ExamKracker VERBAL 101 SCORES

[Futuredoctr]

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I was curious if there was anyone else using these? I took the first one last night at a busy starbucks (to begin to aclimate myself to the "be prepared for anything" test climate) and I got rocked. I scored a 5!! . Its okay though because I knew verbal was going to be the hardest. I was curious if anyone else using these tests could post their scores and or advice (I know there was a thread a while back, but that was for the April exam and I'm in need of encouragment and advice from the august takers. Thanks

 

[paul411]

EK1: 9
EK2: 9
EK3: 10
EK4: 11
EK5: 10
AAMC 8: 10
EK 6: 12
AAMC 9: 11

Had absolutely no time to go back in AAMC 9... still EK seems to be a pretty good indicator of AAMC scores so far.

Looking good. If you continue like this and finish up all AAMC and EK 101, I think you'll have a good shot at 11+ VR 👍

 

[AntonFreeman]

so i have about 1.5 month test and I am stuck on 7's on EK. I have done up to 6 tests in EK and I still have not used any AAMCs Do you think it is reasonable to improve 3 points in that time? I would hate to burn all my materials and end up having to retake because of verbal.

 

[paul411]

so i have about 1.5 month test and I am stuck on 7's on EK. I have done up to 6 tests in EK and I still have not used any AAMCs Do you think it is reasonable to improve 3 points in that time? I would hate to burn all my materials and end up having to retake because of verbal.

Since you still have a lot of time before your MCAT, before you go to the next VR test, I suggest you go back each of the 6 EK tests you've done so far and just review each passage and all accompanying questions. Read the explanation for every question (whether you got it right or wrong) to figure out exactly how the MCAT VR requires you to think. It should help you a lot!

 

[desi0chick]

I started practicing from EK's 101 passages but i'm really concerned with my timing
🙁 how much do you spend on each passage. I was told 5-6 minutes would be good enough but i always go over 7 minutes. Also I've noticed that I end up finishing faster with a real book in front of me as opposed to an ebook. (I have both versions of the EK 101 book and realized that I'm just not computer adept when taking tests; wish the mcat was paper based now!)

 

[Aromatic Amine]

I started practicing from EK's 101 passages but i'm really concerned with my timing
🙁 how much do you spend on each passage. I was told 5-6 minutes would be good enough but i always go over 7 minutes. Also I've noticed that I end up finishing faster with a real book in front of me as opposed to an ebook. (I have both versions of the EK 101 book and realized that I'm just not computer adept when taking tests; wish the mcat was paper based now!)

start practicing doing tests/quizzes online. I have the EK series in pdf. the first time around i used only the books, and when i took my test the first time i realized i was extremely slow reading on a computer as opposed to a paper. (almost by 1 passage!) so i ended up voiding my score.

Now i am studying again by reading the passages on the computer (ek 30-min tests) and so on..and i find myself to be finishing with about 2 minutes remaining, which if you think about it may not sound like much but it is a huge deal.

You are lucky to have an EK 101 book in pdf version. Those are pretty hard to find, so keep practicing and you'll eventually speed things up!

 

[AntonFreeman]

1-4
2-7
3-7
4-7

i hateeeeeeeee verballll

5-8
6-7
7-9
8-8

I have a test in September. Should I postpone? I am not sure if I could make 2 point jump in a month.

 

[paul411]

I have a test in September. Should I postpone? I am not sure if I could make 2 point jump in a month.

To your credit, you seem to have an upward trend in scores. Keep up the prep and don't freak out till you take an AAMC VR to get an accurate estimation of where you stand.

 

[notbobtrustme]

EK 101's are great. I scored between 9 and 11 on them, and on the official AAMC's I'm scoring no less than a 11 on 4 different practice tests.

The official AAMC seems easier than the EK ones because there's only like 4 or 5 really tough subjective questions while EK has like 10 or 12.

