Dense Outside Reading Material to Enhance VR Reading Comprehension

[blazinfury]

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I typically find that read comprehension is the main reason why I get verbal questions incorrectly because I sometimes find that I miss a key idea or do not fully comprehend it. I know that reading comprehension is difficult to fix and everyone says to read and I do. I read the NY Times and Economist on a daily basis, but I do not feel that the material is dense enough. Philosophy passages are typically killer for me. What resource would you recommend for dense passages and for passages in the arts that best resemble MCAT style.

Also, when you do read this outside material, do you read it in the way that you would read an MCAT passage (ie timing yourself and then quizzing yourself on the article after you finished reading it)? Thank you.

 

[xroc]

I think you make a great point. My struggle has also been similar to yours on verbal reasoning. I can ready fairly quickly and I feel as though I understand the vast majority of the passage but it seems like every now and then I tend to misinterpret a passage and in the end I tend to get 3-4 questions wrong because of it. I feel like it's a hard thing to fix, and on all of my diags I would end up with usually 0-1 questions wrong per passage and then there would always be one or two outliers with 3-4 wrong which would totally bring down my overall score. I don't personally believe in the economist or in "casual" reading since the MCAT VR section doesn't even closely resemble it. The best I can suggest besides practicing all the VR material available (EK, TPR, Kaplan, TBR, etcetc) is to find a philosophical or "dense" book and time yourself per page and at the end try to summarize the ideas as quickly as you can. After you do this, then go back over the page to make sure your assessment of the material was accurate.

 

[centrigeugle]

Why not read more verbal passages?

 

[blazinfury]

@centrigeugle

I do read and do verbal passages each day but like I said before, the passages in most review books typically fail to replicate the density of passages on AAMCs. I do not want to just waste the AAMCs but rather to enhance my abilities before doing them.

 

[NickNaylor]

I'd recommend taking a great books course if you have the time. If not, look up "great books" on Wikipedia and read some of the books on that list.

I attribute my VR success to my great books background.

 

[Morsetlis]

I'd recommend taking a great books course if you have the time. If not, look up "great books" on Wikipedia and read some of the books on that list.

I attribute my VR success to my great books background.

Same. My librarian gave me a book for Christmas in the third grade because I was the only one who visited her 🙁

I recommend the Richard Selzer books or NYT articles. I do not recommend fiction, unless it's thicker than a textbook and isn't about wizards.

 

[Pre-Med Village]

Same. My librarian gave me a book for Christmas in the third grade because I was the only one who visited her 🙁

I recommend the Richard Selzer books or NYT articles. I do not recommend fiction, unless it's thicker than a textbook and isn't about wizards.

Herman Melville's fiction would be excellent. The E-books are free too. Henry James or Jane Austen also strike me as good fiction for building the ability to grip down and comprehend dense, nuanced prose.

Also in the world of free stuff, the classics of the American Enlightenment like The Federalist Papers or the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin would be good choices. Frazer's The Golden Bough. Thoreau's or Emerson's essays.

Read Moby Dick. What an incredible novel, combining exposition and philosophical writing with the joys of fiction, a dense, difficult, rewarding journey. Melville will train you up. The more concentration and care you bring to his writing, the greater the enjoyment.

 

[AAB5]

So when reading some of the "great books" or other texts, you all suggest analyzing them after reading for about 7-8minutes? Is this the tactic?

What do you all think about reading articles from PubMed? I know a lot of the bio passages are analyzing tables and graphs which is similar to the pubmed articles.

Thoughts?

 

[centrigeugle]

So when reading some of the "great books" or other texts, you all suggest analyzing them after reading for about 7-8minutes? Is this the tactic?

This is why I think "training for VR" by reading novels and newspaper articles is mostly useless. You don't read a novel the way you read a VR passage. Newspaper articles are carefully written to keep a neutral, objective voice. In both cases, you read for leisure and enjoyment and, sometimes, content. You don't read for author voice, point of view, or how the author feels about a particular subject based on the word choice. You're not trying to rip out the salient points as quickly as possible - which is the critical ability for finishing verbal on time. As we've discussed endlessly on this forum, reading faster is almost completely useless on verbal.

