2 weeks to raise score

[PB2464]

I took my first test (AAMC 3) approx three weeks ago and scored a 20.
In the past week, I took two additional exams (one PR and AAMC 4) and scored 25 on both. My verbal score has been around a 6.
I'm shooting for a 30, but my test date is set for 5/28. Is it possible to raise my score that much with a ton of verbal practice? Any success stories?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[cher25]

I took my first test (AAMC 3) approx three weeks ago and scored a 20.
In the past week, I took two additional exams (one PR and AAMC 4) and scored 25 on both. My verbal score has been around a 6.
I'm shooting for a 30, but my test date is set for 5/28. Is it possible to raise my score that much with a ton of verbal practice? Any success stories?

My Verbal score was fluctuating between 6 and 7. After two weeks of intense practice using the EK strategy and Kaplan sectionals, my verbal is now a solid 9 on the AAMC practice exams. I hope to raise it higher before my test, June 18.

The same applies with my PS and BS scores... I raised my overall score by a solid 8 points after 2 weeks of intense study. So it is possible. But you have to live and breathe it.. which I'm sure you're doing. Good luck and keep practicing. It'll come up!

 

[stardust44]

Cher25- That's really inspiring. Would you care to elaborate on what you did for those 2 weeks? Thanks!

 

[fewcherpeedsdoc]

What I did for the last 2-3 weeks was do about 1 examcracker verbal section a day at the time I would take the section (which was about 9:20 am). This made me comfortable reading passages and made me accustomed to doing verbal at 920 am.
For the last two weeks just work on practice tests every other day and review the days between.

 

[cher25]

Cher25- That's really inspiring. Would you care to elaborate on what you did for those 2 weeks? Thanks!

Just as fewcher mentioned, it's all about practice. You must practice to build the stamina and familiarize yourself with the format. It is also important that your studying is effective.

The EK strategy advises to always have the author in mind when reading the passage. It is something that you have to practice and it will get easier and easier. Still difficult, but easier. When you're doing your practice verbals... while you read the passages, continuously think to yourself... What does the author think about this? Is he for or against it? Why is the author telling me this? What does he want to convince me of? Does he want me to favor or oppose this concept?

You'll see, the answers will become more and more evident when you stay in the frame of mind of the author. As I mentioned before, I'm only at a 9 so far.. but this is an improvement from a 6 to 7. I'm hoping that in the next 5 weeks I can get this mastered and get to 11-13.

Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[fewcherpeedsdoc]

I just remembered something. Last time when I took the MCAT, I use to always try to do what PR told me to do, which was to do each verbal passage in about 10 minutes. Practicing this technique was insane. I'm a slow reader so if I tried to do what they said and skim, it was like I never read the passage in the first place. My scores ended up being from 3-7. This was insanely frustrating and scary.

Day before the test I decided I had nothing to lose and so I just spent my time on four "interesting" passages and read them slowly (14 mins each) and work through the questions efficiently. My score was a 9 on the actual test.

This time, during my second try, I don't think I did too well. I'm guessing I did worse than 9 this time...It's sad haha but anyways...

But, like I said before though, when I was practicing before the actual test during the second time around, I was using my technique of reading slowly on 4-5 passages and I was getting about 80% of the questions right, and then for the last 2 passages with five minutes left, I just marked all the same answer. Also I quickly read over the questions of the two last passages that I could quickly find the answers to. This usually gave me an average practice score of about 7-9. So you end up getting lucky on a few questions in the last two passages, which are usually "killer" passages anyways right? So this was what I did to improve my practice scores. I'll let my know my MCAT score this time around when May 26th comes around.

BTW, I used examcrackers.

 

[capn jazz]

But, like I said before though, when I was practicing before the actual test during the second time around, I was using my technique of reading slowly on 4-5 passages and I was getting about 80% of the questions right, and then for the last 2 passages with five minutes left, I just marked all the same answer. Also I quickly read over the questions of the two last passages that I could quickly find the answers to. This usually gave me an average practice score of about 7-9. So you end up getting lucky on a few questions in the last two passages, which are usually "killer" passages anyways right? So this was what I did to improve my practice scores. I'll let my know my MCAT score this time around when May 26th comes around.

BTW, I used examcrackers.

I have to vehemently DISAGREE. Trying to answer 4-5 passages well and then COMPLETELY guessing on the remaining 2-3?!?! That's an AWFUL idea! You should be trying to do better on verbal as a whole, not just deciding you'll never be able to do all 7 passages. You're way better off guessing on the hard questions on EVERY passage, after reading all the passages and answering all the easy-medium questions.