 

[PlatinumPenny]

EK1: 7 (went over by 8 mins)
EK2: 8 (only 2 mins left, so I guessed 'B' on last passage)
EK3: 11 (finished all passages with 3 mins to spare) woot woot!!
EK4: 6 (reality check; finished on time, but at least 6 of the ?s I got wrong I narrowed down to two and chose the wrong one; story of my life, I guess EK3 was a fluke

hopefully EK 3 wasn't a fluke and I can continue improving.

 

[PlatinumPenny]

EK1: 7 (went over by 8 mins)

EK2: 8 (only 2 mins left, so I guessed 'B' on last passage)

EK3: 11 (finished all passages with 3 mins to spare) woot woot!!

EK4: 6 (reality check; finished on time, but at least 6 of the ?s I got wrong I narrowed down to two and chose the wrong one; story of my life, I guess EK3 was a fluke

EK5: 8 (call me immature but I LOL'd at #40 for like 20 secs....and still got it wrong..hahaha...however I did finish with 5 mins left. at least I am improving on my timing.
hopefully EK 3 wasn't a fluke and I can continue improving.

EK6: 7 (finished with 3 mins left; this time I decided to just circle my wrong answers(w/o marking the correct answer and re-doing the question. Also I didn't re-read the passage just re-did the questions. After I did this my score improved to a 12. So I guess at this point. So I guess I need to really hone in on my one answer is better than the other.

although I haven't improved my scores EK 101 has definitely helped with timing.

..

 

[Essee]

Decided to check out this thread because I was so disappointed on my first VR FL. Got a 7. Mostly because I felt so pressured to work fast that I came out of a few passages not completely getting the main point of the passage. Hopefully this is just the outlier but seriously- what a blow to the ego. Thought I was doing pretty well with mcat prep and now I'm def starting to freak out.

 

[gutcheckmcat]

I have taken 8 EK verbal exams and I have scored 9s on all of them (never higher or lower).

I have taken 4 AAMC tests and my scores have been 11,11,11, 13.

Why the huge difference. Should I just expect a 10 on the actual verbal?

 

[Aromatic Amine]

hey paul, how do you manage to finish your verbal sections on time. I find that i use about 3 minutes just to read the passage (and that i usually can't fully understand it all but get a gist of what the actual passage is about).

Then I do the questions. I start off strong, maybe getting only 6-7 wrong on the first 5 passages. The latter 2 passages usually kill me, because i have about 12-13 minutes remaining between the two passages. It really is a bummer. I almost always have very little time for me to complete the final passage and its starting to bother me. For that i usually end up w/ 7s. I know that if i can fix this problem i can get closer to a 10 very quickly.

EDIT! i learned from others that if i take my time reading the passage, and understanding the main idea that the questions have seem to come easier. i used this on EK 4 and AAMC 5 and i got a 10 and a 9 respectively. Big strides from my 6's.

 

[PlatinumPenny]

bump..just finished EK 6

 

[Aromatic Amine]

anyone else think EK 5 was tough? i had some very long passages.

particularly, passages 1,3 were the tough ones.

I kind of had to make the decision of which passage to do since i got bogged down on passage 1 and 3. lost alot of points on those two passages. had to skip 6 and do 7 instead.

ended up getting a 7 or 23/40 on this test. Not consistent with my last AAMC - 9 and my last EK - 10.

don't know why i got bogged down. hopefully i am not the only one who thought this was a hard test.

 

[Aromatic Amine]

AAMC(3) - 5
AAMC(4) - 6
AAMC(5) - 9

EK(1) - 6
EK(2) - 6
EK(3) - 7
EK(4) - 10
EK(5) - 7: Ouch did anyone else find this tough?


Hopefully EK 5 is a fluke.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

EK 1: 7
EK 2: 9
EK 5: 12 (is this a fluke???)

Did passages from EK 3,4,6 and 7 for practice under times conditions but over a period of several weeks (2 passages every other day). My scores for these, if I were to add up my correct answers would have been anywhere between 9 and 11.

AAMC 7: 8
AAMC 8: 7

Please help!!! I don't understand why my AAMC scores are lower than my EK range. My test is in one week too. I need advice...

