EK 101 vs TPRH verbal scores

[ciestar]

So I've been practicing verbal passages out of each book. I am getting destroyed on the EK passages but I'm doing well on the TPRH passages.

Does this mean anything? You'd think there'd be some consistency there but there isn't any as of right now.
I'm averaging less than 50% correct on EK and about 70% with TPRH.

Advice?

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[brood910]

EK 101 is not even representative of AAMC ones at all.
TPRH ones are not either, but they are the closest imo.

 

[nolimits1]

So I've been practicing verbal passages out of each book. I am getting destroyed on the EK passages but I'm doing well on the TPRH passages.

Does this mean anything? You'd think there'd be some consistency there but there isn't any as of right now.
I'm averaging less than 50% correct on EK and about 70% with TPRH.

Advice?

Same thing is happening to me. I was getting roughly 5 out of 7 for TPRH, but for EK I'm getting roughly 3 out of 7. It's funny because I feel confident answering the EK questions. It feels as if the TPRH had tougher passages, but the questions were more logical whereas EK has much easier passages, but uses more gut feeling/inductive/deductive reasoning.

Did you end up improving? And if so, what was your strategy?

 

[studentp0x]

Yep 10-11 on TPR using the same scale as EK. On EK I've gone 6 --> 7 --> 8 --> 9. Thing is, most of my mistakes on EK seem to be illogical.. as in the answers they give often makes little sense.

 

[nolimits1]

Yep 10-11 on TPR using the same scale as EK. On EK I've gone 6 --> 7 --> 8 --> 9. Thing is, most of my mistakes on EK seem to be illogical.. as in the answers they give often makes little sense.

Have you done any AAMCs yet? If so, how do they compare?

 

[brood910]

Have you done any AAMCs yet? If so, how do they compare?

I avged 9 on EK and 8 on TPRH.
I got a random score between 6-9 on AAMC.

 

[orangetea]

I actually have to completely disagree about EK101 since I've done mostly EK and one or two TPRH.. EK is not illogical but really tests your knowledge of going back and finding the answer in the passage.. a bit counteracting their "main idea" method. But anyway A LOT if not 75% of the answers are actually verbatim from the passage. Having taken the MCAT I can say that thought the passages/questions on the real thing weren't EXACTLY like EK.. it was a similar way of thinking: the answer is ALWAYS in the passage and the author is ALWAYS right. I also don't think that scores should be correlated to the "real deal" .. there have been passages that I have gotten maybe 2 out of 7 right and others where I get 0 wrong for 3 or 4 passages in a row. Use it more as a learning tool and a supplement.

 

[RC4L]

I did the TPR and then EK when I was studying and I remember feeling the EK was more difficult. For me it eventually became easier and my scores became consistent with TPR but not until around halfway through the book. I found both to be excellent prep sources though. I have to disagree about the EK being unrealistic. The question of how similar prep verbal sources are is very variable. No two MCATs are similar and different people are writing different tests so those prep sources may be very representative for some and not for others. I thought TPR was actually less representative only for the fact that their passages were shorter.

 

[Lunasly]

I just did a passage on the French Revolution and Spanish Inquisition in TPRH and I got destroyed. I mean to keep track of a time line of events is unbelievably difficult. I hope the real AAMC exams aren't like this...

 

[bambam92]

I was sucking at verbal because I was utilizing the EK method of reading laboriously slow, and not referring back to the passage. For myself that was garbage! I was literally getting like 3 or 4 wrong every passage! Horrible

Now what I do is I make sure to read the passage in about 3 minutes--get a good idea of what is going on and authors opinion on the topic. Then go right to the ?'s…this leaves about 5 mins to answer the ?'s which allows you to refer back to the passage repeatedly!! And for almost all of these passages the answer is in the passage, and if the question is argumentative or tone base then you should be able to answer from your grasp of the "main idea" of the passage on your first go through. But I am literally now finishing each passage in under 8 mins, and averaging 1 wrong per passage, but sometimes I get none wrong! Referring back to the passage is huge in my opinion--try it! I went from getting half wrong to an average of 1 ? wrong per passage, and I have done like 20 passages from TPRH verbal with this new method. It makes verbal way less stressful to be able to refer back to passage.

 

[nolimits1]

I just did a passage on the French Revolution and Spanish Inquisition in TPRH and I got destroyed. I mean to keep track of a time line of events is unbelievably difficult. I hope the real AAMC exams aren't like this...

Ugh, I remember that passage. I got like 3 correct, and was a minute over.