Remind me again why reading VR passages is bad practice for VR? Do you guys go and do really difficult organic problems to train for your biological science section? There are approximately three squillion verbal passages you can read from a variety of test-prep companies. Are they exactly the same as the AAMC versions?

No. But they're much closer than the New York Times is.

How can reading Moby Dick possibly be more helpful than reading more verbal passages? (this is a serious question despite the somewhat inflammatory tone of my post)

 

[Pre-Med Village]

How can reading Moby Dick possibly be more helpful than reading more verbal passages? (this is a serious question despite the somewhat inflammatory tone of my post)

I think your question is fairly put, not inflammatory at all. Scientific, medical education has a different kind of rigor than you get in the humanities, so if anything, I think your approach to the problem is direct and practical.

Nevertheless, I think it's helpful to understand that reading is not only about applying the intellect to interpret or 'puzzle out' a solution, but communication is the essence. If developing yourself for verbal reasoning were about MCAT passages, the test would not be trivial for anyone with a good humanities education. Read a few thousand pages of difficult prose, and it will do wonders for your abilities. If you were trying to learn a foreign language, it would be hard to argue against learning grammar in class, but that would be nothing compared to actually living in the country where the language is spoken.

A reading life makes a person a stronger reader. The more you read, the more intellectual energy you gain over time to making the play of signifiers on the surface transparent to the intentions and ideas of the author. I suggested Melville as a crash course. If your energy flags you will find yourself a paragraph down with him, wondering how you got there. Tracking back and concentrating, you will then find yourself deep in what you just read without comprehension a moment before, and the mind becomes more acute. It becomes a discipline.

Moby Dick may be too much. Billy Budd would be fine, or even shorter works like the Enchanted Isles or Bartleby the Scrivener.

 

[NickNaylor]

So when reading some of the "great books" or other texts, you all suggest analyzing them after reading for about 7-8minutes? Is this the tactic?

What do you all think about reading articles from PubMed? I know a lot of the bio passages are analyzing tables and graphs which is similar to the pubmed articles.

Thoughts?

No. Again, ideally you would do this in the context of a discussion-based class so that you can begin to develop critical reading skills if you don't have them already. I wouldn't recommend stopping to read and analyzing passages.

This is why I think "training for VR" by reading novels and newspaper articles is mostly useless. You don't read a novel the way you read a VR passage. Newspaper articles are carefully written to keep a neutral, objective voice. In both cases, you read for leisure and enjoyment and, sometimes, content. You don't read for author voice, point of view, or how the author feels about a particular subject based on the word choice. You're not trying to rip out the salient points as quickly as possible - which is the critical ability for finishing verbal on time. As we've discussed endlessly on this forum, reading faster is almost completely useless on verbal.

Remind me again why reading VR passages is bad practice for VR? Do you guys go and do really difficult organic problems to train for your biological science section? There are approximately three squillion verbal passages you can read from a variety of test-prep companies. Are they exactly the same as the AAMC versions?

No. But they're much closer than the New York Times is.

How can reading Moby Dick possibly be more helpful than reading more verbal passages? (this is a serious question despite the somewhat inflammatory tone of my post)

With respect to the first bolded, you use those exact skills when you read books critically in the sense of literary analysis and critique. Again, this is why I recommend great books courses if you can manage to fit one in at some point.

With the respect to the second, it helps build reading comprehension and, in the context of literary analysis/critique - again, as part of a great books course - develop critical reading and thinking skills, which are EXACTLY what's needed on VR.

This isn't something you fit into your three month MCAT study plan. If three months is all you have, obviously VR passages should be the focus. If you're being forward-looking and are a freshman or sophomore, on the other hand, I don't think taking a great books course will hurt.