 

[usf2013]

What can I do to improve my scores
1-5
2-6
During reading I lose focus sometimes, what can i do should I start taking focus factor, my mcat in jan, so i think i have enough time to test it out. in addition to focus factor I plan on exercising more and eating healthier.

 

[Aromatic Amine]

EK 1: 7
EK 2: 9
EK 5: 12 (is this a fluke???)

Did passages from EK 3,4,6 and 7 for practice under times conditions but over a period of several weeks (2 passages every other day). My scores for these, if I were to add up my correct answers would have been anywhere between 9 and 11.

AAMC 7: 8
AAMC 8: 7

Please help!!! I don't understand why my AAMC scores are lower than my EK range. My test is in one week too. I need advice...

its because you aren't taking them under timed conditions. If i had all the time in the world to answer these questions i would be getting around those scores as well. Its all about the timing, your ability to effectively answer questions in a certain period of time. Unless you are doing each passage in about 8.5 minutes, you aren't giving yourself a real representation of how you will score.

 

[Aromatic Amine]

What can I do to improve my scores
1-5
2-6
During reading I lose focus sometimes, what can i do should I start taking focus factor, my mcat in jan, so i think i have enough time to test it out. in addition to focus factor I plan on exercising more and eating healthier.

eating healthy is key. your body needs fuel to survive this grueling test. what i recently picked up (and i am pretty sure my EK5 score was a fluke, because i am really beginning to get questions correctly just gotta work on my timing) is to read the passage slowly, and understand the main idea. take about 4-4.5 mins per read, and you can then answer the questions much faster. answer the questions more efficiently will give you more time to spend on other passages especially if you have to read long passages. my exam's in 13 days, so i guess i will let you know how i do with this method.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

its because you aren't taking them under timed conditions. If i had all the time in the world to answer these questions i would be getting around those scores as well. Its all about the timing, your ability to effectively answer questions in a certain period of time. Unless you are doing each passage in about 8.5 minutes, you aren't giving yourself a real representation of how you will score.

Thanks for the advice, timing is definitely key but I mentioned that I am doing them timed, the EK scores I posted are from when I sat down did them straight through in 60 minutes.
Also most of the VR passages I practiced over the month, I did timed as well, only I split up passages over several days . Timing is definitely something I'm working on but there must be something else I'm doing incorrectly on these AAMC tests, I don't know.

What can I do to improve my scores
1-5
2-6
During reading I lose focus sometimes, what can i do should I start taking focus factor, my mcat in jan, so i think i have enough time to test it out. in addition to focus factor I plan on exercising more and eating healthier.

Try mapping as you read, you can jot them down quickly on a sheet or just think of them as you read.

Ex.
P1: Hydrogen cyanide was first isolated from a blue dye (Prussian blue) which had been known from 1704 but whose structure was unknown. It is now known to be a coordination polymer with a complex structure and an empirical formula of hydrated ferric ferrocyanide. In 1752, the French chemist Pierre Macquer made the important step of showing that Prussian blue could be converted to iron oxide plus a volatile component and that these could be used to reconstitute the dye.

Map: Origin/early work--->Hydrogen Cyanide

Just a quick note on what the paragraph is about. It'll help you put the bigger scope of the passage together and you can consider why the author put that paragraph there in the first place.

BTW, sorry I didn't paste an actual verbal passage for the example. wikipedia was the first thing I could find.

 

[KindofBlue]

Just finished EK 8, and got an 8, but the earlier ones I usually got 10 or higher.

Is it just me or was EK 8 harder for everyone? Maybe I was too burnt out.. 🙁

 

[zeppelinpage4]

Just finished EK 8, and got an 8, but the earlier ones I usually got 10 or higher.

Is it just me or was EK 8 harder for everyone? Maybe I was too burnt out.. 🙁

Nah EK 8 was pretty tough, I'm doing passages from it now and some of the explanations and answer choices seem ridiculous...I don't why, but it feels like the correct answers require thinking way too hard, I got a question wrong just because I interpreted a word different from the solution, though it was never really defined.