 

[nolimits1]

I was sucking at verbal because I was utilizing the EK method of reading laboriously slow, and not referring back to the passage. For myself that was garbage! I was literally getting like 3 or 4 wrong every passage! Horrible

Now what I do is I make sure to read the passage in about 3 minutes--get a good idea of what is going on and authors opinion on the topic. Then go right to the ?'s…this leaves about 5 mins to answer the ?'s which allows you to refer back to the passage repeatedly!! And for almost all of these passages the answer is in the passage, and if the question is argumentative or tone base then you should be able to answer from your grasp of the "main idea" of the passage on your first go through. But I am literally now finishing each passage in under 8 mins, and averaging 1 wrong per passage, but sometimes I get none wrong! Referring back to the passage is huge in my opinion--try it! I went from getting half wrong to an average of 1 ? wrong per passage, and I have done like 20 passages from TPRH verbal with this new method. It makes verbal way less stressful to be able to refer back to passage.

My experience exactly.

 

[orangetea]

I was sucking at verbal because I was utilizing the EK method of reading laboriously slow, and not referring back to the passage. For myself that was garbage! I was literally getting like 3 or 4 wrong every passage! Horrible

Now what I do is I make sure to read the passage in about 3 minutes--get a good idea of what is going on and authors opinion on the topic. Then go right to the ?'s…this leaves about 5 mins to answer the ?'s which allows you to refer back to the passage repeatedly!! And for almost all of these passages the answer is in the passage, and if the question is argumentative or tone base then you should be able to answer from your grasp of the "main idea" of the passage on your first go through. But I am literally now finishing each passage in under 8 mins, and averaging 1 wrong per passage, but sometimes I get none wrong! Referring back to the passage is huge in my opinion--try it! I went from getting half wrong to an average of 1 ? wrong per passage, and I have done like 20 passages from TPRH verbal with this new method. It makes verbal way less stressful to be able to refer back to passage.

I TOTALLY and completely agree with this method. EK is kinda of shady in that they tell you to focus on the MAIN IDEA and then NEVER go back to the passage.. yet if you do EK 101 passages you will realize that if you do not go back to the passage you will for sure miss 3-4 each passage. I have tried this method on Kaplan, TBR and TPRH and it works just as well

 

[quicheduty]

I just did a passage on the French Revolution and Spanish Inquisition in TPRH and I got destroyed. I mean to keep track of a time line of events is unbelievably difficult. I hope the real AAMC exams aren't like this...

Which passage was that? I'm only halfway through the TPRH practice passages...I feel like the biggest sine curve. I do well on a couple and then bomb some pretty badly, regardless of how I feel about the passage. I'm doing much worse on EK than TPRH and I definitely stopped using the "don't go back" method because I tried that for the EK "warmup" section and missed half the questions lol

Also on AAMC I notice I do the worst in the natural sciences/tech passages. Anyone have tips on how to improve in specific passage areas, other than read more science? I'm a science major

 

[nolimits1]

Which passage was that? I'm only halfway through the TPRH practice passages...I feel like the biggest sine curve. I do well on a couple and then bomb some pretty badly, regardless of how I feel about the passage. I'm doing much worse on EK than TPRH and I definitely stopped using the "don't go back" method because I tried that for the EK "warmup" section and missed half the questions lol

Also on AAMC I notice I do the worst in the natural sciences/tech passages. Anyone have tips on how to improve in specific passage areas, other than read more science? I'm a science major

I think it's the last TPRH non-test practice passage. For the AAMC science passages, I believe it's even more imperative that you try to read the passage and questions objectively, like as if you had no previous scientific education. Treat it as if it were a humanities passage.

 

[orangetea]

Which passage was that? I'm only halfway through the TPRH practice passages...I feel like the biggest sine curve. I do well on a couple and then bomb some pretty badly, regardless of how I feel about the passage. I'm doing much worse on EK than TPRH and I definitely stopped using the "don't go back" method because I tried that for the EK "warmup" section and missed half the questions lol

Also on AAMC I notice I do the worst in the natural sciences/tech passages. Anyone have tips on how to improve in specific passage areas, other than read more science? I'm a science major

I think a good read through this guide will be refreshing! They have some good techniques that I use as well

http://www.mcatprep.net/pdf/MCATPrep_Preparation_for_MCAT_Verbal_Reasoning-vrq05.pdf

 

[nolimits1]

I think a good read through this guide will be refreshing! They have some good techniques that I use as well

http://www.mcatprep.net/pdf/MCATPrep_Preparation_for_MCAT_Verbal_Reasoning-vrq05.pdf

Whoa I've looked far and wide, but I've never seen this before. What prep company is this? Are the passages representative?

