Best Preperation for Verbal.

[FattySlug]

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Hello,
I am retaking the MCAT in April and the first take the verbal part just killed me. I got an 8. My question is that which book do you think offer the most realistic verbal passages and questions? I am using EK 101 and my score is hovering 9-11. I really did not like BR passages because the amount of reasoning they used to explain answer is sometimes absurd. Please give me your comments. Thank you very much.

 

[enTropeeeeeeeee]

Hello,
I am retaking the MCAT in April and the first take the verbal part just killed me. I got an 8. My question is that which book do you think offer the most realistic verbal passages and questions? I am using EK 101 and my score is hovering 9-11. I really did not like BR passages because the amount of reasoning they used to explain answer is sometimes absurd. Please give me your comments. Thank you very much.

The general SDN belief is EK101>TPR>>>BR.

I have all 3. I'm currently burning through the BR just to get more exposure to verbal. Then I'll use TPR, and finish off with EK. Hopefully, I'll be verbal competent enough by then.

 

[IamSuperDoctor]

Doing practice verbal passage will help your verbal score, no doubt. But the big contributor to a high verbal score would be years and years of regularly reading books, spanning a variety of topics.

 

[enTropeeeeeeeee]

Doing practice verbal passage will help your verbal score, no doubt. But the big contributor to a high verbal score would be years and years of regularly reading books, spanning a variety of topics.

Truth. Since you only have ~3 months, you must acquire these skills quick! Well, acquire it enough to get into med school at least...

 

[omgyou8myrice]

I used EK for it, which I thought was a pretty solid book. I'll echo the sentiments of others, though.. lots and lots of leisurely reading is what saved me from scoring a <10 on VR.

 

[FattySlug]

Yeah I understand the importance of continuous reading but that is a long term plan while I need a quick fix 😀. Thanks for the input guys. I am scoring above 10 for EK and hopefully that will translate into the real deal.

 

[saltyload]

The general SDN belief is EK101>TPR>>>BR.

I have all 3. I'm currently burning through the BR just to get more exposure to verbal. Then I'll use TPR, and finish off with EK. Hopefully, I'll be verbal competent enough by then.

I only have 6 exams left on my EK101 and my exam is on May 7. Should I buy a TPR book and use that instead and the last 2 weeks spend on remaining passages in EK?

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Best preparation for verbal would probably be starting to read stuff like The Economist or the Wall Street Journal at age 6.

 

[ModernAlchemist]

I only have 6 exams left on my EK101 and my exam is on May 7. Should I buy a TPR book and use that instead and the last 2 weeks spend on remaining passages in EK?

Get the TPRH verbal book. In my opinion, it's what helped my verbal the most because the passages are not very interesting and the questions are of medium to hard difficulty, with not many that are easy. In my opinion, drilling with that book is the best way to nail down your personal verbal strategy. I think EK 101 would be good to save though. Also, check out the Official Guide to the MCAT. The verbal section in that seemed pretty good.

 

[Ghayoour]

Also, check out the Official Guide to the MCAT. The verbal section in that seemed pretty good.

Whats in this book (pertaining to verbal)? And how many practice passages are there?

Thanks

 

[ModernAlchemist]

Whats in this book (pertaining to verbal)? And how many practice passages are there?

Thanks

It's a little less than an entire full-lengths worth of material for each section. None of it is a repeat of the CBTs online so don't worry about that. The cool thing about this book is that they give you a percentage of people who got each question correct so that you can see what types of questions are considered harder or easier. Also, the explanations are better than the online CBT explanations so you can kind of see how the MCAT test writers think a little better. Hope that helps.

 

[Ghayoour]

It's a little less than an entire full-lengths worth of material for each section. None of it is a repeat of the CBTs online so don't worry about that. The cool thing about this book is that they give you a percentage of people who got each question correct so that you can see what types of questions are considered harder or easier. Also, the explanations are better than the online CBT explanations so you can kind of see how the MCAT test writers think a little better. Hope that helps.

Thank you kind sir.

 

[shffl]

I've been practicing verbal passages for a while and my score is always at either the extreme highs or lows...never in the middle lol There is just something about verbal passages than don't click well in my head.

 

[Iwillhealyou]

Hey, I took the MCAT last August and did pretty well except in the verbal section, which killed me. It was my worst score of any practice exam or anything I ever did and I was only averaging about a 7 or 8. Prior to that test I approached verbal like I would the physical or biological sections, which I am pretty proficient at, and just expected improvement with a similar style of practice, which was doing passage after passage, evaluate my mistakes and try to improve on them. This worked very little for me as my score never improved and when I took the real deal, as I said, I performed the worst of any of my other attempts.

What I have done and am still doing, I take it again on march 26th, is I subscribed to the New York Times Sunday edition and I read it. Yes, the whole thing lol, and as I am practicing verbal again now I have noticed a vast improvement just in my reading comprehension skills in general that just make all the difference in the world for me personally, which I think was the biggest problem in the first place, and may or not be yours, but regardless, I feel that reading things like the newspaper or magazines, where articles are relatively short, at least comparitively to books for example, and contain short points of emphasis by the author and tell a short story is just good practice in general.

Since I started doing practice passages again preparing for the mcat, my lowest score has been a 9, which would have been great 6 months ago for me, and my high has been a 12, usally averaging high 10's low 11's. I'll go about a week before I attempt a new verbal practice test, and during the week I will be reading The Times, which is cool btw just as my general knowledge has increased a ton, I even got a date which I credit to a column I read about Brazil lol. Anyway, I see a lot of people offering different MCAT prep companies and saying just keep practicing. I just wanted to give you another option that has so far been paying dividends for me. Of course, unless I show up on the real test it doesn't matter, but I have a more optimistic mindset about verbal now and feel more confident when I read a passage which definitely helps as well. Good luck!

 

[FattySlug]

Hey guys, I am running dry on practice material and my test one month away. Should I buy Kaplan verbal? I already used EK, TBR and I am taking one AAMC test per week. Please give me your opinion.

PS: I am horrible at humanities passage. Is there any source of reading that will help me?