Berkeley Review verbal- yay or nay?

[nawrp11]

I am in the midst of preparing for CARS, and fortunately I have access to some highly touted prep material (at least according to what this forums says ). I also have the Berkeley Review verbal book with passages, and I know that at least for the old MCAT it was not considered to be good prep material for verbal reasoning; I don't really know why, but countless people on various forums said they would not recommend it. I wanted to ask you guys now that theres a new MCAT: is BR verbal still a sub-par source for CARS practice? Further, how disadvantageous is using CARS prep sources that are considered mediocre? Will it potentially decrease your CARS score? If not, then why do people say not to use them?
Thanks

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[TestingSolutions]

@nawrp11 - I think The Berekley Review (TBR) is a great MCAT prep company. I like the people that run the company and think they're as committed to seeing their students succeed as any company out there. Their science material is the best there is. In regards to the CARS, I'm not sure it's your best bet.

After removing the natural science passages, their verbal book (Berkeley Review's Guide to MCAT Verbal - published in 2013 and to my knowledge has not yet been updated for the "new" MCAT) has 69 usable passages. (This is because the natural science passages of the old verbal section no longer are pertinent for CARS preparation.) In terms of quality, I think their verbal passages are not as strong as other materials out there. They were good, but I would rate them behind TPR and EK. I did a number of practice tests worth of their passages but found many of their questions to be too detail focused and that they didn't correspond all that well to the CARS. I think they'd be useful if you are doing a long-term study plan where you’ll be doing passages 6 months out from test day. Also, the book costs $70 dollars new, so you’ll be paying roughly $1 per passage.

I think people don't use "them" because one only has a limited amount of time to prepare for the MCAT and it's a major waste to spend time taking and reviewing a practice test that doesn't resemble the MCAT CARS all that well. You probably won't see much of an improvement using their materials save for getting your timing down, but it's just silly to use sub-par materials when there are cheaper and better options out there.

Best of luck!

 

[nawrp11]

@nawrp11 - I think The Berekley Review (TBR) is a great MCAT prep company. I like the people that run the company and think they're as committed to seeing their students succeed as any company out there. Their science material is the best there is. In regards to the CARS, I'm not sure it's your best bet.

After removing the natural science passages, their verbal book (Berkeley Review's Guide to MCAT Verbal - published in 2013 and to my knowledge has not yet been updated for the "new" MCAT) has 69 usable passages. (This is because the natural science passages of the old verbal section no longer are pertinent for CARS preparation.) In terms of quality, I think their verbal passages are not as strong as other materials out there. They were good, but I would rate them behind TPR and EK. I did a number of practice tests worth of their passages but found many of their questions to be too detail focused and that they didn't correspond all that well to the CARS. I think they'd be useful if you are doing a long-term study plan where you’ll be doing passages 6 months out from test day. Also, the book costs $70 dollars new, so you’ll be paying roughly $1 per passage.

I think people don't use "them" because one only has a limited amount of time to prepare for the MCAT and it's a major waste to spend time taking and reviewing a practice test that doesn't resemble the MCAT CARS all that well. You probably won't see much of an improvement using their materials save for getting your timing down, but it's just silly to use sub-par materials when there are cheaper and better options out there.

Best of luck!

Ok I understand, thanks for the informative reply.
That's got me thinking: to what degree is it detrimental to practice natural science passages for this new MCAT? To my understanding, TPRHL and EK 101 haven't been updated for the new MCAT, so they would have natural science passages in them as well. I for one have NOT been paying attention to skipping over natural science passages (just because that would mean I would haveto peek at future passages I would do), so I have done a few natural science passages so far in my CARS prep.

 

[TestingSolutions]

@nawrp11 - If it isn't a matter of either/or, then it might not be the end of the world to do natural science passages, but if you'd be giving up studying something that is on the New MCAT for something that isn't, I think you'd be better skipping the natural science passages. There is something to the idea that critical reading is critical reading, but there are differences between the skills tested by a humanities passage and a social science passage. I had students that were great at the natural science passages on the VR but were terrible at the other two types, which leads me to believe those passages test something that the humanities and social sciences don't and vice versa. If you have the time and energy to do it, then I say go for it, as it definitely isn't going to hurt, but I'd just caution you not to let it come at the expense of other material. The New MCAT requires students to cover a lot of ground, and for most, it's a struggle to get it all in.

I think TPR's newest book is updated for CARS, but EK has not yet updated their book. I'd just be careful. You don't want to waste time. Best of luck!

 

[nawrp11]

@nawrp11 - If it isn't a matter of either/or, then it might not be the end of the world to do natural science passages, but if you'd be giving up studying something that is on the New MCAT for something that isn't, I think you'd be better skipping the natural science passages. There is something to the idea that critical reading is critical reading, but there are differences between the skills tested by a humanities passage and a social science passage. I had students that were great at the natural science passages on the VR but were terrible at the other two types, which leads me to believe those passages test something that the humanities and social sciences don't and vice versa. If you have the time and energy to do it, then I say go for it, as it definitely isn't going to hurt, but I'd just caution you not to let it come at the expense of other material. The New MCAT requires students to cover a lot of ground, and for most, it's a struggle to get it all in.

I think TPR's newest book is updated for CARS, but EK has not yet updated their book. I'd just be careful. You don't want to waste time. Best of luck!

Ok thanks for the reply!

 

[AsianPersuasion]

I love TBR for their sciences. I don't know much about their verbal, but the TPR hyperlearning is great!!