Be honest: how difficult is it to jack up a VR score?

[DZT]

Right now, the only blemish on my MCAT is a damn 6 on my VR section. On my Kaplan Diag's I got 9,7,6,9,10 and 8 but on AAMC V I got a 6. My other April MCAT subscores were 12BS, 11PS and S WS. I studied immensely for the Bio and Physics, but for the verbal, I would do a couple passages here and there. I did not read the Times or the New Yorker everyday at 7AM to jack up my reading comp. Do you think that for the next 2 months if I stick to a strict reading schedule of waking early in the morning and reading and outlining the paper, the score can improve? It's an arbitrary question but I'm desperate. Is there any hope? Could anyone tell me if they have made improvements b/w tests, your strategies, your study technique for the Verbal? I dont understand how I am so poor in the VR section; what exactly goes on in your head when you do it? It's just so damn frustrating to get crushed on verbal, while acing writing. <img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" />

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[Femtochemistry]

•••quote:••• Do you think that for the next 2 months if I stick to a strict reading schedule of waking early in the morning and reading and outlining the paper, the score can improve?••••Well, It can't lower your score.

 

[WISC-ite]

Buy the Krackers 101 Verbal passages book and follow their philosophy to the word!

I hate reading, writing, poems, etc.... just not my bag, but I was able to raise my score from an 8 to a 10 with their material and method.

Good luck

 

[Michelys]

Sorry about your predicament--but if you crack those books everyday , use a soundless timer, and practice outlining and verbal stategies--I don't see how you couldn't crack a good 10 on verbal. Just have some faith in yourself and shove that stuff in! BTW, what about a verbal accelerator course by Kaplan or Princeton? It wouldn't hurt. Best of luck.

 

[ellerose]

As described in another post, I had a friend in exactly the same boat as you. She also got a 6 on VR with good science scores. I don't know what she did differently, but she improved it to a 10 on the summer MCAT. My study advice is to simply do passages. Over, and over, and over again. Doesn't Kaplan give you the answers to the diags? Once you finish your practice passages, find out which questions you missed and why. Then look out for those same mistakes in future diags. When I took Princeton Review, we had an awesome verbal instructor who we could reserve extra time with to work out individual problems with. I would look into whether Kaplan has similar services. I'm sure it costs a buttload, but it's up to you if you think it's worthwhile money to spend. I don't know if just reading the NYTimes or other periodicals will really do much at this point. Practice, practice, practice. Get your timing down to where you will feel confident taking it in August. Good luck!

 

[Adi Prasad]

Just be careful becuase I knew people that concentrated so much on improving verbal that they dropped their science scores. Also, Kaplan verbal is pretty bad I thought, use Berkeley Review because if nothing else, it will really improve your reading spead because the passages are twice as long as the aamc ones. Good luck

 

[laviddee]

i upped my verbal from a 9 3 years ago to a 12 just this april. I really think I didn't do anything differnt but read more.
but the book i did use was Peterson's MCAT verbal workbook i think is the title?
it must have helped in some ways.

also the most helpful advice is just read as if it's a pleasurable read.. I know that's hard sometimes with the topics.. but if you read without having to go back to the passage you can finish the whole thing and usually get all the right answers the 1st time. I also say don't follow the kaplan method of reorganizing passages in order from easy to hard.. just go throgh plug through it with every intention to finish-- and if you finish - you'll at least raise your score a point or even 2. (assuming you didn't finish before)??
oh well good luck to you!
dave

 

[hellokitty]

Instead of reading the newspaper, I would use that time to practice with passages. When I read newspaper, I always end up picking passages that I enjoy reading (which is never on the MCAT). Also, with newspaper articles, you can't really test yourself to see if you understood the material.

 

[Toejam]

Just wanted to know. Is this a common complaint from MCAT'ers? An abysmally low VR with acceptable sciences (and a very good WS)??

I'm asking because I'm still in shock about my VR score. I also got a 6 and received an "S" on my WS. I'm totally baffled! I read EVERY DAY for pleasure and when I took the MCAT last (10 years ago) I got a 10 on verbal.

Is it remotely possible that something went wrong with the scoring this year? Are all of these posts about the damned verbal section just par for the course???

 

[laviddee]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by laviddee:
•i upped my verbal from a 9 3 years ago to a 12 just this april. I really think I didn't do anything differnt but read more.
but the book i did use was Peterson's MCAT verbal workbook i think is the title?
it must have helped in some ways.
•••••sorry i must correct myself- it's not Peterson's MCAT verbal- but Columbia Review MCAT Verbal Reasoning Powerbuilder.
ISBN: 0683300733

sorry for the confusion for those that pm'd me <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />

 

[BUmiken12]

In my personal experience, verbal was EXTREMELY hard to improve on, and I tried EVERYTHING. I did every single AAMC test, every TPR diag, a couple Kaplan diags, tried the Examkrakers and TPR methods, did every single passage in TPR verbal workbook, read the Wall Street Journal every other day, read 5 articles of Time a week, and I still only went from an 8 to a 10. I think VR is so hard to improve on because it's really like 15 years or so of preparation. There's a lot of word usage, connotation, etc. that you can't just study, you just get it from all those years of reading. So if you were a big reader when you were younger, then you definitely have the advantage.

BUT...you definitely can improve on VR. I know a girl who went from a 6 on her first diag to a 13-15 on the real thing because she worked at it. She didn't work nearly as hard as I did, but she just got it. IMHO, VR is just like Organic, some people get it, and some don't. I didn't, and therefore, my improvement was minimal.

 

[T-bruin]

I only went from a 6 to a 7, but I think I've gained some wisdom from my two sittings. All I can say is that a big part of doing well in Verbal is confidence. I too tried all the methods. I used ExamKrackers, TPR, Kaplan, and Berkeley Reivew books. I was getting 8,9,10 on AAMC tests. I even took a verbal test every morning the week before last April's MCAT, but I still managed to get a 7. Although I had confidence going into the test, real testing conditions sucked, and I was all nervous when the test began. I fumbled through the first two passages and didn't get to the last one. In short, nervousness screwed me. I don't know if this was the case for you, but my suggestion would be to try various methods until you find one you're comfortable with and then take a few practice tests under realistic conditions and gain the confidence you need to do well. Hope this helps!