 

[CyberMaxx]

In the same vein as a great books course, I would recommend ancient philosophy. Translated ancient philosophy texts are the most abstruse readings I've ever come across and I believe working through them increased my verbal savvy more than anything else. However, I wouldn't recommend taking the course unless you have some outside interest in the subject other than MCAT prep because, even for someone who is interested in the subject, the readings can be remarkably frustrating🙄

 

[blazinfury]

In the same vein as a great books course, I would recommend ancient philosophy. Translated ancient philosophy texts are the most abstruse readings I've ever come across and I believe working through them increased my verbal savvy more than anything else. However, I wouldn't recommend taking the course unless you have some outside interest in the subject other than MCAT prep because, even for someone who is interested in the subject, the readings can be remarkably frustrating🙄

Are there any particular philosophy texts that you could recommend? Are they available online or are they books? Thanks.

 

[Pre-Med Village]

Are there any particular philosophy texts that you could recommend? Are they available online or are they books? Thanks.

cybermax12 might have different recommendations, but these are two of the most influential works in the Western canon, so some of the points of view expressed may also be useful to bring up for writing sample because of the authority of the works. Plato is somewhat easier reading than Aristotle I think.

Plato's Republic: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html

Aristotle's Ethics: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html

 

[CyberMaxx]

Like JohnWetzel suggested, Plato and Aristotle are two of the big ones, especially because a large part of their corpus has survived to the present day. I would recommend though that you start with Plato's recordings (or retellings) of Socrates' discourses because they are only moderately difficult and will give you a good understanding of the philosophical thought at the time.

After Socrates, Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics are excellent works to tackle, with Nicomachean Ethics being the more challenging. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is also an excellent read. Finally, if you prefer modern philosophy to ancient I would recommend Rene Descartes' Discourse on Method, which is basically a complex series of intricate logical deductions set forth by Descartes to prove the existence of himself and God.

 

[NickNaylor]

Like JohnWetzel suggested, Plato and Aristotle are two of the big ones, especially because a large part of their corpus has survived to the present day. I would recommend though that you start with Plato's recordings (or retellings) of Socrates' discourses because they are only moderately difficult and will give you a good understanding of the philosophical thought at the time.

After Socrates, Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics are excellent works to tackle, with Nicomachean Ethics being the more challenging. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is also an excellent read. Finally, if you prefer modern philosophy to ancient I would recommend Rene Descartes' Discourse on Method, which is basically a complex series of intricate logical deductions set forth by Descartes to prove the existence of himself and God.

Descartes is ok - I didn't really enjoy Discourse on Method all that much - but I highly recommend Rousseau. He's a pretty interesting guy, and his first and second discourses are pretty interesting. If you have more time, Emile, Or On Education is a good - but very lengthy (~1000 pages) - read.

 

[eHombre]

The MCAT will not have a excerpt from Plato/Aristotle/Descartes or anything like it. I don't think those sources would be a productive use of your time unless you have a particular interest in their work.

The kinds of articles that make it on the VR are excerpts from long-form essays or reported stories. The length of these articles (4-10 web or magazine pages) is definitely more convenient than the book format, since you also want repeated practice.

I would recommend magazine articles that cover a wide range of material in an in-depth fashion. The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired, the NYT Sunday Magazine... these are all great sources, and the articles typically are quite enjoyable to read. Plus they'll keep you up-to-date with current events, which can be helpful for your interviews.

Alternatively, try a compendium series like "The Best American Science Writing". The 2010 edition was edited by Jerome Groopman, a heme/onc professor at Harvard and the author of "How Doctors Think".

For more dense reading, try the perspectives/commentaries in the higher profile journals like Nature, Science, or the New England Journal of Medicine, or book reviews in the New York Times Book Review.

Here are a few articles to get started:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1108322
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/ff_feedbackloop/
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/31/100531fa_fact_groopman

 

[QuiSait]

I think that if you haven't been much of a reader before now, reading books and such will help you.

I've just started studying and my VR scores are by far my best - I think this has a lot to do with being a bookworm (and addicted to the NYT, New Yorker, etc.).

