>>> 8 months to study: Read "The Economist" or try LSAT ??

[daleader]

Hello,

I decided to make another thread to make it more specific. I know this has been asked before but the responses were very inconsistent and I was hoping that we might reach a conclusion here.

For someone, who has 8 months to study for the MCAT VERBAL REASONING, to not to burn through the MCAT materials and books and save them, do you RECOMMEND reading novels/books/newspapers/articles or studying for LSAT Reading Comprehension.

I do know that LSAT is DIFFERENT from MCAT, but is LSAT better than reading novels or newspapers??


In other words, if you have 8 months, should you choose LSAT RC over general newspapers/novels to just getting into heavy reading habits and preparing before going to EK and TPR passages etc?


Thanks! 🙂

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[basicallyno]

I would just read articles from The Economist, The New Yorker, and Scientific American. Some of their articles are really similar to the ones that you'll find on the MCAT. I've been reading one article from each website daily.

 

[daleader]

Thanks for your advice. My only concern is that if I decide to stick with newspapers and the sources you mentioned, how would I measure my performance / how can I tell if I'm improving .. whereas LSAT prep can help me measure how well I'm doing ..

 

[FeinMS]

Do both then lol.

 

[basicallyno]

I dont know anything about the LSAT. But the reason I am reading those articles are to just get me used to the styles of the writing. Some of them are so convoluted that it's hard to understand them the first time, and by reading three articles each day I'm hoping to improve my skills.

 

[MedOldAge]

I dont know anything about the LSAT. But the reason I am reading those articles are to just get me used to the styles of the writing. Some of them are so convoluted that it's hard to understand them the first time, and by reading three articles each day I'm hoping to improve my skills.

When you said reading those articles, did you refer to the actual old test printed or did you refer to practice FL tests published by 3rd party companies......just like BR, Kaplan, PR and GS on the MCAT side?

Also, you are referring only the reading comprehension section?

Thank you

 

[4 lyfe]

There are 2 things involved in the verbal portion: The first is understanding what you are reading. The second is answering the questions.

I have been reading the Economist for probably 8 months now, 2 issues per week, and have probably gone through 80 issues in total, resulting in over 2000+ articles read. I can most definitely say that the Economist will do nothing, but help with the reading comprehension aspect of verbal. But, close analysis of the questions is also required in order to do well on this section.

 

[MedOldAge]

There are 2 things involved in the verbal portion: The first is understanding what you are reading. The second is answering the questions.

I have been reading the Economist for probably 8 months now, 2 issues per week, and have probably gone through 80 issues in total, resulting in over 2000+ articles read. I can most definitely say that the Economist will do nothing, but help with the reading comprehension aspect of verbal. But, close analysis of the questions is also required in order to do well on this section.

Do you intentionally timed your reading?

Also, have you tailored some form of "your own" analysis method/structure as time gone by reading many Economist?

Thanks,

 

[daleader]

Thanks 4lyfe !

I agree with you, reading comprehension is only part of doing well in VR - but do you think "The Economist" is better than using LSAT RC materials to practice?? Which one of those 2 you think might help you improve more?? Considering that fact that using LSAT you can mark your answers (i.e. see how you are doing / improving) but with reading The Economist etc, you can't measure your performance?

Thanks for your great input

 

[4 lyfe]

At the very beginning, I had timed each article, made summaries, and also wrote down vocab's I didnt know... also, I would compare the main idea I formulated to the heading that is provided in most of the articles (more than likely those would be the main idea). After Ia while of doing this... I stopped writing summaries, and everything became mental. I then went onto mentally recalling what I had read, and after doing 100s of these I noticed that my short term memory had increased, and it helped with doing verbal articles, since I could now remember what I read better, and where the different arguments were within the psg (I could refer back to the psg, if needed for verbal questions).

Stayed away from LSAT material, so I cant make a comparison.

 

[Gauss44]

Hello,

I decided to make another thread to make it more specific. I know this has been asked before but the responses were very inconsistent and I was hoping that we might reach a conclusion here.

For someone, who has 8 months to study for the MCAT VERBAL REASONING, to not to burn through the MCAT materials and books and save them, do you RECOMMEND reading novels/books/newspapers/articles or studying for LSAT Reading Comprehension.

I do know that LSAT is DIFFERENT from MCAT, but is LSAT better than reading novels or newspapers??


In other words, if you have 8 months, should you choose LSAT RC over general newspapers/novels to just getting into heavy reading habits and preparing before going to EK and TPR passages etc?


Thanks! 🙂

Depends. If you are benefiting from extra reading practice, practice reading specific styles, or practice reading faster, then yes, read additional non-mcat speciic material. BUT ALSO READ MCAT MATERIAL so you don't get out of practice answering questions. Perhaps you could safely CUT DOWN on the amount of mcat prep material you use if you are also using magazines and novels.

And try to find try to find a magazine or novel with the type of reading that you want to improve upon. If you need to improve on everything, The Economist is well recommended. I would also suggest The New Republic (but skip the July '13 issue because there may be an article in it that partially appears in official AAMC practice material). I also made use of social science journals.

