Best books for practice verbal passages?

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FutureMD713

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Hey guys,

I was wondering what you guys thought as to which books offered verbal practice problems most accurately compared to the real Mcats. I went through TPR book and Barrons book, and found the styles of questions to be significantly different from each other, Barrons being easier. Some people also told me that TPR books had harder passages? So I'm not really sure which books offers good verbal passages on the same difficulty level as the real mcat that I should be practicing off of. Kaplan, TPR, Barrons, EK?

Also what raw score out of 40 roughly equals a 10 on the real mcat?

Thanks in advance!

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id say get used to kaplans difficulty of passaged and ek's questions.
 
Hey guys,

I was wondering what you guys thought as to which books offered verbal practice problems most accurately compared to the real Mcats. I went through TPR book and Barrons book, and found the styles of questions to be significantly different from each other, Barrons being easier. Some people also told me that TPR books had harder passages? So I'm not really sure which books offers good verbal passages on the same difficulty level as the real mcat that I should be practicing off of. Kaplan, TPR, Barrons, EK?

Also what raw score out of 40 roughly equals a 10 on the real mcat?

Thanks in advance!


I recommend EK's 101 passages and doing as many of the VR sections on the AAMC practice exams as possible.

The raw score needed for a 10 on the real MCAT is unknown and probably varies anyway. For the AAMC CBT practice exams, I think you can miss about 7-9 Q's and still get a 10.
 
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How about the 16 mini mcat tests book by Examkrackers.....good stuff???

Not in my opinion. I did a couple of those tests then stopped using it. Plus they don't really help with timing since they are so short. The VR sections are ridiculous... some of the questions are incredibly ambiguous and the correct answers arguably wrong. Blah. The 12 year olds studying for the MCAT on the cover didn't help either.
 
So I bought the EK 101 Verbal passages and started doing it. I agree the reading seems a little easier. The passages are not as "dense" , but has anyone else noticed that their questions are sometimes poorly worded? I look at the ones I got "wrong" and it seems like they could be right even after looking at the answer explanations. Anyone else experienced this? Is this similar to the real MCAT?
 
So I bought the EK 101 Verbal passages and started doing it. I agree the reading seems a little easier. The passages are not as "dense" , but has anyone else noticed that their questions are sometimes poorly worded? I look at the ones I got "wrong" and it seems like they could be right even after looking at the answer explanations. Anyone else experienced this? Is this similar to the real MCAT?

This is true. As I recall, there was a passage/questions about money that was pretty bad. But overall I still think it helped... my AAMC practice exam scores went up a couple points as a result of using the book and the EK technique. I'll let you know how the real thing went once I get my score. :)
 
Not in my opinion. I did a couple of those tests then stopped using it. Plus they don't really help with timing since they are so short. The VR sections are ridiculous... some of the questions are incredibly ambiguous and the correct answers arguably wrong. Blah. The 12 year olds studying for the MCAT on the cover didn't help either.


I did a couple of the mini VR tests, and besides the 12 year olds on the cover which can make you feel dumb, I did find the VR questions to be very strange and confusing. I am hoping the real MCAT verbal is much different from that

I will probbably stay away from these verbal tests or take the score I get on them with a grain of salt
 
Personally I like Cosmo, some of the Crap those writers come up with makes no sense and confuses the crap out of me
 
After doing 3/11 tests, I can say I'm pretty frustrated w/ the questions in the EK 101 Verbal. My score is lower compared to TPR. The style of some questsions and the way they are explained are terrible compared to TPR. I'm thinking of switching to Kaplan verbal passages. Does anyone have any suggestions? Or should I continue doing EK.
 
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