A question for anyone, especially Arti.

[DOman]

i was reading with my younger cousing a post that you (Arti) said. In that, you said that you got below a 400 on the verbal SAT. I grew up in the midwest, and was all about the ACT. Anyways, my cousin really wants to become a physician DO or MD. And on the sat she got a 770 math, and a 410 verbal. she is concerned that whe wont do as well on the MCAT verbal. i have tried to explain to her. maybe you can help her on how she to can become a doc. What did you do for your mcat verbal?

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[Smile]

I too did poorly on the SAT verbal but managed to do well on the MCAT verbal... at least well enough to get me accepted to medical school. The biggest difference is that the MCAT is all reading comprehension. There are no antonyms, analogies, or other similar types of questions. Have your cousin start reading... lots of reading. Relevant and pertinent to the MCAT things like science magazines, journals, newspaper editorials, etc. This will not only improve her reading speed, but will get her more adjusted to the types of material on the MCAT verbal. In my studying for the MCAT, I realized my success lay in being able to identify the major point(s) of each passage. Once I was able to critically analyze the main theme of the passage, it seemed as if the questions seemed to feed off of that in one way or another. When your cousin is "practice" reading different material, have her do the same for them as well. This way she will develop a critical reasoning ability for everything she reads. MCAT verbal passages are not light enjoyment pieces. They should be looked as problems to be solved. If she can master this now, studying for the MCAT will be much easier.

I realize there will be hundreds of other successful ways to study for the MCAT verbal, but this is what worked for me. Also, have her try different strategies everyone else suggests you and then of course go with the one (or combination of those) that work best for her.

 

[Arti]

DOman:

I did very badly on my verbal SAT, but as Smile has writeen before me you need to realize that these are two different test, with four years of college in between them.
MCAT verbal is basicly about reading and understanding what it is you are reading.
The only way to practice for it is to read
,read, read and do practice passages under timed conditions. I did do the practice tests and was getting 11 and 12 each time, but I understood that you need to do them under timed conditions when the real test came around. During the real test I freaked out after doing 4 passages perfectly, because
I thought I had less time than I acctually did. So my mistake resulted in me getting an 8 on the verbal instead of 11 or 12. It did not hurt me during the applications because the rest of my MCAT scores were higher, but if I had to do things over again I would definetly do things under stricked time conditions.


Arti