MCAT Verbal

[bubbles17]

i am going to take the aug. mcat next year and i wanted to start preparing for the verbal section since im not the best english person.

what are some good things to read? like books, magazine (Times, US. News, etc.) or scientific articles/journals?

thanks guys!

and good luck to everyone who is going through the app process right now!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[bubbleyum]

this probably belongs in the mcat forum rather than here, but as a fellow bubbler i can suggest reading online articles and ANYTHING that interests you in terms of literature.

i read cnn and slate.com every day and reading online articles definitely helps you to scan through reading materials faster, in my opinion. and you don't have to subscribe to them like nytimes or the economist.
besides that, i've always read a lot. you should just read regularly and the best way to keep this up is to read stuff that interests you. it will get you into the habit of reading faster and with better attention.

i think this really helped me with the mcat. i never had to prepare for verbal in particular and on all my practice exams(aamc & kaplan, tpr) i was scoring 13-14 from the beginning. the day of the mcat i was nervous and sick and didn't do as well as i had hoped, but still was able to get an 11 despite all the stress.

good luck, hope this helps! i guess i'll be retaking with the rest of you guys in april fi i don't hear anything back from schools this cycle.

 

[Scintillation]

read the magazine the economist

 

[temmie]

i guess it depends on how much you really enjoy getting bored with all those articles. I am not very interested in them, and english happens to be my second language, so what i did was use examcrackers materials for studying about 6 weeks to the exam. I got a 9 on verbal which is n ot excellent but for 6 weeks of study and second language student. i am grateful to God. Wish you all the best

 

[jhrugger]

read the magazine the economist

I second this. The Economist may the best news magazine on the market. I actually discussed the Economist and a recent (at the time) article from the magazine during one of my interviews!

Also, I think bbc news online (news.bbc.co.uk) trumps cnn.com

jhrugger

 

[thegymbum]

I would recomend reading up on any sort of humanities and social sciences journals.. being "familiar" with the style of writing will really give you a step up. Also there are a lot of practice MCAT books you can find.. I noticed an entire shelf full at my library.. familiarizing yourself with the type of questions is always a big help, too And if you want to throw down a few thousand, a prep course is probably going to be your biggest help.. best of luck!!

 

[MDhopeful023]

HI Bubbles.. (I hope this answers your questions... I also put some study tips as well)

I actually struggled in verbal and I did the following:
Read many novels (read about 10 (this is around a year mind you) before the April MCAT)
Outlined and read Wallstreet Journal and Economist (pick 3 interesting articles and outline them by asking yourself what is the purpose of the passage, how is the author feeling about the passage... etc)
Bought ExamKrackers Verbal Workbook (did it all, 9 passages 85 min)
Used Kaplan and Princeton Review Workbook problems (did it all, timed ~ 9min each passage)

and lastly....
I thought this was helpful to me... is to glance at questions first before reading the passage....

I hope this helps out!

 

[Phil Anthropist]

Moving to the MCAT Discussions Forum

 

[N1DERL&]

Regarding the practice passages, does it make sense to do them not timed in the beginning?

Should we start by doing a whole 85 minute session or about 3 in a row and then working up to 85 minutes straight?

 

[Saluki]

Regarding the practice passages, does it make sense to do them not timed in the beginning?

Should we start by doing a whole 85 minute session or about 3 in a row and then working up to 85 minutes straight?

Take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I think that you should start out doing them timed. No reason to get into the habit of being able to spend half an hour nitpicking it. Kaplan does a set up with its practice items online where you start doing it a passage or two at a time and work your way up. I was much weaker in the sciences than in the VR so I didn't do that, but I think it's a good system- at least it helped me with BS and PS...

 

[HunterGatherer]

try not fall into the "if I can do it untimed I can do it timed" trap

I started doing PS untimed and could not wean myself off of the ugly habit. Then I could never finish PS on time. I always finished BS/verbal on time and was doing well on those but not PS.On the real deal I finished BS and verbal earlier than normal but I ran out of time on PS.

 

[Arsenic]

Doing it untimed makes no sense, because it may take you 2 hours to get a 12 on the verbal untimed, but when you do it timed, you may end up with only a 8 or something due to having to hurry up.

Timing makes a difference in score.

If you are only going to do 3 passages, at least set the timer for 30 minutes. But time it still.

Definitely, after you've done a bunch of timed practice tests you'll develop a real sense of how fast you should be reading and moving through the passages. The point of verbal is not just to get through the passages but to get through them quickly.

 

[larrry]

My old MCAT instructor suggested doing some outside reading in the following:

natural history books by Stephen Gould.
Economist magazine
American Best Essays books. These are a series of books you can probably find at a school library.

Also, some other good things are Stephen Hawking books on astronomy and physics.

Various philosophy books.

But my take is read anything and everything. Look up words you don't know the meaning to. Try to enhance your ability to think critically and to learn how to think about what they book is talking about, etc.

Perhaps take a philosophy course or two or a course in logic.

But most of all PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. Buy the EK 101 book and do all the practice full lengths in them. Do the AAMC tests, EK tests, and other practice tests, which will give you more verbal practice. If you still want more practice, get the EK 16 mini MCAT book. Get their Verbal review book as well, and try their strategy.

Ok that's all.

bump. thanks