Verbal Issues--please advise

[detvar]

hi,

i know many people post things like these, but i'd appreciate it if you could hear me out.

my verbal score is STUCK at a 10. i always make 6-10 mistakes on every single test. at times, it seems to be that i'm missing the main point, but more often, it's tiny detail stuff that i tend to look over and can't always afford to meticulously search for given the time constraints. people say "focus on the main point," but that doesn't always seem to pan out for me. my science scores are thankfully okay, but verbal seems to be holding me back.

my test is in a week so obviously there's not much i can do. i'm practicing with kaplan material, and i've tried EK and TPR, but they don't seem to be close to the AAMC practice tests.

if anyone has any input on how i may go about remedying my particular issues, i'd really appreciate it.

thanks a lot

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[detvar]

come on, people, anyone please?

 

[jamilla_w]

come on, people, anyone please?

There's no way you are getting 10's if you don't get the main point of passages. But even if you weren't getting the main point you couldn't learn how to in a week. Unlike with PS and BS people have a natural ceiling with VR. You're probably at yours and there's not much you can do about it really.

 

[ChubbyChaser]

Just put all your energy into getting the Main IDea. The whole time think subconsciously " what is the author trying to convey here" If you can do that i dont see any reason why your 6 cant become a 9

 

[michigator04]

The reason that "focus on the main idea" is the most common advice you'll hear is that it is one of the best. Many questions in verbal deal with not only the implied main focus of the passage(i.e. what you are looking for while reading), but they expect you to infer logical conclusions about the authors views based on that main focus. Another way to think about this is to go along as you are reading and try to put yourself into the author's point of view. Try to understand exactly what they are getting across, so that you will be able to think from that perspective more easily when asked to on the questions. on your test.

 

[ChubbyChaser]

hey Michigator, wanna take the verbal portion for me???

 

[Corpus Callosum]

hi,

i know many people post things like these, but i'd appreciate it if you could hear me out.

my verbal score is STUCK at a 10. i always make 6-10 mistakes on every single test. at times, it seems to be that i'm missing the main point, but more often, it's tiny detail stuff that i tend to look over and can't always afford to meticulously search for given the time constraints. people say "focus on the main point," but that doesn't always seem to pan out for me. my science scores are thankfully okay, but verbal seems to be holding me back.

my test is in a week so obviously there's not much i can do. i'm practicing with kaplan material, and i've tried EK and TPR, but they don't seem to be close to the AAMC practice tests.

if anyone has any input on how i may go about remedying my particular issues, i'd really appreciate it.

thanks a lot

10 on the verbal, shoot you are doing so bad, I don't undestand why you are crying then, how much do you want, man you should just count your blessings and relax, what's wrong with you, you sound like you are failing the test or something, you don't have to get 15 on verbal to go to med school,

 

[mrmilad]

I took kaplan practice verbals the last week before my test, and the real tests verbal turned out to be nothing like the kaplan verbals. I would recommend focusing on the AAMC verbals rather than kaplan. Specially the later kaplan tests are just worthless.

 

[spicedmanna]

I took kaplan practice verbals the last week before my test, and the real tests verbal turned out to be nothing like the kaplan verbals. I would recommend focusing on the AAMC verbals rather than kaplan. Specially the later kaplan tests are just worthless.

I agree with the above. Practice with the AAMC practice tests to get a better reference point for the actual VR section.

 

[littlealex]

Yeah I don't know why verbal is so hard to improve upon. I too was stuck at a 10 when I was studying. Did 11 verbal full lengths and still stuck at a 10 in the end. Got a 10-11 on all 11 tests and a 10 on the real thing =(

And to answer Corpus Callosum's question, yes 10 is a good score but we should always strive to do better right? In most cases verbal is the severe limiting factor between a pretty good score and a great score.

A 12/12/12 is significantly better than a 12/10/12. Also I feel like if you're averaging a 12 on every section you have a shot of going for the gold on the real test (maybe 13s on each section?).

In my particular case I felt like the 10 in verbal kept me from getting a ridiculous score. I want that 38 dammit.

 

[detvar]

thanks for all the responses guys.

i've already done all the aamc tests (well there's just one left). since you mention the importance of the AAMC practice, is it worth it to redo them? or would time better be invested in finding new passages from other companies?

thanks


PS. littlealex, i feel what you're saying. verbal is exactly what's holding me back from proverbial gold as well.

 

[michigator04]

hey Michigator, wanna take the verbal portion for me???

Only if I can count it as an EC for AMCAS. Community Service perhaps?

 

[ChubbyChaser]

hey whatever for a 14!!

 

[changarang]

it's probably too late to switch your method if you're going to take it this month, but i try to focus my reading by reading the questions first. i don't read the choices, i just skim the questions to get a general idea of key ideas and words i should be looking for. then when i get to those parts, i make sure that i get as much understanding and detail as i can from that part of the passage. but i've been doing standardized reading passages like this for a long time, so i'm used to carrying all that junk in my head while i'm reading the passage.

for me, this is the most time-efficient way of doing the verbal. otherwise, i'd just end up rereading the passage to find the answers to the questions, and i'd probably run out of time.

and it's true...you really do need to get good at grasping the main idea. those questions that ask "which of the following would most weaken the author's argument?" or "which of the following situations most parallel something the author mentioned?" are hard enough in themselves. trying to answer those types of questions without really understanding the author's main point just makes it worse.

you might also want to look back over your past mistakes and really do a rigorous analysis of why you're getting those questions wrong, or if there's a pattern to your mistakes. do you get it down to 2 and always guess the wrong one? did you misread or miss a detail? do you honestly not understand why the answer you picked is wrong and why the correct answer is supposed to better?

i'm not sure how the scale works out, but if you're missing enough of the detail questions that it's costing you 1 or 2 points, i think that's probably the area you're most likely to improve on in the short time you have left. force yourself to be careful. i think the main idea ones might be harder to improve on because that to me seems like a more comprehensive skill that would take longer to get better at.

 

[changarang]

oh...and if you're missing questions you should be getting because you're running out of time, maybe you should skip around. for example, if you consistently do better on the science passages, maybe you should do those first. or if you know the humanities are your weakest, then skip those temporarily, especially if you spend more time agonizing over those questions. there's no reason for you to miss questions you should be getting because you're losing time on passages that are historically low-yield for you anyway.