage" because everyone on SDN was talking about speed reading. On my practice AAMCs, I was scoring 12+ on BS and PS but around 6 on verbal. I decided to try my own strategy, and read slow as hell. I mean slowwwww as hell (finished with 1 second left). I ended up getting a 9. This isn't a good score, but hopefully I can bring it up to a 10 within 2 weeks.

Moral of the story - don't listen to others. What works best for them may not work best for you.

My recipe was Read faster, Understand better, adapt my perspective to MCAT's special angle, and improve my POE. Total reboot of my reading skills. I agree with above posts that simply reading faster is not enough. If you need to increase speed, it needs to be faster along with better comprehension.

speed-reading is for those of us that start at 15 minutes a passage. . . . Compared to when I started I am now a speedier reader. I believe that you may need to increase your speed if you find you take over 8 minutes to finish a passage, especially if you are spending 5+ minutes on the passage itself! (me during the 1st test)

I don't think you need to be a "speed reader", but you do have to read fast enough to read/understand the passage in 3-4 minutes AND then immediately read the questions AND very very long answer choices with the remaining 3-4 minutes. I learned to read faster AND comprehend so that I could even finish a verbal section on time.

For me, I went with the method that SOUNDED best to me, I thought PR sounded cheesy and distracting and EK sounded most truthful, though it took me a few weeks to figure out HOW to apply the EK strategy to my 14-minute-passage skills. Must of worked because I got a 12!!


Universal theme of this thread: Don't give up because of Verbal. Identify your weaknesses (probably more than one mistake) and then try a few methods. IT CAN HAPPEN. Good Luck!!! -- from fellow Verbal Warrior

"I realize that my issue is that I just never really read books"

Originally Posted by Shalashaska

First of all, don't drop medicine just because your verbal reasoning is weak.
Second of all, this strategy along with the previously mentioned strategies may help:

Prove every answer wrong until you're left with one answer choice, regardless of whether it looks good or bad.

What does this mean? Say you have a question:

1. Which one of the following arguments was blah blah blah...

A. ...
B. ...
C. ...
D. ...

Essentially, the idea is to look at each answer individually, find evidence from the passage that either supports it or not, and go on to the next answer.

I think many people do poorly on verbal reasoning (like myself in the beginning) because they look for the answer that looks RIGHT instead of looking for the answer that is CORRECT. What I'm saying is that you will have 4 answer choices that look very bad and so you have eliminate 2 or 3 just to pick the one that's left, even if it looks bad. Verbal reasoning is all about interpretation and sometimes, your interpretation of the passage is not the same as the author's.

You will be slow in the beginning using this strategy but I believe this will help. Why? Because this was my high school AP Lit teacher's strategy. And he took me from a 1 on the exam to a 5. Even though the two exams are different, verbal reasoning is verbal reasoning.

if you go with this strategy it would take you 5 minutes to answer one question. Since time is an issue in mcat verbal, I am skeptical this would help.

Originally Posted by MedPR

Also, as an off-topic comment, I'm still waiting for that one guy (or girl) to tell me the magical third way to become a physician. Apparently you can be a physician without going to MD or DO school.

The "magical" way is the australia ochsner program. Med school down under rotations in US, mbbs degree.

http://www.mededpath.org/