Even with consistent practice, VR score not improving...

[studentdoctor08]

I am extremely frustrated! I've heard great things about the EK 101 verbal book, and have been using that for the past ~2 months. I only have 1 test left to do, and my VR has not really improved from when I started doing the practice. I review my answers after every test and try my best to understand why I'm missing questions. With my test in January, I'm starting to think that it's impossible to raise my score Anybody have any advice/pep-talk?

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[kgpremed11]

I am extremely frustrated! I've heard great things about the EK 101 verbal book, and have been using that for the past ~2 months. I only have 1 test left to do, and my VR has not really improved from when I started doing the practice. I review my answers after every test and try my best to understand why I'm missing questions. With my test in January, I'm starting to think that it's impossible to raise my score Anybody have any advice/pep-talk?

Oh boy....I have a friend like you. Her problem was thinking too much when picking answer choices. With verbal, the more you look over those answer choices after you read the passage, the more doubt grows in your mind. Sometimes you just have to trust your intuition and gut, throw the spear, pick the answer that feels right and move on. Making descions with your gut is very uncomfortable for scientist, it's not our nature, but give this a try with verbal. I made 9 and 10 on verbal the two times I took the MCAT and I've only did half of the EK 101 book, no other verbal prep. Throw the spear

 

[QuantumFlame]

Don't give up! It wasn't until my second month that verbal really started to click. I don't know how you have been scoring, but I was in the 9-10 range in EK101. After really evaluating what I was doing, I started to see real gains. Granted, I scored an 11VR on the real thing when I was averaging 12-13 on the FLs in my 3rd month of prep.

The most important element for me was extreme focus and defending every answer.

 

[gmcguitar4]

I scored a 10 VR both times I took the MCAT. I would get 10-11 on all practice tests. Even after I thought I rocked the section I would still get the same score. For me though, I never read books for pleasure and I only took one literature course in college. Wish I did more of that.

Since you have some time until your test, I suggest working on your timing for the section and try to get to the point that you are not rushing at the very end. I would practice timing myself on one passage and would try to keep it under a certain period of time. Then I did that with 2 passages. It helped keep me aware of my time during the test and def helped me stay consistent with my score.

To improve, I suggest maybe do some difficult reading and analyze the material. Maybe get a few journals on political philosophy or books like Foucault's Pendulum and The Republic, then pick random pages and read 1 or 2 depending on how dense the page is with text and analyze the ideas that are being discussed. I tried doing this in the last month of prep but it was not enough time to really help. Practicing this will def help you read through hard material and get a better understanding of what's going on.

 

[SN2ed]

Please do not quote spam.

 

[Gauss44]

Anybody have any advice/pep-talk?

Have you considered going online to wyzant.com or finding a tutor who did really well on VR to listen to your reasoning and help you understand why the right answer is right? There should be a pattern at some point where once difficult questions will begin to look familiar.

Alternatively, I wonder if you might have an undiagnosed reading related learning disability. Do you have a pattern or history of reading comprehension problems? (That's a personal, yet important, question. No need to answer on this forum. Just ask yourself.) Should you be getting extra time on the test?

 

[TheLadyVanishes]

I would say that if you're not improving, it's time to step away from the practice tests and save some material for when you're more prepared.

I unfortunately went through about 30 of the 40-odd practice verbal passages in TPRH, getting 3-4 wrong every time and becoming increasingly angry and frustrated. (I was told by someone here that 1 wrong per passage is about a 10, so getting a 3-4 is not being in good shape.) I realized that I kept messing up because I wasn't reading all the answer choices carefully. Also, I did not read the passage carefully enough and I never understood it.

I took a break and started reading the Economist, always picking out the most intimidating and boring articles and forcing myself to read them line by line, trying to read around terminology or concepts that I didn't understand, then get something out of the article. I know some people here recommend reading novels or other fun books to brush up on reading skills. However, most MCAT passages are NOT fun and are usually boring, dense, confusing, or all three, so I found it was most helpful to read similar passage material.

When I went back to the practice tests I would usually get 0-1 wrong and on the AAMC tests my verbal scores ranged from 10-15. (the 15 was a major fluke) On the real MCAT, there were a few passages that I struggled with, but I did not feel overwhelmed and I scored a 13.

