Doing stand alone question first

[globy321]

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Is it a good idea to do the stand alone questions first in the Physical Sciences and then do the passages?

 

[Renaissance Man]

Is it a good idea to do the stand alone questions first in the Physical Sciences and then do the passages?

No, the time you take searching through the subsection for discrete questions isn't worth it. Get your timing down in practice tests and work from first to last.

 

[Jas1360]

No, the time you take searching through the subsection for discrete questions isn't worth it. Get your timing down in practice tests and work from first to last.

You would not be looking for the discrete questions. Some sections have no passage, therefore, all discretes. It would be good to answer those ones first and then do the passages.

But yes, it would be a waste of time to look for the discrete questions in the sections with a passage.

 

[alpharez]

I always viewed the discretes as breaks in-between passages. Why would you want to get rid of those breaks??

 

[Entadus]

I think this is personal preference. Do what you have practiced on your full lengths. Don't switch it up on the big exam day!

 

[Renaissance Man]

You would not be looking for the discrete questions. Some sections have no passage, therefore, all discretes. It would be good to answer those ones first and then do the passages.

But yes, it would be a waste of time to look for the discrete questions in the sections with a passage.

Thanks, I've never taken the MCAT before 🙄

I realize that there are questions with no passages associated (hence why I called them discretes), my recommendation stands. The time it takes to click through pages of the PS section to come across these free-standing questions isn't worth it in the long run, at least IMO. If you don't spend too much time laboring over one passage and have your timing down by using practice tests then there is no need to skip around.

 

[Jas1360]

I think this is personal preference. Do what you have practiced on your full lengths. Don't switch it up on the big exam day!

This is important. Figure out how you like to do it and keep it that way.

I found that I liked to quickly answer the discrete questions first and then read the passages. It worked better for the way I kept track of time.

 

[Chrys]

I do like to do them first but it does come down to personal preference. I tend to do a lot better on discretes than on passage based Qs, so I like to go through, do those questions and try to get some confidence up, get to those when I'm fresh and nail 'em, and then go on and get morale destroyed.

 

[globy321]

In verbal reasoning they tell you to do the easy passages first and leave the hard passages last. In the Physical sciences there are some hard passage and there are easy passages/discrete questions. I found that doing easy passages in verbal first helped me alot and I was thinking in whether I should do the same with Physical sciences where I do the discrete questions first. I find the humanities passages (literature, art) to be the hardest so I skip those and do them last. Are there any topics in Physical sciences which are usually hard similar to humanities in verbal?

 

[Renaissance Man]

In verbal reasoning they tell you to do the easy passages first and leave the hard passages last.

How do you determine a hard passage from an easy passage on first glance in VR? You take precious test time to look through all the passages and rank them in terms of perceived difficulty?

 

[darklabel]

No, the time you take searching through the subsection for discrete questions isn't worth it. Get your timing down in practice tests and work from first to last.

I agree with this guy. If you don't have a system yet, don't resort to skipping around. Remember some old books still teach the MCAT as if it is on paper so method such as looking for easier passages and skipping around aren't as intuitive on the computer.

Any time you waste on the MCAT just looking around is time that you can use to answer the question at hand. Ultimately it is up to you though. If skipping around nets you a 32+ in each practice test than by all means, skip around.