 

[BeancheBlanco]

EK 1: 10
EK 2: 8
EK 3: 9
EK 4: 10
aamc 4: 11
aamc 6: 11
aamc 9: 9
EK 5: 11
EK 6: 11
aamc 3: 11

Do you guys think I have a good shot at an 11?

 

[KindofBlue]

Nah EK 8 was pretty tough, I'm doing passages from it now and some of the explanations and answer choices seem ridiculous...I don't why, but it feels like the correct answers require thinking way too hard, I got a question wrong just because I interpreted a word different from the solution, though it was never really defined.

Well that's a bit of a relief..I guess the stress accumulated throughout the past 2 months of prep is finally getting to me too.
It really ticks me off when the explanations seem like complete bull ****. Sometimes it would say "you're thinking too hard, MCAT questions aren't always that difficult!" and sometimes it would say "it may seem easy at first, but you have twist it like that and that to get the answer." F*** MCAT!

 

[MShopes]

anyone else think EK 5 was tough? i had some very long passages.

particularly, passages 1,3 were the tough ones.

I kind of had to make the decision of which passage to do since i got bogged down on passage 1 and 3. lost alot of points on those two passages. had to skip 6 and do 7 instead.

ended up getting a 7 or 23/40 on this test. Not consistent with my last AAMC - 9 and my last EK - 10.

don't know why i got bogged down. hopefully i am not the only one who thought this was a hard test.

That EK exam was tough, you are right. I got 23/40 as well or a 7...it had very long passages, WTF!!!!!!!!! And a lot are confusing to me. The easiest ones are the ones about babies and human rights to live.

 

[vnicolas]

My verbal has increased I have found the right tech that has help my alot, I was scoring in the 4-5 on EK and AAMC but now I am in the 8-10 on EK and I am going to use this method on my MCAT.

First off, I skip one passage, one with 5 questions YOU MUST ONLY SKIP A 5 QUESTION ONE SKIPPING A PASSAGE WITH 6-7 QUESTIONS IS TOOOO MUCH OF A RISK,this leave me about 9.5-10 mins for the others. For the one i skip I mark all answers B,---some answer will randomly be B so this at least gives my 1 right out of 5.
For the other 6 passages
1. Skim through questions--this gives me an idea what I am looking for
2. I read slowly and highlight as I go, I NEVER write anything writing is too time consuming.
3. After each paragraph I ask myself what is the main idea of that paragraph.
4. I then answer questions, I DO go back to the ones that I do not know.
5. If I do have extra time I go back to the 5 question passage I skip

This technique will not give you 10-15 but is WILL gave you a score of around a 8-9 which is what you need to meet the cutoff.

 

[MShopes]

My verbal has increased I have found the right tech that has help my alot, I was scoring in the 4-5 on EK and AAMC but now I am in the 8-10 on EK and I am going to use this method on my MCAT.

First off, I skip one passage, one with 5 questions YOU MUST ONLY SKIP A 5 QUESTION ONE SKIPPING A PASSAGE WITH 6-7 QUESTIONS IS TOOOO MUCH OF A RISK,this leave me about 9.5-10 mins for the others. For the one i skip I mark all answers B,---some answer will randomly be B so this at least gives my 1 right out of 5.
For the other 6 passages
1. Skim through questions--this gives me an idea what I am looking for
2. I read slowly and highlight as I go, I NEVER write anything writing is too time consuming.
3. After each paragraph I ask myself what is the main idea of that paragraph.
4. I then answer questions, I DO go back to the ones that I do not know.
5. If I do have extra time I go back to the 5 question passage I skip

This technique will not give you 10-15 but is WILL gave you a score of around a 8-9 which is what you need to meet the cutoff.

What if the passage of 5 questions that you tend to skip has the easiest questions and quick points? Some passages contain all easy questions that can be done extremely fast. I say, good luck with that method but it is much of a risk as well.

 

[salim271]

What if the passage of 5 questions that you tend to skip has the easiest questions and quick points? Some passages contain all easy questions that can be done extremely fast. I say, good luck with that method but it is much of a risk as well.