The kid in my MCAT class who consistently killed verbal thought it was because he was a French Lit student and accustomed to reading text closely.

If there's somebody else you can find who might also be interested in reading some of the same things, you could read and discuss - that will help you see where you're missing ideas.

I'm not particularly convinced that you even need to read texts as challenging as the ones listed here (though of course you could). I'd start with a book that is known to be well written and is a bit out of your comfort zone but not so far that you can't wrap your mind around it.

Also, I do think reading the New Yorker, NYT, Economist, etc., helps, as they do often reflect MCAT passage layout - a somewhat concise presentation of a story or argument.

 

[KindofBlue]

The MCAT will not have a excerpt from Plato/Aristotle/Descartes or anything like it. I don't think those sources would be a productive use of your time unless you have a particular interest in their work.

The kinds of articles that make it on the VR are excerpts from long-form essays or reported stories. The length of these articles (4-10 web or magazine pages) is definitely more convenient than the book format, since you also want repeated practice.
.......

You're not getting the point..
There's almost 1 in a thousand or even less a chance one would encounter material in the MCAT that has already been read by the test taker.
It makes no sense whatsoever to prepare the VR by trying to pre-read possible passage candidate material.
VR is not about how much you know, it's about how well you can read and understand. Reading difficult philosophical writings will hone your skills in that department, thus prepare you much better for the exam.

 

[eHombre]

You're not getting the point..
There's almost 1 in a thousand or even less a chance one would encounter material in the MCAT that has already been read by the test taker.
It makes no sense whatsoever to prepare the VR by trying to pre-read possible passage candidate material.
VR is not about how much you know, it's about how well you can read and understand. Reading difficult philosophical writings will hone your skills in that department, thus prepare you much better for the exam.

I should have been more clear. I suggested those magazines/journals because they publish articles that are similar to those found on the VR section. That is to say, reading them would be much better practice for the style of argument found in MCAT passages. Their relatively short length allows you to gain exposure to many different writers, arguments, and fields of study. I was not suggesting those publications in hope of having "pre-read" an article, an almost willful misreading of my post.

I will reiterate my contention that reading "difficult philosophical writings" for the purpose of preparing for the MCAT is inefficient at best and counterproductive at worst, particularly if VR is not your strong suit. You will not encounter writing like that on the test, and it is not the case that reading "difficult philosophical writing" amounts to, shall we say, lifting heavy weights in preparation for a swim meet. It's simply different writing, and you should prepare for the MCAT by carefully reading passages similar to those found on the MCAT.

 

[ridethecliche]

Read more posts here. They're pretty dense.

 

[NickNaylor]

I should have been more clear. I suggested those magazines/journals because they publish articles that are similar to those found on the VR section. That is to say, reading them would be much better practice for the style of argument found in MCAT passages. Their relatively short length allows you to gain exposure to many different writers, arguments, and fields of study. I was not suggesting those publications in hope of having "pre-read" an article, an almost willful misreading of my post.

I will reiterate my contention that reading "difficult philosophical writings" for the purpose of preparing for the MCAT is inefficient at best and counterproductive at worst, particularly if VR is not your strong suit. You will not encounter writing like that on the test, and it is not the case that reading "difficult philosophical writing" amounts to, shall we say, lifting heavy weights in preparation for a swim meet. It's simply different writing, and you should prepare for the MCAT by carefully reading passages similar to those found on the MCAT.

Maybe, maybe not. I'll agree with you that it's extremely inefficient, but, in the context of a literary criticism course, it can be extremely valuable. The skills necessary for courses like that are EXACTLY what are necessary to do well on VR.

I definitely think that doing practice tests and taking time to read through answer explanations is the most efficient way to prepare for VR. But if you have time and are interested in literature, great books courses can't do anything but help you. It certainly won't hurt.

 

[Pre-Med Village]

Here's a great resource for supplementary reading that may be a middle ground between the Economist (uggh) and Aristotle, a NY Times presentation of the list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the past century by the Modern Library.