 

[orangetea]

Whoa I've looked far and wide, but I've never seen this before. What prep company is this? Are the passages representative?

ahahaha yes young grasshopper... you are welcome. The authors are MDs and I don't know if I am remembering right or not but one of them might have been a test writer not for AAMC but for a prep company or vice verse.. can't remember. ANYWAY... I have used their method and memorized a bunch of the tone words which have helped me. The passages are RIGHT ON PAR with AAMC I would have the say as far as difficulty and content.. the questions could have been better. However... what I did was not only practice my mapping but also wrote some questions myself. The answer key is only 6$ and if you go to to their website which is a footer on the PDF they have a bunch of really cheap practice material which I think is super helpful!

I mean take it with a grain of salt but it's so much better than "find the main idea and DONT YOU DARE LOOK AT THE PASSAGE" or "okay read the passage and now let's spend 15 min writing a book report- I mean mapping the passage before answering questions" b.s that others use.

 

[nolimits1]

ahahaha yes young grasshopper... you are welcome. The authors are MDs and I don't know if I am remembering right or not but one of them might have been a test writer not for AAMC but for a prep company or vice verse.. can't remember. ANYWAY... I have used their method and memorized a bunch of the tone words which have helped me. The passages are RIGHT ON PAR with AAMC I would have the say as far as difficulty and content.. the questions could have been better. However... what I did was not only practice my mapping but also wrote some questions myself. The answer key is only 6$ and if you go to to their website which is a footer on the PDF they have a bunch of really cheap practice material which I think is super helpful!

I mean take it with a grain of salt but it's so much better than "find the main idea and DONT YOU DARE LOOK AT THE PASSAGE" or "okay read the passage and now let's spend 15 min writing a book report- I mean mapping the passage before answering questions" b.s that others use.

Thanks for this. I looked into it a bit further, this is the company that sells goldstandard stuff.

 

[Lunasly]

I think it's the last TPRH non-test practice passage. For the AAMC science passages, I believe it's even more imperative that you try to read the passage and questions objectively, like as if you had no previous scientific education. Treat it as if it were a humanities passage.

Yeah, it's the last one. Passage 43 in my book. It's really tough not to have to go back to the passage in something like that because the details in that case were relevant. I also bombed the 2nd passage of the first venal practice test because I couldn't get determine the authors viewpoint on the argument being made (for, neutral, against). It turns out the answer was in the last paragraph of the passage, but I completely missed it. The passage become so much easier when you knew that the author thinks. I've decided that I won't be using EK unless I run out of practice material. I've heard it isn't that representative of the actual thing, or at least not to the same extent as TPRH. I'll use TPRH, AAMC's + AAMC self-assessment, and then EK101 if I need it.

 

[Mad Jack]

I would take the results of anything that isn't an AAMC official practice test with a grain of salt. You're better off reading long opinion pieces regular than you are doing a lot of the practice passages out there, as the types of questions they ask are very dissimilar to what is on the MCAT. Your actual MCAT questions will almost entirely be about how the author feels about the topic discussed, not the facts, figures, dates, or anything else present. I feel like many of the practice passages I read from non-AAMC sources were more focused on data in the passage than on interpreting the opinion of the author. So why read opinion pieces (stuff you'd see in Slate, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, etc)? They'll help you work on your reading speed and your ability to integrate data from one paragraph to the next. You should read an article, then ask yourself, "what was this author trying to say/how did they feel about this topic/how would they feel about (insert related issue here)?" Write down your answers to these questions, then re-read the article and see if what you wrote down actually makes sense upon giving it a second read.

VR is a very hard skill to improve because there are no tricks to it. It relies entirely on your reading comprehension, which takes a good deal of work to improve due to the abstract nature of interpreting what a person is thinking from what they have written. You can get better with time and effort, but it's a skill that can take months or years to master.

 

[sharkbyte]

Same thing has been happening to me. Early on I was getting crushed on both EK101 and TPRH because it was my first time doing verbal and I was following a strategy of just skimming the passages and going through the questions but it didn't work.

