How hard are TPRH SW passages?

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I'm getting my @ss kicked by these passages, especially in Gchem. The discrete questions are reasonable, for the most part. However, the passages, even though them may seem easy, I always get surprised knowing I missed two questions I was sure I answered correctly. I keep getting 70-75%.

Is this normal?
 
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Ibn Alnafis MD said:
I'm getting my @ss kicked by these passages, especially in Gchem. The discrete questions are reasonable, for the most part. However, the passages, even though them may seem easy, I always get surprised knowing I missed two questions I was sure I answered correctly. I keep getting 70-75%.

Is this normal?
Click to expand...

I don't have anything to compare them to, but I also think they are pretty difficult, particularly G-chem and Bio.
 
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The TPRH Bio passages kill me, but I haven't tried the other subjects. I take way longer than 8mins/passage on a lot of them, and my percentages are pretty mediocre probably low 70s. The tprh bio seems harder than EK Bio, Kaplan Bio, and AAMC BIO passages (I haven't taken the infamous aamc 10 and 11 yet tho). People that took recent MCATs say that TPRH Bio was easier than the real thing, but that's hard for me to believe.
 
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Shams al Deen said:
People that took recent MCATs say that TPRH Bio was easier than the real thing, but that's hard for me to believe.
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Thats strange because a lot of people I have talked to say that it most represents the current BS section, what with all the experimental passages and such.
 
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Ibn Alnafis MD said:
I'm getting my @ss kicked by these passages, especially in Gchem. The discrete questions are reasonable, for the most part. However, the passages, even though them may seem easy, I always get surprised knowing I missed two questions I was sure I answered correctly. I keep getting 70-75%.

Is this normal?
Click to expand...

70-75% is a nice average for Gen chem TPRH-SW.
 
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Ibn Alnafis MD said:
I'm getting my @ss kicked by these passages, especially in Gchem. The discrete questions are reasonable, for the most part. However, the passages, even though them may seem easy, I always get surprised knowing I missed two questions I was sure I answered correctly. I keep getting 70-75%.

Is this normal?
Click to expand...

Hey, you were in my thread last year. I used TPRH sw for Bio. The advanced passages are hard. Sometimes I got most wrong, to me that identifies a weakness. When I got most right in knew I had proficiency in testing on the topic. I think there is a scale somewhere for the sw. I might have posted it in the thread from last year. I'll try to dig it up.

If I remember correctly you were international and were struggling most with verbal, and right?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using SDN Mobile
 
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Shams al Deen said:
The TPRH Bio passages kill me, but I haven't tried the other subjects. I take way longer than 8mins/passage on a lot of them, and my percentages are pretty mediocre probably low 70s. The tprh bio seems harder than EK Bio, Kaplan Bio, and AAMC BIO passages (I haven't taken the infamous aamc 10 and 11 yet tho). People that took recent MCATs say that TPRH Bio was easier than the real thing, but that's hard for me to believe.
Click to expand...

I took the real test last year and didn't think the Bio was particularly more difficult than it is on the AAMC exams (I never took 9, 10, and 11). The only thing different was that it relied heavily on the passage. I don't remember having to recall background information to answer the questions, except for the discrete ones. The passages were very experimental and bear very close resemblance to what I'm seeing on the TPRH SW.

But, yes, tprh sw bio passages can get very tricky and time consuming. However, gchem is A LOT worse. I get approximately 75-80% on the bio passages, 70-75% on the ochem and physics passages, but I have been getting 68-72% on gchem. The worst part is that I keep missing the easy questions. It frustrates me because I do better on the questions that i'm not so sure about and miss. Besides, some of the discrete questions, in both physics and gchem, require much more than 30s to do. I sometimes get stuck for 5 mins trying to solve a question. Of course, on the real test I won't be doing that, I will make and educational guess and move on.
 
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impact2d said:
Hey, you were in my thread last year. I used TPRH sw for Bio. The advanced passages are hard. Sometimes I got most wrong, to me that identifies a weakness. When I got most right in knew I had proficiency in testing on the topic. I think there is named scale somewhere for the sw. I might have posted it in the thread from last year. I'll try to dig it up.

If I remember correctly you were international and were struggling most with verbal, and right?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using SDN Mobile
Click to expand...

Yes, I was a frequent poster in the 07/06 MCAT thread. That was the worse day of my life. I'm studying for a retake since my verbal score, 3, will not even get me into a PA school, even if I ever considered that route.

No, I'm not an international student, but I'm an immigrant with serious deficiency in English, especially when it comes to mcat verbal.

I remember you were doing pretty good on your practice tests, and from what I remember, you ended up with a a very good score on the real thing. Were you using only TPR material? In a hindsight, do you attribute your mcat success to the tprh sw?
 
