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I sent this to someone in PM but I thought other people on here might benefit from it as well. Let me know what you guys think.
My suggestion for reviewing verbal passages/verbal FLs is that you should make a note of all questions that you answered incorrectly WITHOUT WRITING DOWN THE CORRECT ANSWER. Then, take a short break and get any memories of correct answers out of your head. Go watch tv or take a shower, just don't do anything MCAT related for at least an hour. After your break, go look at the questions you answered incorrectly. Talk to yourself and explain to yourself why the answer you chose was the incorrect answer, and why one of the remaining three choices must be correct. Pick one of the remaining three choices, and do this for all the questions you got wrong. Do NOT check your NEW answers on incorrect questions until you have reviewed all questions you answered incorrectly and have chosen substitute answers. Now you can go back and check the answer key to see if you answered these correctly on your second try. If you answered all of your incorrect questions correctly on your second try, you're good. Now go back and read the accompanying explanations for the questions that you had initially answered incorrect but have now answered correctly. If you got even one question wrong after two tries at guessing correctly, then you must make a note of the questions you have whiffed on twice and take another short break to clear your memory of the correct answer. Go back to the questions that you're 0 for 2 on and choose the best answer from the remaining two answers. Rinse and repeat. Hopefully you got these right on the third try. Once you have answered ALL initially incorrect questions correctly WITHOUT reading the explanations or knowing the correct answer beforehand, THEN check the explanations so you can understand why the given correct answer is, in fact, the best answer choice. Yes, this is time intensive, but I think you will notice more improvement this way. By forcing yourself to go back to questions that you answered incorrectly without having the correct answer in your short term memory, you can argue with yourself and convince yourself why the correct answer is actually correct and why the one you chose initially must be incorrect.
If you have more free time after doing this, then I recommend that you consider switching to a more extreme method. This takes more time, but I recommend counting the number of incorrect questions on a given passage or verbal section (seven passages) and writing it down. Then, forget about the given verbal passage/full length for that day. Go sleep on it. The next day, retake the verbal full length or verbal passages (however many you did, the number honestly doesn't matter that much, although I'd get in the habit of doing at least two in a row), knowing only that you got questions wrong (because you counted), but not knowing which questions you answered incorrectly. Now retake the exam, giving yourself less time due to passage/question familiarity. If redoing a full length, try to do it in 45 minutes or less. If redoing a freestanding passage or passages, try to redo them in under seven minutes apiece. Recheck your answers and see if your score improved. If you do improve, and get questions correct the second time that you initially answered incorrectly, that's awesome, and obviously the goal. I think you see where I'm going with this but it is difficult to spend too much time on verbal post passage/full length review.
I wouldn't bother reviewing questions that you answered correctly on the first try, unless you were flat-out guessing due to a time crunch or you were really stuck between two answers but guessed correctly. Those are obviously worth reviewing, but don't bother reviewing questions that you got correct with minimal effort. Waste of your time, in my opinion.
Hope this helps someone.
My suggestion for reviewing verbal passages/verbal FLs is that you should make a note of all questions that you answered incorrectly WITHOUT WRITING DOWN THE CORRECT ANSWER. Then, take a short break and get any memories of correct answers out of your head. Go watch tv or take a shower, just don't do anything MCAT related for at least an hour. After your break, go look at the questions you answered incorrectly. Talk to yourself and explain to yourself why the answer you chose was the incorrect answer, and why one of the remaining three choices must be correct. Pick one of the remaining three choices, and do this for all the questions you got wrong. Do NOT check your NEW answers on incorrect questions until you have reviewed all questions you answered incorrectly and have chosen substitute answers. Now you can go back and check the answer key to see if you answered these correctly on your second try. If you answered all of your incorrect questions correctly on your second try, you're good. Now go back and read the accompanying explanations for the questions that you had initially answered incorrect but have now answered correctly. If you got even one question wrong after two tries at guessing correctly, then you must make a note of the questions you have whiffed on twice and take another short break to clear your memory of the correct answer. Go back to the questions that you're 0 for 2 on and choose the best answer from the remaining two answers. Rinse and repeat. Hopefully you got these right on the third try. Once you have answered ALL initially incorrect questions correctly WITHOUT reading the explanations or knowing the correct answer beforehand, THEN check the explanations so you can understand why the given correct answer is, in fact, the best answer choice. Yes, this is time intensive, but I think you will notice more improvement this way. By forcing yourself to go back to questions that you answered incorrectly without having the correct answer in your short term memory, you can argue with yourself and convince yourself why the correct answer is actually correct and why the one you chose initially must be incorrect.
If you have more free time after doing this, then I recommend that you consider switching to a more extreme method. This takes more time, but I recommend counting the number of incorrect questions on a given passage or verbal section (seven passages) and writing it down. Then, forget about the given verbal passage/full length for that day. Go sleep on it. The next day, retake the verbal full length or verbal passages (however many you did, the number honestly doesn't matter that much, although I'd get in the habit of doing at least two in a row), knowing only that you got questions wrong (because you counted), but not knowing which questions you answered incorrectly. Now retake the exam, giving yourself less time due to passage/question familiarity. If redoing a full length, try to do it in 45 minutes or less. If redoing a freestanding passage or passages, try to redo them in under seven minutes apiece. Recheck your answers and see if your score improved. If you do improve, and get questions correct the second time that you initially answered incorrectly, that's awesome, and obviously the goal. I think you see where I'm going with this but it is difficult to spend too much time on verbal post passage/full length review.
I wouldn't bother reviewing questions that you answered correctly on the first try, unless you were flat-out guessing due to a time crunch or you were really stuck between two answers but guessed correctly. Those are obviously worth reviewing, but don't bother reviewing questions that you got correct with minimal effort. Waste of your time, in my opinion.
Hope this helps someone.