Now I've adopted a new strategy of reading the passage thoroughly and identifying the author's main points + support for those points, and then I attack the questions quickly. I'm still getting crushed on EK, I'll go something like 5/6 on one and then 2/6 on the next, etc. I'm doing really well on TPRH, I'm almost completely going 6/7 or 7/7. I feel like the TPRH questions are much better, in that they're not necessarily easy but they're not like EK which makes them so tricky and convoluted. Most people argue that TPRH is overwhelmingly better anyway (my friends who have taken the MCAT have confirmed this) so I'd probably put more stock into the TPRH score. But AAMC > any test prep company at the end of the day for accuracy.

 

[orangetea]

Same thing has been happening to me. Early on I was getting crushed on both EK101 and TPRH because it was my first time doing verbal and I was following a strategy of just skimming the passages and going through the questions but it didn't work.

Now I've adopted a new strategy of reading the passage thoroughly and identifying the author's main points + support for those points, and then I attack the questions quickly. I'm still getting crushed on EK, I'll go something like 5/6 on one and then 2/6 on the next, etc. I'm doing really well on TPRH, I'm almost completely going 6/7 or 7/7. I feel like the TPRH questions are much better, in that they're not necessarily easy but they're not like EK which makes them so tricky and convoluted. Most people argue that TPRH is overwhelmingly better anyway (my friends who have taken the MCAT have confirmed this) so I'd probably put more stock into the TPRH score. But AAMC > any test prep company at the end of the day for accuracy.

wait yea I notice the same thing for EK101 7/7 and than like 3/7 all of a sudden .. I haven't really done much of TPRH.. so that should be more consistent? I just get so confused when I do really well in EK and randomly I do really bad.. I thought it was my technique but its nice to hear that I am not the only one doing through the struggle lol

 

[sharkbyte]

wait yea I notice the same thing for EK101 7/7 and than like 3/7 all of a sudden .. I haven't really done much of TPRH.. so that should be more consistent? I just get so confused when I do really well in EK and randomly I do really bad.. I thought it was my technique but its nice to hear that I am not the only one doing through the struggle lol

Yeah TPRH should be better. I think the problem with EK is that there's a lot of inconsistency going passage to passage in terms of difficulty of the passages and the questions that causes you to do really well, then really poorly, and something like that. I only experienced that for the first few passages of TPRH when I wasn't using the right strategy. But since I switched to my new strategy I haven't missed more than 2 questions on a single passage, although my sample size is still small so I need to do some more.

I wouldn't worry so much about EK101. It's still good practice but there are some questions that are just really nutty. For example, I was doing a question on one of the passages today and the explanations for the answers actually said that one of the choices "would have been a good choice if choice C wasn't there" but I really didn't think there was much of a difference between them. Their answer explanations really aren't the best. But they still give you 101 passages and expose you to the difficulty level you will see on the real thing, so it's not a bad choice for practice IMO. TPRH is just better.

 

[quicheduty]

Ahh! I did my three-a-day from TPRH today and I only got one wrong! Small sample size but this gives me hope.
At the end of the day I think I've decided to keep doing EK passages alongside TPRH because there are bound to be questions where I don't fully agree with the answer and I could use the extra practice.

 

[swiftaspirations]

They are about the same imo. The killer passages are little bit more obvious in TPR. I'm averaging a 10 on EK 101 through the first 4 tests (11,9,10, and 10), and got between 80-82% on TPR verbal workbook practice tests. For those of you that have taken EK 101 practice test 4, did you find that last passage on sexual identity to be particularly challenging?

 

[orangetea]

They are about the same imo. The killer passages are little bit more obvious in TPR. I'm averaging a 10 on EK 101 through the first 4 tests (11,9,10, and 10), and got between 80-82% on TPR verbal workbook practice tests. For those of you that have taken EK 101 practice test 4, did you find that last passage on sexual identity to be particularly challenging?

yes I know exactly what you're talking about...it was a really interesting passage but some of the questions were a bit difficult... in those kinds of passages I just highlight all the researchers and make a quick note next to their paragraph.. because no doubt questions comparing and contrasting them will def come up. It was a really interesting passage though too bad some of the questions were totally brutal.

 

[orangetea]

I am SO confused. Did test 9 in EK101 and got stomped ALL OVER. Did Test 3 in TPRH and made it out with a gold star ..... FML. I donno which one to trust.

 

[canadianofpeace]

I am SO confused. Did test 9 in EK101 and got stomped ALL OVER. Did Test 3 in TPRH and made it out with a gold star ..... FML. I donno which one to trust.

I am the exact opposite. I am getting brutalized by TPRH and EK is maximum 2 wrong per passage, very rarely. Usually perfect or 1 wrong. EK I find isn't small detail oriented...