Agreed, might as well just practice finishing the entire test faster. Stop highlighting and underlining imo.

 

[MShopes]

Agreed, might as well just practice finishing the entire test faster. Stop highlighting and underlining imo.

+1, I figure I never need that info that I highlight and it just distracts me and keeps me tied to details...

 

[vnicolas]

Listen, I tried EK method, where I focus on reading, where I read the passage for 5-6 mins and then answer questions for 2 mins and guess what it left my scoring in the 4-6 range. I understand what your saying about I might skip an easy 5 question passage but this method works for me and I wanted to share it with the others that are scoring in the 4-6 range with EK method.

In addition I am just trying to get 8-10 on my verbal and this is the most efficient way to do so. And if i do have extra time probably 3 mins I go back to the passage and try to answer easy questions. The ones that ask for direct answers.---like what is the word IIIIII mean in this passage etc

SN: I am using EK 101 and TPRHL Verbal workbook out of this two which one is easier than MCAT verbal or harder than MCAT verbal and yes I do have AAMC's but did not want to look at them until Jan cause I am taking my MCAT Jan 28.

 

[MShopes]

Listen, I tried EK method, where I focus on reading, where I read the passage for 5-6 mins and then answer questions for 2 mins and guess what it left my scoring in the 4-6 range. I understand what your saying about I might skip an easy 5 question passage but this method works for me and I wanted to share it with the others that are scoring in the 4-6 range with EK method.

In addition I am just trying to get 8-10 on my verbal and this is the most efficient way to do so. And if i do have extra time probably 3 mins I go back to the passage and try to answer easy questions. The ones that ask for direct answers.---like what is the word IIIIII mean in this passage etc

SN: I am using EK 101 and TPRHL Verbal workbook out of this two which one is easier than MCAT verbal or harder than MCAT verbal and yes I do have AAMC's but did not want to look at them until Jan cause I am taking my MCAT Jan 28.

I didn't mean to go against you. If you feel that it works best for you, by all means go for it. Everyone is different...good luck!

 

[Doctor Peppa]

Does anyone have this problem? I am constantly scoring 8's on my EK101, yet when I do AAMC tests my score is more in the 6 category. The passages seem more convoluted in the AAMC's than the EK101. Any suggestions on how to bring up the AAMC's?

 

[MShopes]

Does anyone have this problem? I am constantly scoring 8's on my EK101, yet when I do AAMC tests my score is more in the 6 category. The passages seem more convoluted in the AAMC's than the EK101. Any suggestions on how to bring up the AAMC's?

I thought that most people score more better in AAMC than EK (in my case too). I think the reason is while EK passages tend to be more interesting, there are a lot of ambiguous questions and some questions are worded badly while AAMC questions seem more straight forward and worded better. I scored a 7 in my first EK exam while scoring 9 in my first AAMC exam. I'm an ESL but since I didn't score great in any exam after all, I can't provide much help here.

 

[Voevoda]

I've taken 8 EK verbal exams and some TPR ones. On almost every single one I got around 8 wrong, which, I assume, translates into about 12. Is that correct?

32/40 x 15 = 12.

I don't know how to improve. Tried various strategies and approaches and I still get 8 wrong.

So far the easiest, least convoluted method for me is to simply read the passage at normal speed, then go back to it if a question requires specifics.

 

[paul411]

I've taken 8 EK verbal exams and some TPR ones. On almost every single one I got around 8 wrong, which, I assume, translates into about 12. Is that correct?

32/40 x 15 = 12

That is not how the MCAT VR scaling works. Here's a sample VR scale for AAMC 10 and 11:

So a 32/40 would translate to 10 (on AAMC 10) and 11 (on AAMC 11). The scale really depends on the particular VR.

 

[Voevoda]

Thanks for the breakdown, paul411. Looks I have to step my game up.

 

[mark1989]

Somebody please cheer me up.

I took the mcat on 6/16 and got a 7 in verbal.

I have taken the first three ek test and I have gotten 8,8,8

I'm getting frustrated. Seems like I always miss the "which one of these will the author agree or disagree with". Any advice or words of encouragement?