 

[BBender716]

Capn Jazz is DEAD ON. If time is an issue for you, as it is for many on verbal, focus on not getting bogged down. Do not re-read. Do not try to absorb every little detail. Do not spend more than 90secs on a question and wind up with the same 50/50 chance you had near the beginning of the question. Tell yourself to focus before each passage and read intently but efficiently. Finding the balance between reading intently and "over-reading" comes with practice.

As for answering the questions, some are really straightforward while others can seem pretty ambiguous. For the tough ones, work it down to two answers and if you can't get the answer in 90 seconds, GUESS between the two choices you've hopefully worked the question down to and move on. It sucks and it's tough to do for us science geeks always wanting a right, calculated answer, but it's necessary to get through VS and not totally bomb the last two passages.

I was a Kaplan guy and didn't follow half of their verbal strategies (the only thing I used was mapping and I only used it for VS, worked for me). I scanned EK for some strategies, and one thing from EK was so simple but helped me so damn much.

Before each passage, close your eyes, take a deep breath, purge your brain of the previous passage, and psyche yourself up for the next one with complete intensity and focus. Takes about 5-10 seconds, but saves you another 30 because you won't keep re-reading the first damn paragraph saying, "wait, what did I just read?" Totally helped me.

Best of luck! With a ton of verbal practice, you can definitely kill that section!

 

[fewcherpeedsdoc]

I have to vehemently DISAGREE. Trying to answer 4-5 passages well and then COMPLETELY guessing on the remaining 2-3?!?! That's an AWFUL idea! You should be trying to do better on verbal as a whole, not just deciding you'll never be able to do all 7 passages. You're way better off guessing on the hard questions on EVERY passage, after reading all the passages and answering all the easy-medium questions.

ok you may disagree, but playing the numbers 80-85% correct on 5 passages and then randomly guessing for the last 11ish questions allows you to get about 2-3 additional questions correct, which will bring you up to about an 8, but as i said before, with 5 minutes remaining you can try to pick off the easy questions from the 2 killer passages and get additional questions correct to bring you up to about a 9. this is risky, but if you take enough practice, you can consistently get about those scores.

i think with the time the OP has left, he should follow a technique like this since he is not doing well right now.

 

[PB2464]

Thanks for all the feedback.
I've since taken 4 exams (scored 26, 29, 30, 27). Got the 27 today on AAMC 8, which seemed more difficult. I'm now hovering anywhere from 7-8 on VR. Not sure what else I can do at this point. Test in six days.

 

[KiwiBruin]

Thanks for all the feedback.
I've since taken 4 exams (scored 26, 29, 30, 27). Got the 27 today on AAMC 8, which seemed more difficult. I'm now hovering anywhere from 7-8 on VR. Not sure what else I can do at this point. Test in six days.

Worse comes to worse, just void and take it again. Not the end of the world. =D
But of course if you can nail it the first time that would be even better. Good luck!!!

 

[agill786]

Capn Jazz is DEAD ON. If time is an issue for you, as it is for many on verbal, focus on not getting bogged down. Do not re-read. Do not try to absorb every little detail. Do not spend more than 90secs on a question and wind up with the same 50/50 chance you had near the beginning of the question. Tell yourself to focus before each passage and read intently but efficiently. Finding the balance between reading intently and "over-reading" comes with practice.

As for answering the questions, some are really straightforward while others can seem pretty ambiguous. For the tough ones, work it down to two answers and if you can't get the answer in 90 seconds, GUESS between the two choices you've hopefully worked the question down to and move on. It sucks and it's tough to do for us science geeks always wanting a right, calculated answer, but it's necessary to get through VS and not totally bomb the last two passages.

I was a Kaplan guy and didn't follow half of their verbal strategies (the only thing I used was mapping and I only used it for VS, worked for me). I scanned EK for some strategies, and one thing from EK was so simple but helped me so damn much.

Before each passage, close your eyes, take a deep breath, purge your brain of the previous passage, and psyche yourself up for the next one with complete intensity and focus. Takes about 5-10 seconds, but saves you another 30 because you won't keep re-reading the first damn paragraph saying, "wait, what did I just read?" Totally helped me.

Best of luck! With a ton of verbal practice, you can definitely kill that section!

I profusely apologize for bringing up such an old thread. I am struggling a lot with verbal and it's about 2 weeks till test date. I suppose this is the strategy that will totally help me at this point.

Was just wondering though, how many minutes should you be spending on the passage in order to use this strategy? My biggest issue is time and, I agree that time is wasted re-reading questions/paragraphs!

I heard about this message in the EK audio osmosis...but never actually tried it. The thing that sucks is I'm a slow reader and I always have trouble getting the main idea. It's so F***ing annoying and pisses me off so much.

Has the method of glancing over the questions worked for any of you guys?