Hey SilverFalcon,
I hope you are well. I would like to respectfully disagree with you. I don't think the MCAT passages are made for us to understand. A lot of times, the MCAT passages are written horribly, poor grammar structure, poor thesis, lack of development in the ideas presented, etc. The point of the MCAT is not really to get us to understand, but it is simply a test of strategy.
If you don't understand what the passage is saying (e.g. main idea), you will not do well on MCAT Verbal. Furthermore, who says that MCAT passages "are written horribly, poor grammar structure, poor thesis, lack of development in the ideas presented, etc."? MCAT passages incorporate complex arguments; that is, you don't see "yes" or "no" to an issue. It's much more complicated, and they are chosen because they meet certain level of writing that AAMC looks for. Unless you are like a Pulitzer Award winning author, I don't see what justification you can make to establish those remarks.
The strategy will be able to address every single passage, even difficult passages. Sometimes, you will get a passage that is extremely difficult to comprehend, but the questions are super easy and vice versa.
If you get a difficult passage with difficult questions, then you will panic. Strategies base themselves on one very crucial factor: confidence. There have been threads on how recent test takers had difficult passage as their first or second one in the exam, so if you are just relying on the strategy and thinking strategies will solve all the problems, you may be in for a surprise.
Many of the students on this thread have gotten 12s, 13s, and 14s and have stated that it is all about strategy (i.e. eliminating the right answer choices, recognizing common fallacies such as out of scope answers, extreme answer choices, and distortions).
They can do all that because they understand the passages first. Understanding the passage comes
before applying strategies. Applying strategies without understanding the passages only works if it's St. Patrick's Day and you're Irish.
In EK, there is one section where it asks you to do answer the questions without even reading the passage because the questions themselves offer a lot of information about what the author is trying to say and what he is trying to get across.
I know this section, and I tried it. It's useless. It's useless because while it builds you up some skills for answer choices, its maximum ability is not really shown unless you understand the passage. You
may get a question or two by recognizing wrong answer choices by their appearances, but this isn't SAT. AAMC doesn't make answer choices as something that test takers can pick correctly just by appearance - they require understanding.
So, I repeat (since this is apparently not very clear? I thought I was clear but whatever): strategies
are important, but test takers need to understand the passages first. Understanding the passage does not mean being able to recite the first word of third paragraph and last sentence of the page. No, it means having a strong grasp of main idea and sub-concepts. Below information from AAMC shows how you can get that grasp - and once you have this grasp, strategies will get you higher points.
AAMC said:
If you have difficulty reading the passages, you may need to learn about argument as a form of written discourse. Knowing the purpose, content, and structure of argument can help you process the texts for answering the questions. In addition to taking composition or rhetoric courses, you might analyze essays and editorials found in newspapers, magazines, and / or scholarly journals.
. 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