 

[Hershi]

ugh im stuck at 9s and want a 10 !

 

[nola2016]

hey guys, i'm a 6'16 retaker, i got an abysmal 5...yeah a ******ed 5 on the exam, and i recently practiced with TPRH and EK 101 verbals

for those who have taken/used the EK and the TPRH verbals, did you find TPRH harder? early on i was getting about 60% right on TPRH and ended up with a good average of 75-80% right. Then I went to the EK books and the first 3 test scores are:

EK 1 - 12[35/40]
EK 2 - 11[34/40]
EK 3 - 12[35/40]

I'm not sure if it's just doing TPRH first gave me more practice and made EK easier or not, but I've been averaging a good 7-8 minutes/passage on the EK's and for TPRH I was hitting 8-9 minutes per passage, even the 4 "practice" tests I was hitting about 8/passage.

 

[osprey099]

So far I have taken 3 EK tests and my scores are:

EK1: 10
EK2: 10
EK3: 10

Anyone have any hints/suggestions on how I can get past a 10? My goal is a 13 on the real thing.

 

[ellm1205]

I went through the whole thing scoring around 10s 😡. My scores:
EK 1 - 9
EK 2 - 13 (very lucky guesses?)
EK 3 - 10
EK 4 - 10
EK 5 - 11
EK 6 - 10
EK 7 - 12
EK 8 - 10
EK 9 - 10
EK10 - 10
EK11 - 10
EK12 - 11
EK13 - 10
EK14 - 10

There's always one damn passage that trips me over... However, I did find VS of the real MCAT to be easier after practicing with this book. Here's to hoping that I got past a 10

 

[paul411]

I went through the whole thing scoring around 10s 😡. My scores:
EK 1 - 9
EK 2 - 13 (very lucky guesses?)
EK 3 - 10
EK 4 - 10
EK 5 - 11
EK 6 - 10
EK 7 - 12
EK 8 - 10
EK 9 - 10
EK10 - 10
EK11 - 10
EK12 - 11
EK13 - 10
EK14 - 10

There's always one damn passage that trips me over... However, I did find VS of the real MCAT to be easier after practicing with this book. Here's to hoping that I got past a 10

Here's a comparison between my EK 101 scores and your scores:

As you can see, our averages are right on par. I made a 13 on the real thing after this, so I'd say you're in good shape 👍

 

[tn4596]

My verbal has increased I have found the right tech that has help my alot, I was scoring in the 4-5 on EK and AAMC but now I am in the 8-10 on EK and I am going to use this method on my MCAT.

First off, I skip one passage, one with 5 questions YOU MUST ONLY SKIP A 5 QUESTION ONE SKIPPING A PASSAGE WITH 6-7 QUESTIONS IS TOOOO MUCH OF A RISK,this leave me about 9.5-10 mins for the others. For the one i skip I mark all answers B,---some answer will randomly be B so this at least gives my 1 right out of 5.
For the other 6 passages
1. Skim through questions--this gives me an idea what I am looking for
2. I read slowly and highlight as I go, I NEVER write anything writing is too time consuming.
3. After each paragraph I ask myself what is the main idea of that paragraph.
4. I then answer questions, I DO go back to the ones that I do not know.
5. If I do have extra time I go back to the 5 question passage I skip

This technique will not give you 10-15 but is WILL gave you a score of around a 8-9 which is what you need to meet the cutoff.

I agree. I started off doing the skimming technique initially, and stagnant around 9; to break in to 10+ you really need to read and understand the passage/questions throughoutly (you also need time to think and reason through ur answers) which cant be done if you are skimming too fast. This cant be done with the EK101 passage, these passages are just too complicated to understand (for me) under the time limit.

