I am a freshman entering UCI in September
HS graduation in 2 weeks
So I was thinking, I want to take the MCAT the summer before my junior year, so I think I want to read heavy literature and analyze it starting now, because it brought up all my older friends by 4 points minimum on the VR sections when they did it for several months. What are some good books to read? I like horror/mystery/comedy/action
I would try to read some difficult books, like economics books such as
The Wealth of Nations or philosophy books such as
The Republic by Plato or some Aristotle. I personally am reading
A Wealth of Nations as well as
Critique of Pure Reason for the same reason as you; to develop reading skills for the MCAT. I feel myself having to reread sentences less and less. I have already read
On the Interpretation of Dreams as well as a history tome by Will Durant (pulitzer-prize winning historian).
If you are looking for novels, I think you should try reading a few classics. They may be more interesting than you'd think. I hear that
Don Quixote is pretty good - a wikipedia list of 100 best books of all time says that:
"The books selected by this process and listed here are not ranked or categorized in any way; the organizers have stated that "they are all on an equal footing," with the exception of
Don Quixote which was given the distinction "best literary work ever written." The following list organizes the works alphabetically by author.
[1]"
So Don Quixote must be a pretty great book. It has an interesting storyline; it's about an ingenious knight who wants to bring back the years of yore and chivalry.
@NickNaylor, who scored a 15 on the MCAT VR, attributes his verbal success to his background in the "great books." I am not sure if he read more nonfiction than fiction or vice versa. Even if it doesn't increase your score (I personally believe it will, and according to my experience, almost all 15 VR's explicitly attribute their success to avid reading habits), you'll at least have learned something new, whether it be vocabulary or the book's content (in the case of expository works) or other language/thinking skills. I believe this method works best over a long period of time, which you seem to have. Be consistent and follow through on your plan to read; at least, that is the path that I would recommend.
By the way, just for a few more anecdotes. One ESL student on this board scored a perfect 15 on VR; he said that he read through every Economist magazine issue for a year. It is pretty challenging for ESL students to score this high. My personal friend, who is an avid reader (reads 3+ hours per day) scored a perfect on the SAT VR. He read many classic books, because his "genius" sister recommended him to do so. El Capone, who scored somewhere in the range of 39-43 (he didn't reveal his score) said that for VR, he read books and did a lot of TPR and EK practice. Bangbangbang, who scored 15 on VR, said that his secret to VR was "
https://kindle.amazon.com, read, read read." Reading seems to be a common theme in the high VR-scoring MCATees (as well as for my friend, and I am sure many other SAT test takers). I would emphasize that I recommend you follow suit.
