calling all EK Verbal Veterans!

[jj08]

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Hey all-

After seeing all the praise the EK 101 Verbal Reasoning book got, I purchased it. I was a little apprehensive to start practicing because I had heard how hard the verbal test are with EK. Anyway, I took my first exam today and noticed that I missed a grip load of questions in the first two passages out of nervousness. In the following passages (probably after my nerves settled) I was missing 1 per passage (except for the last passage where I missed 3). And oddly enough, I had been using TRP and Kaplan for verbal up until this point and I was barely finishing in time with those tests but I finished 20 minutes early on this EK test. 😕

Any suggestions on how to relax and calm my nerves?

 

[RayhanS1282]

What was your score on the first exam?

 

[jj08]

What was your score on the first exam?

a friggin 8 🙁 . how does that matter? 😕

 

[jj08]

where are all the people who used/are using examkrackers? 😕 I know you guys are out there! 😳

 

[RayhanS1282]

I wanted to know your score because since you are finishing early, ~20 min ahead of time that means that you have time to review. By the way, 8 is not a bad score for the first EK exam since they are rather difficult and is a pretty accurate watermark for the actual thing. My suggestion would be to slow down. I used the TPR method of "Good reading is swift reading" but that just caused me to finish early with more mistakes. I felt good cause I finished early but then getting 7's really killed it. Good luck.

 

[sfbear]

It sounds like you're going too fast ( i had the same problem at first) - I would focus on slowing down. Try, after you finish reading the passage, taking a few deep breaths while solidifying the passage in your mind before even glancing at the questions. also try working on only three sections at a time until you get the timing down a little beter. the verbal section is hard, but i think ek is the way to go. good luck!

 

[efex101]

actually you are doing great for your firts ek...just slow down a bit and relax...

 

[amy73]

Hi,

Same stuff is goin on with me too.. I am doing the 5 sec break with the EK strategy, and also going back.. I am still finishing 20mintues ahead of time.. BTW does anyone have a score conversion chart.. for verbal

Thanks
Amy

 

[stoleyerscrubz]

Raw Score(correct answers): Scaled Score
60: 15
58-59: 14
56-57: 13
53-55: 12
49-52: 11
45-48: 10
41-44: 9
37-40: 8
34-36: 7
30-33: 6
27-29: 5
24-26: 4
20-23: 3
16-19: 2
0-15: 1

 

[jj08]

I used the TPR method of "Good reading is swift reading" but that just caused me to finish early with more mistakes.

That's exactly what I am talking about! I was using their method when I was taking verbal exams and I felt like I had to blaze through the test just to barely finish in time. Now it's hard for me to slow down with the EK tests. 🙁

actually you are doing great for your firts ek...just slow down a bit and relax...

thank you for the encouragement 🙂 . The problem is how do I relax?

 

[jj08]

Try, after you finish reading the passage, taking a few deep breaths while solidifying the passage in your mind before even glancing at the questions. also try working on only three sections at a time until you get the timing down a little beter. the verbal section is hard, but i think ek is the way to go. good luck!

sf-

how did you solidify the passage? did you jot notes down next to the paragraphs or did you just summarize the main point in your head like EK suggests?

Could you elaborate on "working on only three sections at a time" bit? Do you mean to give myself X amount of time for 3 passages before moving on?

 

[redruby]

i'm studying independently with kaplan and EK materials. I got an 8 on the EK Verbal yesterday and an 11 on the Kaplan verbal today. In my opinion, the Kaplan was much easier. The passages seemed shorter and the wrong answer choices were definitely much easier to eliminate. I don't know... I figure the Kaplan wouldn't be that misleadingly easy because probably the people who take the class would be very pissed they scored a lot lower than the practice tests on the real thing... but then I've only taken 2 tests so not that much to compare.

 

[Swack]

I don't know if the EK passages were very representative. I found it funny how a majority of the passages were very recent. I also thought many of the passages were very easy to read, but the questions were incredibly tricky. I think Kaplan tests were pretty easy, and TPR tests look pretty much like the real thing. I made an 8, 9, 9, 9 on my EK tests respectively, and a 9 on the real thing so I guess there was more correlation than I thought. Oh yea, I also finished the EK tests anywhere from 5-10 minutes early. I finished 5 minutes early on the real thing too.