skipping a passage- did it work for anyone on the real MCAT?

[lovedocta07]

dont you guys feel spending 10 minutes on 6 passages...and guessing on one passage with 5 or 6 questions worth it??


really confused on how to speed up my reading...i end up with like 3 minutes on the last passage

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[NickNaylor]

No.

 

[DrBowtie]

Worst. Strategy. Ever.

 

[Salient]

those 5 or 6 questions will take your 11 or 12 down to an 8 or 9. Work on your speed; there are many strategies for this. Where did you even get this idea?

 

[SN2ed]

Don't do it.

 

[Ioriscrub]

Worst. Strategy. Ever.

Seconded.

 

[ru4real1666]

Seconded.

Third[ed?]. Don't ever do it.

 

[PennFranklin]

I've read that skipping a passage is a suggested strategy from one of the test companies, I don't remember which one but it sounds like a really dumb idea because you are guaranteed to miss 3-4 questions on the passage you dont read, and with only 40 questions and a steep curve 3-4 questions can definitely hurt your score.

 

[Hemichordate]

I've read that skipping a passage is a suggested strategy from one of the test companies, I don't remember which one but it sounds like a really dumb idea because you are guaranteed to miss 3-4 questions on the passage you dont read, and with only 40 questions and a steep curve 3-4 questions can definitely hurt your score.

Worst test prep company ever.

 

[EgyptianDoc]

It's the Princeton Review. In the classroom course they recommended skipping a passage because quote "the test was not designed to be finished on time" ...what a joke.

Edit: they recommended this specifically for the verbal section.

 

[mtbtx]

I didn't have time to read a whole passage only once in my practice tests. I think it was AAMC 5. I used EK strategy of just using the question stems to answer the questions. I got them all right. Probably still not a good idea though. You should be able to get through all of the passages with out a problem.

 

[same21]

I tried skipping a passage for a few practice tests and was getting 8 and 9s. Then I gave myself 8 min per passage for a few tests and started scoring 10s and 11s. It means that sometimes I feel rushed when answering, but its better to answer a few questions quickly than completely blindly. Also a lot of the questions are gut based after you read the passage, and taking more time on them does not necessarily correlate with answering more of them correctly.

 

[RogueUnicorn]

It's the Princeton Review. In the classroom course they recommended skipping a passage because quote "the test was not designed to be finished on time" ...what a joke.

Edit: they recommended this specifically for the verbal section.

that's the dumbest thing i have ever heard about the mcat.

 

[EgyptianDoc]

that's the dumbest thing i have ever heard about the mcat.

Imagine how I felt after shelling out almost $2K to get this advice. I should've just bought the books off eBay and studied on my own.

Edit: btw, our verbal instructor never even took the real MCAT... I have no idea where they got her from... I think they hire pretty much anyone who can read a set of notes provided by PR. I kid you not, the chem instructor I had told the class he got a 4 on verbal... in all fairness though he got a 15 on physical... how does that even happen?

 

[BaronVonZ]

dont you guys feel spending 10 minutes on 6 passages...and guessing on one passage with 5 or 6 questions worth it??


really confused on how to speed up my reading...i end up with like 3 minutes on the last passage

It has nothing to do with your reading speed and everything to do with your question-answering speed.

 

[Pet of the Week]

I ran out of time and had to do the last passage and all of it's questions in 1:15.

I got an 11, my lowest verbal score ever. Practice test average is 13.5.

So I don't think it's a good strategy.

 

[NickNaylor]

Imagine how I felt after shelling out almost $2K to get this advice. I should've just bought the books off eBay and studied on my own.

Edit: btw, our verbal instructor never even took the real MCAT... I have no idea where they got her from... I think they hire pretty much anyone who can read a set of notes provided by PR. I kid you not, the chem instructor I had told the class he got a 4 on verbal... in all fairness though he got a 15 on physical... how does that even happen?

There's a reason they're teaching for TPR and not in medical school.

 

[pollux12]

I read the TPR review book. They recommended skipping the extremely difficult passage. The problem with that advice is those sort of passages tend to have the easiest questions.

I don't feel that any of the passages were extremely difficult in the two times I have taken the MCAT. I think their advice is extremely outdated. VR used to have 9 passages, now it is just 7. They also used to get more time per passage when TPR first started teaching this technique.

TPR also recommend writing a short summary for every paragraph. Back when the test was on paper, that might have been possible, but not for the CBTs.

If you aren't finishing the test, my best advice is to make sure you have focus when reading the passage completely through in 3-3:30 minutes. Make yourself interested in the material. Then go on your intuition to answer the questions. You can refer back to the passage if you need to find details and only if you know exactly where it is at in the passage. Otherwise, going back to the passage to reread paragraphs will be a big waste of time you could be spending on easier questions later on. It's the only way I finish, and by using this strategy, my scores have gone up about 3 points.

 

[Dman27]

Kaplan taught me that if your running short on the last passage read the first paragraph and the first sentence of every other, and then read the last one. It helps a lot more then you'd think when your short on time. You won't get all the ?'s right on the passage but more then you would just picking randomly.

 

[murfettie]

bad.

 

[Kevin Baker]

This strategy isn't meant for perfectionist gunners. It is meant for people on verbal who can't get through the test and are targeting an 8 or 9. And it can work for them. A lot of people are very limited by the timed aspect and skipping a passage can give them that all too precious time. Not everyone reads quickly or processes info quickly, especially people where English is not their native language, and it is hard to improve reading comprehension or reading speed in 3 months, but is easy to implement this strategy. If the cost means you have a ceiling of maybe 10 but a floor of 7, that would be fine for some people. Personally, I thought this was one of the most useless strategies I came across as time wasn't an issue for me, but it does help some people.

lovedocta, if you do want to speed up your reading and/or comprehension, it'll take maybe 3-6 months on your end, but I'd take a speed reading class. This is a skill that takes lots of practice and repetition to develop.