The great thing about this page is that it has links where possible to the original NY Times reviews of the works. The reviews themselves represent a collection of excellent short critical essays approximately MCAT passage length, while the longer works themselves are generally excellent choices for more in depth reading practice if one strikes your interest.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/042999best-nonfiction-list.html

 

[shenglu]

You do not read a novel way to read through VR. Newspaper articles, carefully written to maintain a neutral, objective voice. In both cases, you read the leisure and enjoyment, and sometimes content.

 

[Morsetlis]

Are there any particular philosophy texts that you could recommend? Are they available online or are they books? Thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolation_of_Philosophy by Boethius. My favorite book from Humanities.

I don't understand why you don't just do VR passages WITH questions over and over. That's much higher yield regarding your question-answering ability. You could understand all the works of Dostoyevsky in Russian, but if you can't answer MCAT-style questions, you will drown.

 

[Erythropoietin]

I do not think you need to read books to increase your VR, especially if you are in the 3-month range. Also I agree with the above poster who said most newspaper articles are written in a neutral way.
I recommend reading a few newspaper articles, since a couple MCAT passages will be written in a neutral way, but also there was a section on WSJ called "Opinion" where you can find articles on authors taking side of an issue. So those are good practice as well.

 

[Ssina]

Scientific America, can't stress that enough...

I personally had 2 of my passages from there (out of 7, that should tell you something), plus many other people have mentioned they had passages from there as well... now I am not saying every test will have passages from SA but it's waaaay better than reading Times, etc... in my opinion at least!

 

[notbobtrustme]

You can't "read" for the VR section. You basically have to learn what the VR is testing and tailor around that. You should be reading because you want knowledge and a better understanding of the world. And that habit should have been ingrained for 10+ years, not quickly developed over 6 months.

 

[MD Odyssey]

Herman Melville's fiction would be excellent. The E-books are free too. Henry James or Jane Austen also strike me as good fiction for building the ability to grip down and comprehend dense, nuanced prose.

Also in the world of free stuff, the classics of the American Enlightenment like The Federalist Papers or the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin would be good choices. Frazer's The Golden Bough. Thoreau's or Emerson's essays.

Read Moby Dick. What an incredible novel, combining exposition and philosophical writing with the joys of fiction, a dense, difficult, rewarding journey. Melville will train you up. The more concentration and care you bring to his writing, the greater the enjoyment.

Not to mention the fact that Moby Dick is an incredible piece of American literature. Personally, I tend to eschew American lit. as much as possible - I was sired upon the giants across the shore - but Herman Melville was an amazing writer and one that anyone that wants to call themselves "educated" should indulge in.

 

[Erythropoietin]

Scientific America, can't stress that enough...

I personally had 2 of my passages from there (out of 7, that should tell you something), plus many other people have mentioned they had passages from there as well... now I am not saying every test will have passages from SA but it's waaaay better than reading Times, etc... in my opinion at least!

I like SciAm but most of their passages are informational (author is not really arguing anything). But it's still good practice for those social science passages.

 

[Ssina]

I like SciAm but most of their passages are informational (author is not really arguing anything). But it's still good practice for those social science passages.

yeah definitely, but you can always skip them and get to the articles that you are not interested in/find it to be dense/etc.

 

[Padme]

I agree, read newspapers - you could get one of the major ones. This is good for paper media too. Don't get anything flashy from the Murdoch empire but a good, balanced and sophisticated newspaper - or even journal.

I believe this is great for improving VR.

 

[NickNaylor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolation_of_Philosophy by Boethius. My favorite book from Humanities.

I don't understand why you don't just do VR passages WITH questions over and over. That's much higher yield regarding your question-answering ability. You could understand all the works of Dostoyevsky in Russian, but if you can't answer MCAT-style questions, you will drown.

Solid recommendation. That's probably my favorite book.

 

[leaveit2rani]

Go on the online sites for The Economist, The New Yorker, and maybe some GRE verbal material. Those are all pretty dense and don't listen to those people that just say stick to 101 and other prep companies, practice is practice. Would you be better off not reading these?