 

[shushumiga]

I would say that if you're not improving, it's time to step away from the practice tests and save some material for when you're more prepared.

I unfortunately went through about 30 of the 40-odd practice verbal passages in TPRH, getting 3-4 wrong every time and becoming increasingly angry and frustrated. (I was told by someone here that 1 wrong per passage is about a 10, so getting a 3-4 is not being in good shape.) I realized that I kept messing up because I wasn't reading all the answer choices carefully. Also, I did not read the passage carefully enough and I never understood it.

I took a break and started reading the Economist, always picking out the most intimidating and boring articles and forcing myself to read them line by line, trying to read around terminology or concepts that I didn't understand, then get something out of the article. I know some people here recommend reading novels or other fun books to brush up on reading skills. However, most MCAT passages are NOT fun and are usually boring, dense, confusing, or all three, so I found it was most helpful to read similar passage material.

When I went back to the practice tests I would usually get 0-1 wrong and on the AAMC tests my verbal scores ranged from 10-15. (the 15 was a major fluke) On the real MCAT, there were a few passages that I struggled with, but I did not feel overwhelmed and I scored a 13.

Wow...a 13...thats amazing score. For how long did you read the economist before taking the real exam? Im frustrated with the verbal. Im ESL which adds another level of difficulty.

 

[misplacedshadow]

Wow...a 13...thats amazing score. For how long did you read the economist before taking the real exam? Im frustrated with the verbal. Im ESL which adds another level of difficulty.

I also want to know how long you've been reading economist and what part of the magazine did you focus reading on?

 

[TheLadyVanishes]

Wow...a 13...thats amazing score. For how long did you read the economist before taking the real exam? Im frustrated with the verbal. Im ESL which adds another level of difficulty.

I read the Economist for about two months before I took the exam and also had to make time for studying BS and PS too.

I'm a native English speaker, as are both my parents, and I've always been an avid reader. Therefore, studying for VR could easily take longer and require more of a time commitment for students who are not native English speakers or do not read for fun. (Maybe someone in one of those categories could chime in here?)

Some people on SDN have recommended reading popular fiction like "The Hunger Games" or "Harry Potter" to sharpen your reading skills and speed. Again, my issue is that the level of difficulty and the interest level of popular fiction is not at all representative of VR passages.

Possibly - and this is an untested hypothesis - it might be better to read "The Lord of the Rings", "Alice in Wonderland", "Dracula", which are wordier and more complex, but are engaging and relatively easy to read compared to most classics.

The reason that I read the Economist is because I know very little about its subject matter. If you're someone who's very well versed in international politics or who tracks the stock market for a hobby, it probably wouldn't be as difficult for you. I know some people are more intimidated by the arts passages, in which case something like the New Yorker could suffice.

In any case, it worked for me to zero in on a subject I am not comfortable with. If you find it boring and don't understand the terminology, you'll get easily confused and lose interest. I guess that forcing yourself to read it increases the discipline and focus necessary for the awful passages on the VR. Forcing yourself to try and understand it (summarize the article at the end or throughout) also helps you learn to extract meaning from these dense passages.

Another note - especially on TBR BS, I would sometimes not even read the passage unless the question referred to it. If it was purely a fact based question, I would simply answer it out of knowledge and not waste time reading; pick out the obvious correct answer and move on. The same strategies that I used on the science sections caused me to trip up on the verbal, where you do have to thoroughly read and get some understanding from the passage, and where it is important to read and consider every answer choice.

Also, the real MCAT had much of that infamous "experimental biology" rather than fact based or conceptual questions and so being able to analyze the passage, questions and answers - many of which are not very straightforward - matters on BS not only VR.

 

[milosavljevic]

Forcing yourself to try and understand it (summarize the article at the end or throughout) also helps you learn to extract meaning from these dense passages.

Do you think for the MCAT it would help to keep a running list of words that I need to look up (e.g. don't know the definition) when reading The Economist?

 

[Sandstorm]

Do you think for the MCAT it would help to keep a running list of words that I need to look up (e.g. don't know the definition) when reading The Economist?

No.

 

[TheLadyVanishes]

No.

I agree, because the topics on the MCAT VR may not be the same as your reading material. I don't think I had a single economics or foreign policy passage on my test, but it was the practice reading and test taking strategies that did it for me on VR.