 

[MedOldAge]

At the very beginning, I had timed each article, made summaries, and also wrote down vocab's I didnt know... also, I would compare the main idea I formulated to the heading that is provided in most of the articles (more than likely those would be the main idea). After Ia while of doing this... I stopped writing summaries, and everything became mental. I then went onto mentally recalling what I had read, and after doing 100s of these I noticed that my short term memory had increased, and it helped with doing verbal articles, since I could now remember what I read better, and where the different arguments were within the psg (I could refer back to the psg, if needed for verbal questions).

Stayed away from LSAT material, so I cant make a comparison.

+1 The approach and the experience you had is very interesting and very valid. I appreciate it.

Just curious....have you as time as limited for most of us, did you branching out others besides Economist?

 

[MedOldAge]

Depends. If you are benefiting from extra reading practice, practice reading specific styles, or practice reading faster, then yes, read additional non-mcat speciic material. BUT ALSO READ MCAT MATERIAL so you don't get out of practice answering questions. Perhaps you could safely CUT DOWN on the amount of mcat prep material you use if you are also using magazines and novels.

And try to find try to find a magazine or novel with the type of reading that you want to improve upon. If you need to improve on everything, The Economist is well recommended. I would also suggest The New Republic (but skip the July '13 issue because there may be an article in it that partially appears in official AAMC practice material). I also made use of social science journals.

Any social science journals you used and recommend?

Thanks,

 

[4 lyfe]

I read newsweek material like the NYTimes, Macleans, and even The Atlantic... but I dont think any of these are really comparable to the Economist.

With the Economist you can cover all the different genera - Social Sciences (Leaders, Political, Business Section), Natural Sciences (Technology section), and Humanities (Books and Art Section).

I noticed that at the beginning the reading was fairly difficult, but now I can breeze through the different articles relatively quickly. Also, it really keeps you up to date with whats happening in the world.

The only regret I have is not reading the Economist sooner. I really enjoy it.

 

[Gauss44]

Any social science journals you used and recommend?

Thanks,

I did a lot of reading here: http://www.psychotherapy.com.au/journal/

This question might be worth it's own thread in pre-med and/or psychology if we're allowed to post there.

 

[MedOldAge]

I read newsweek material like the NYTimes, Macleans, and even The Atlantic... but I dont think any of these are really comparable to the Economist.

With the Economist you can cover all the different genera - Social Sciences (Leaders, Political, Business Section), Natural Sciences (Technology section), and Humanities (Books and Art Section).

I noticed that at the beginning the reading was fairly difficult, but now I can breeze through the different articles relatively quickly. Also, it really keeps you up to date with whats happening in the world.

The only regret I have is not reading the Economist sooner. I really enjoy it.

Eye opening 👍 Very appreciate it.

 

[MedOldAge]

I did a lot of reading here: http://www.psychotherapy.com.au/journal/

This question might be worth it's own thread in pre-med and/or psychology if we're allowed to post there.

Very interesting.

But....you need to pay & subscribe, right, in order to get even the archive stuff?

 

[4 lyfe]

I just want to reiterate that to really see gains in verbal reasoning, you really have to do the passages and questions, and spend a tremendous amount of time post analyzing. Just like anything in life, it comes down to practice. The more practice and effort you put into verbal, the better your score.

There has been a lot of advice on SDN wrt verbal and the most important tool I can think of is eliminating the incorrect answer choices - whether its a distortion, opp, out of scope, too extreme, too broad, too limited, etc. From my experience, in order to do well on this section, multiple streams have to be improved - from reading comprehension, stamina, timing, eliminating wrong ans choices, logical reasoning, etc.

 

[MedOldAge]

I just want to reiterate that to really see gains in verbal reasoning, you really have to do the passages and questions, and spend a tremendous amount of time post analyzing. Just like anything in life, it comes down to practice. The more practice and effort you put into verbal, the better your score.

There has been a lot of advice on SDN wrt verbal and the most important tool I can think of is eliminating the incorrect answer choices - whether its a distortion, opp, out of scope, too extreme, too broad, too limited, etc. From my experience, in order to do well on this section, multiple streams have to be improved - from reading comprehension, stamina, timing, eliminating wrong ans choices, logical reasoning, etc.

+1 Well said 👍

 

[Gauss44]

Very interesting.

But....you need to pay & subscribe, right, in order to get even the archive stuff?

It should say, "Free Journal Article Archive," in blue toward the top middle of the page. Just click on that.

Edit: Despite the title, I can't seem to get to any "free" articles. I received mine from subscribers who printed out articles for me. Your best bet might be the hospital's library or find a journal that actually has free online articles, maybe google it or ask around.

 

[MedOldAge]

It should say, "Free Journal Article Archive," in blue toward the top middle of the page. Just click on that.

Edit: Despite the title, I can't seem to get to any "free" articles. I received mine from subscribers who printed out articles for me. Your best bet might be the hospital's library or find a journal that actually has free online articles, maybe google it or ask around.

Appreciate it....I will do that to see if I have some luck to access. It looks pretty interesting.