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Ibn Alnafis MD said:
Yes, I was a frequent poster in the 07/06 MCAT thread. That was the worse day of my life. I'm studying for a retake since my verbal score, 3, will not even get me into a PA school, even if I ever considered that route.

No, I'm not an international student, but I'm an immigrant with serious deficiency in English, especially when it comes to mcat verbal.

I remember you were doing pretty good on your practice tests, and from what I remember, you ended up with a a very good score on the real thing. Were you using only TPR material? In a hindsight, do you attribute your mcat success to the tprh sw?
Click to expand...

I wrote up my entire MCAT plan. I went from a 28 on my first practice to a 34 average FL, with a high of 36. The real thing was right near my FL average +/-2 as many have indicated is typical. I will PM you because it's like 4 pages long. You were a big contributor to our thread last year and I'd be happy to help in any way I can. Verbal was always my strongest and PS my weakest. I scored at the low end of my range in PS on test day. The test is good at exploiting your weaknesses. I'm not going to lie, even for a humanities major, my verbal was hard. There was one passage I had no clue what the author was saying, so I can't imagine the challenge for a non native speaker.

That said, I loved the workbook for verbal and bio, but I used TBR exclusively for Chem and Physics. O. Chem I used a combination of TBR passages and workbook passages, but used neither for content.

For non native speakers, I often recommend attending a few high level humanities lectures (presentation on topic presenter has written about) with a Q&A and practice engaging in a topic. (usually top universities will host small group community lectures on highly specific academic topics) Many have tried it and reported back that it helped. We always say, "get in the authors head" I think for some, engaging an "author" in person helps them better translate similar styles on paper.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using SDN Mobile
 
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impact2d said:
Hey, you were in my thread last year. I used TPRH sw for Bio. The advanced passages are hard. Sometimes I got most wrong, to me that identifies a weakness. When I got most right in knew I had proficiency in testing on the topic. I think there is a scale somewhere for the sw. I might have posted it in the thread from last year. I'll try to dig it up.

If I remember correctly you were international and were struggling most with verbal, and right?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using SDN Mobile
Click to expand...

If you find it, would you please post them here? I'm averaging a 71% on this workbook and I don't know what to make of it. Obviously there's always room for improvement, but a range would be helpful.🙂
 
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jeffs office said:
If you find it, would you please post them here? I'm averaging a 71% on this workbook and I don't know what to make of it. Obviously there's always room for improvement, but a range would be helpful.🙂
Click to expand...

I would appreciate that as well. I feel the same way. The worst part is I feel like I understand the concepts well enough and then get destroyed by the passages. I can't tell if its due to content weakness or if i just suck at interpreting and answering passage questions.
 
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enervate said:
Bump. How are these compared to the real thing?
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I started this thread.

After taking the real test and seeing my score, I can say that the passages were on par with the ones presented on the test, except for biology. The biology passages on the real test were much harder. MUCH HARDER!

With that said, TBR is better preparation for the PS and TPRH ICC is good for Bio. Good luck!
 
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I am bumping this thread since I do not want to create another one.... I just started TPRH-SW biology and my average so far is just above 70% (around 73%).... Is that good? If not, should I go back to EK biology to do some more content review?
 
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Temperature101 said:
I am bumping this thread since I do not want to create another one.... I just started TPRH-SW biology and my average so far is just above 70% (around 73%).... Is that good? If not, should I go back to EK biology to do some more content review?
Click to expand...
I've done through Passage #6 and I didn't think there was much prior knowledge required in those passages. To be fair, I am a biology major and many of my electives are cellular and molecular classes.
 
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enervate said:
I've done through Passage #6 and I didn't think there was much prior knowledge required in those passages. To be fair, I am a biology major and many of my electives are cellular and molecular classes.
Click to expand...

Ok... You think I should continue and work on my analytical skills a little bit... I am not gunning for 12+ in BS. I'll be content with 10 or 11.... What is your average on the first 6 so far if you don't mind sharing?
 
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The TPRH SW is intended as learning material, they are supposed to be much harder than what you'll see on the real deal.

This is what my TPR instructors told me at least.
 
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steezmonster said:
The TPRH SW is intended as learning material, they are supposed to be much harder than what you'll see on the real deal.

This is what my TPR instructors told me at least.
Click to expand...

TPR guys said that?

I asked my mom who the most handsome boy is. She said I am.
 
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steezmonster said:
The TPRH SW is intended as learning material, they are supposed to be much harder than what you'll see on the real deal.

This is what my TPR instructors told me at least.
Click to expand...

Huh? I think TPR is a joke compared to the TBR I have been using. No way is TPR harder than the real MCAT. Although, I hope I am wrong.
 
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