AAMC #9 Verbal

[JasonE]

did anyone find aamc 9 verbal hard? i got 26/40 (8) which is quite discouraging. on aamc 8 i got 32/40 (10, 1 away from an 11), but i also got an 8 on aamc 7. on ek verbal ive usually been getting 7-9 wrong, which puts me around a 10-11. my test is next week so im kind of worried, what should i do?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[silverlion]

I gave test # 7 and got an 8 too....I've been getting 10s quite consistently on the EK passages so i don't really know what went wrong...

I got quite discouraged after test # 7 and haven't practiced much after that either....I'm taking the real thing on the 3rd of sept....freaking out a bit just like you...

I'm guessing that a few of the verbals on the aamc tests are a bit harder than what it would normally be...

All I can say is that dont think too much about it...You'l do ok on the real thing if you just stay calm...If youre getting 10s and 11s on EK then your ok...Dont get too nervous...Thats what im hoping to do

 

[JasonE]

i don't really understand verbal. the scores fluctuate SO much, but for physics and bio, i can pretty much get a 13-15 everytime no problem.

 

[silverlion]

I think the EK books explain it pretty well....

Why this happens is because sciences are precise and follow rules...if you know the rules you will always do good on the exams and there is a relative consistency in how you perform...

However the verbal section is very subjective...passages vary in their structure and more so in the linguistic styles...

The manner in which some of the passages are written are extremely unconventional and confusing at times...This equates to a low score because we are simply not used to the twisted ways of communication that so often gets displayed in the passages we see...

I really think that the aamc people have not tried to make the verbal sections extremely consistent on the level of difficulty...

The reason why I keep getting 10s on EK is because it is quite apparent (after giving a few exams and getting the exact same score of 46/60) that the test makers over there have really looked into every passage and designed questions with a very specific guideline in mind...The practice aamc tests haven't...so we see a lot of variation...

What scares me is that this could (and most probably does) mean that the real mcat verbal does not have a consistent level difficulty either...if thats the case then lets just keep our fingers crossed and pray that we get a relatively moderate exam...and not one of the scorchers!!

 

[Ninjaface]

Yup, VR 9 sucked.

That passage on classical skull head tomb whatevermabob kicked my ass.

Got 6 out of 7 wrong and ended up with a 9 overall.

 

[yaba]

Yeah my verbal on aamc 9 sucked big time too. My jaw hit the floor when i saw i got a 6. I got a 9 a week later on the real thing.

 

[secants]

I had the reverse trend:

I scored:
a 5(WTF lol) on AAMC 7,
a 9 on AAMC 8
and a whopping 11 on AAMC 9.

For 9 I had to got back to the passages a lot and sometimes reread the passages again especially for that skull/painter guy. Surprisingly this is my highest on any AAMC exam, I'm certain it's a fluke and see how consistant I am on AAMC 10's verbal

 

[futuredoctor10]

I really think that the aamc people have not tried to make the verbal sections extremely consistent on the level of difficulty...

It's interesting because for me my VR scores had a slight upward trend and stayed relatively consistent exam to exam. Sometimes a 1 point drop, or 1 point increase, but always within a 2 point range for the last 4-6 AAMCs I took I believe.

 

[JasonE]

for someone who has taken the real deal...do they ask questions that ask the meaning of a word in context and give no reference to where the word is? ive found this as a common occurence on aamc tests and i think its TOTAL BS

 

[BlueElmo]

did anyone find aamc 9 verbal hard? i got 26/40 (8) which is quite discouraging. on aamc 8 i got 32/40 (10, 1 away from an 11), but i also got an 8 on aamc 7. on ek verbal ive usually been getting 7-9 wrong, which puts me around a 10-11. my test is next week so im kind of worried, what should i do?

On AAMC 8, I got 35/40 (12). A week later I took AAMC 9 and got 28/40 (9). I agree AAMC 9 VR was pretty hard.

 

[Ninjaface]

I had a 9 on VR9 yesterday, and an 11 with one mark off from a 12 on VR10 today...

On 3 a week before that I had a 12...

 

[JasonE]

what blows is that even though i think (and it seems other do as well) that verbal 9 is harder, you still need a 30/40 to get a 10. scale doesn't change much even though difficulty does. according to the aamc test, aamc 8 had 20 easy quesions and 4 hard. aamc 9 had 2 easy questions and 14 hard. wtf is up with that?

 

[BlueElmo]

for someone who has taken the real deal...do they ask questions that ask the meaning of a word in context and give no reference to where the word is? ive found this as a common occurence on aamc tests and i think its TOTAL BS

I haven't found too many of these in the AAMCs. Which ones are you talking about? But yeah, it would DEFINITELY SUCK, if these came out on the real thing. I HATE these.

 

[BlueElmo]

what blows is that even though i think (and it seems other do as well) that verbal 9 is harder, you still need a 30/40 to get a 10. scale doesn't change much even though difficulty does. according to the aamc test, aamc 8 had 20 easy quesions and 4 hard. aamc 9 had 2 easy questions and 14 hard. wtf is up with that?

Maybe because then aamc 8 had 16 medium questions while aamc 9 had 24 medium questions? I guess this doesn't make too much sense either.

 

[JasonE]

there were two questions on aamc 9 that said roughly, "as used in the passage, the word X most nearly means". no reference to where the word was or anything, you simply have to remember or hunt it down, which is stupid becuase they used to give line references on the paper mcat.

 

[silverlion]

there were two questions on aamc 9 that said roughly, "as used in the passage, the word X most nearly means". no reference to where the word was or anything, you simply have to remember or hunt it down, which is stupid becuase they used to give line references on the paper mcat.

I know what your talking about...It was pretty annoying...totally threw me off and i had to go back to the passage....it messed up my time so bad that I ended up not finishing on time..

anyway....I guess we're coming back to the point I was making earlier...the aamc tests are not designed to be consistent....the EK ones are...so most people show consistent scores on the EK passages but not on the aamc one...I mean think about it...a guy is getting scores from 5 to 11....this is total BS

 

[waitwhat]

AAMC VR 9 blew. I got a freakin' 7 on it and I usually level off around a 9-10. Although one time I did get a 12. In general, I think verbal is a crap shoot. Hopefully, luck in on my side come August 26th.


-waitwhat

 

[elementals]

Well, I feel better... I just took 9 and it whupped me. Christ, VR sucks. It's so bloody subjective, and a lot of the questions are easy to get wrong if you overthink and get into the subtleties (like that one question re: salt and rain formation -- I overthought and weeded out all the choices that were indirectly related).

ARRRGHHH!

I'm gonna be happy when all this is over

 

[mmc48]

Yeah, AAMC9 VR was pretty tough. One of the harder one's I have seen so far. I've fortunately been scoring about a 12 on most VR practice, but I was lucky to get a 10 this time. I was sure that I was going make a 4 though.

 

[byeh2004]

I concur!

I got an 8 too. That skull passage was ridiculous haha. Hope the real thing isn't this bad

 

[calimed214]

there were two questions on aamc 9 that said roughly, "as used in the passage, the word X most nearly means". no reference to where the word was or anything, you simply have to remember or hunt it down, which is stupid becuase they used to give line references on the paper mcat.

I took the 8/7/08 MCAT and from what I can remember, they had maybe 1-2 of these questions.

 

[Lukkie]

i thought 7 had the hardest verbal... i found 9 on par with 8 and 10