 

[Filius]

I think I'm going to give up on EK entirely for the Verbal, even though I'm in something of a VR slump. I've just recently started EKs, and hit 11s -- which is precisely my recent MCAT scores. Trouble is, though, I took a recent nosedive in the past few days on the FL's:

22-Jun 12
19-Jul 12
2-Aug 14
9-Aug 13
11-Aug 15
17-Aug 15
18-Aug 11 ( :O )
19-Aug 11 ( 🙁 )

...and my exam is.... Tuesday. I'm a big fan of eleventh hour studying, though, but I'm finding it hard to have any confidence in EK's ability to recreate AMCAS's already unimpressive level of consistency in their answers.

I mean, just look at some of the EK answers -- the last one that frustrated me was Test 3 number 34, which claims the passage author [writing on book-seller contracts] would most disagree with the statement that "For the most part, royalty payments will determine an author's compensation."

The justification is literally that "the lion's share of an author's compensation depends on strong book sales... even 50% royalty payments mean nothing without at least some book sales." But, the reason that authors want strong book sales is because they get a royalty payment off each sale! Book sales mean royalty payments! If they'd said "the percentage value of the royalty payments," then sure, good reasoning. But, they didn't.

And then, three questions later, the answer depends on your ability to define "countervailing," which can't really be gleaned from context. These are just the most blatant and recent examples, but they're leading to believe that sometimes, it's not just *me* that's doing poorly, it's the book itself.

Time to switch to TPR.

...sorry for the venting. 😀

 

[gotta go]

How has everyone been reviewing their EK verbal passages after taking them?

I review the AAMC verbal's very thoroughly and reread the passages, write down why I got the answer wrong, etc, but with EK I can't bring myself to do this.

I just read the explanations and many I just shake my head or still disagree with even after reading the explanation.

Was just wondering how you guys review EK verbal?

 

[MacBiochem]

How has everyone been reviewing their EK verbal passages after taking them?

I review the AAMC verbal's very thoroughly and reread the passages, write down why I got the answer wrong, etc, but with EK I can't bring myself to do this.

I just read the explanations and many I just shake my head or still disagree with even after reading the explanation.

Was just wondering how you guys review EK verbal?

i do exactly what you do... i use to go through the EK ones thoroughly but found that most my mistakes are all due to not really having read the passage. Does anyone else do that... just kind of zone out during a paragraph... and realize oh crap im s'pose to be paying attention... lose valuable time... and miss a bunch of questions which you knwo you could have got if you were a more efficient reader? its making me really upset.

 

[vnicolas]

I also used to miss a bunch of questions due to not reading..... but now I only focus on 6 instead of 7. With the 6 passages , I have about 8-12 mins a passage, this allows me to go back to the passage to look for answers and I read each passage slow and carefully.

 

[desi0chick]

I just started using EK Verbal (newer edition with 14 exams) and I scored 7 and 8 on my first 2 tests 🙁 Any advice for timing, I feel the more I go fast the less I understand the passage. Also, on the real test are you provided with scrap paper to jot down random notes? So bummed out..

 

[nola2016]

I just started using EK Verbal (newer edition with 14 exams) and I scored 7 and 8 on my first 2 tests 🙁 Any advice for timing, I feel the more I go fast the less I understand the passage. Also, on the real test are you provided with scrap paper to jot down random notes? So bummed out..

Yes, you are given a packet of paper to jot down notes.

Before I practiced recently with EK Verbal, I used TPRH Verbal Book, and I must say I was only getting roughly 55-60% on the first few sets of passages[about 5/set] then as I went on, I steadily increased to 70-80% so honestly don't fret.

As of right now, my EK1-6 are a range of [12,11,12,12,12,10] which converts to a range of -5 to like -8 per test depending on the score.

My advice for you is that jot down key words/circle key words in the paragraph that you KNOW will pertain to the answer/question. Also, I try to clear my mind after every passage, give yourself 5-10seconds to try and lose all the information from the previous passage.

I've heard people try to fix timing issues by focusing hard on 6 passages and pick a 5 question passage that they think is hard and leave that for last 6 minutes, so that gives you 9 minutes for the others to do thoroughly and 6 minutes to skim the passage and get at least half right!

Either way, practice practice practice, DONT let the scores get you down, 2 test worth and you went from a 7->8, improvement takes time, you can't expect to jump 3-4points can you?!