Thanks for the reply Romz! I just finished AAMC 4 and ended up with a 12/9/13. I noticed that I don't have many gaps in content, but I'm having a hard time avoiding silly mistakes. For instance, I forgot a few things on PS so I had to kind of "reason" it out and derive some formulas. I ended up with not enough time to go through some problems with enough time. I finished about ~10 minutes early on AAMC 3 for PS, so I should have been much faster. Any tips for avoiding silly mistakes when you're in a rush or maybe in general (this definitely happened in BS this time).
Since you have done tons of verbal work, maybe you can give me some helpful tips.
I noticed that I read the passages too quickly and didn't account for lines that happened to be the basis for many questions. Also, because I'm reading too quickly, I think I'm missing connections within the passage so my logic isn't solid when I'm picking answers...It's more like I feel like this is the right answer, just based on my feeling + very little actual evidence in the passage. I ran out of time for the last two passages for AAMC 3, so I might have overcompensated for this. Do you have any tips on keeping up reading efficiency while staying focused on the important points of the passage?
Thanks so much for all the support and help! It's been rough lately to keep up the studying and review.
I feel we're in almost exactly the same boats lol; I'm guessing we're both taking the 09/18. I haven't touched AAMC yet, but my TPR practice test scores have been 12-15 for BS and PS and my Verbal has been 5,7,7,7 lol. As for EK1001, I personally REALLY don't like the GC, OC, and Physics ones (but EK1001 Bio is prob the best there is for Bio); not only do they have mistakes in their answers, but I find they focus less on the subtleties that pop up on the exam and more on subtleties that I had barely heard of before. OC and to some extent GC are fairly easy, but physics was just ****. As long as your content is solid which it seems so, you should focus more on doing most of the TBR/TPR passages (since these are FAR closer to/harder than what will pop up on the test) and relentlessly doing practice tests. I have access to the exact same materials, so I've been trying to take TPR/Kaplan practice tests every third day for all of August and will probably switch up to one every other day couple weeks before exam date. Point is TBR/TPR/Kaplan passages >>> EK free-standing questions (also TPRH science workbook FSQ's I feel test MCAT-related science a LOT more closely if you still wanna do FSQs) at this time.
Btw, I also used TPR for content review and initially was doing EK for practice before getting frustrated with it. I'm also in a similar boat in verbal so far: my timing is bringing me down but untimed I have a fairly good accuracy. On SDN, I've heard better things about TPRH verbal passages than EK101 passages, but regardless I think both provide a solid bulk of good quality practice. Although, TPR I feel makes their passages heavy with specific retrieval/inference questions which take forever to find and end up taking a long time at least for me, but I still think that's good training. As for improving Verbal, I have been working on timing (i.e. reading the passage in under 5 mins) using The Economist articles and timing everything I read; copy/paste the article on word, do Word Count, and divide by time - i believe 150-200 wpm is supposed to be ideal but it's hard if you're trying to really grasp the claims and main ideas. As for answering questions, while I generally don't like the prep company strategies for verbal, I still feel TPR and Kaplan 45 books go in good detail in terms of recognizing question types and wrong answer types (which is good if you are trying to find a pattern in your mistakes); the Kaplan 45 and EK Verbal books also give some good insight on deciphering tough passages and approaching questions in general.
"Do you have any tips on keeping up reading efficiency while staying focused on the important points of the passage?" - My reading strategy has been in each paragraph to separate the CLAIMS/OPINIONS (and remark exactly WHO is making them) and the supporting DETAILS/EVIDENCE; whether it's a hard or easy passage, the claims generally give me a sense of main idea of the paragraph and I can practically glide through over 50% of the details and read them ONLY if needed by a question. After reading the whole thing, I recap main ideas/claims of all paragraphs and make a quick overall main idea. I never write anything down, so that saves time. While this thing helps me grapple with the actual passage, it takes up way too much time for me at the moment. Also, one glaring weakness of this strategy is specific retrieval/inference questions since they take even more time. Nevertheless, I think (or at least hope!) with some relentless verbal practice for the next month, we should both be able to hit or come close to the 10! I too am hoping for my sciences to build the bulk of my score.
Also, for the minor errors in PS and BS, make a list of your mistakes as well as uncomfortable right answers in a word doc; if it's because of cloudy content, Google a more detailed explanation till you fully understand it. If it's a test taking mistake, figure out a way to avoid it next time. In terms of doing BS and PS passages, I try to read the passage critically just like a verbal passage; I feel this makes me aware of everything the passage is trying to help me out with.
These are my experiences so far; I hope this helps us both!
