Examkrackers (EK) verbal strategy: does it work?

[chewy2008]

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So I'm reading lecture 4 ("How to Study for the Verbal Reasoning Section") of the verbal and math book, and step 3 says to look at the question stems as if you have never read the passage. Then it says "if this step takes you less than 30 minutes per passage, then do it again because you missed quite a bit." For anyone who has strictly used this method, does it really matter that you take at least 30 minutes per set of questions to analyze what the author is talking about in the passage??

Also, did the whole strategy they outlined in lecture 4 (taking at least 5 days per verbal test) help you at all? I'm wondering if I really need to take a break for one whole day in between analyzing the question stems or passages.

 

[gettheleadout]

30 minutes?

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

30 minutes?

2 passages done nbd lol

 

[chewy2008]

I ain't kidding!

 

[ExtremeTruth]

I ain't kidding!

Hah no it's definitely a typo, it's probably 3 minutes.

 

[ice2013]

chewy2008: It's not a typo. They really meant 30 min.! I checked the EK forum, and this is what one of the EK guys says about it:

chapter 4 of the VR is saying that you will get the most out of going back through the passages if you spend an extensive time with them - like 30 minutes per passage looking at both question stems and answer choices, so 3 1/2 hrs per 7-passage test. You'll get a lot more out of that thorough analysis than by just skimming through the passage in 2 or 3 minutes. The point is to concentrate on what information is there in question stems and answer choices, and practice using that information to find the correct answer even if you didn't have access to the information in the complete passage itself. "Take a break from Verbal for at least one day" means that you should be studying verbal reasoning in an ongoing and dedicated way, but not every day of the week or you will get burned out and won't be able to look at the passages with fresh eyes to efficiently build your skills. So - you can study VR on Monday, skip Tuesday (the break day), study VR Wednesday, skip Thursday, study Friday, etc. .... We would NOT recommend only studying VR one day a week - you would make very little progress that way!

 

[daleader]

is the forum only for people who took the course? :S

 

[ice2013]

is the forum only for people who took the course? :S

No. It's for anyone. The address is http://examkrackers.com/

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

Why would I spend 4 hours on that when I can spend 3-4 hours on AAMC material. I'd do around an hour or two but three is pushing it. The ambiguity of MCAT verbal surpasses that amount of time needed to check over an EK VR FL for that long.

 

[chewy2008]

Thanks ice2013, I did not know that there was a forum on the Examkrackers website. I just created an account and will start reading the threads. 🙂 (Good thing I'm starting early, this study strategy seems like it takes a long time to master)
By the way, have you used the strategy I posted here? And did it help you? My range of verbal scores from the AAMC tests is 7-9. I hope I can improve to a 10 or more on the verbal reasoning section.

 

[txlonghorn2314]

Can someone please answer OPs question? For I too am very curious to hear peoples opinions

 

[gettheleadout]

Can someone please answer OPs question? For I too am very curious to hear peoples opinions

EK intends this as an exercise in drawing information from question stems. I personally wouldn't read questions first on the real exam.

 

[Tappinfool66]

EK intends this as an exercise in drawing information from question stems. I personally wouldn't read questions first on the real exam.

It is meant as an exercise in drawing information from question stems, but I don't think they're trying to get you to do that on the exam. I think it's supposed to be an exercise for you to do after you've done a practice section. I could be totally wrong, though. That was just my take on it.

 

[Swagster]

The answer is yes and no. It works on some passages but not on others. The best thing you can do is practice with passages from multiple sources and see if their strategies work across the board. If they only work on EK passages, then something is wrong. I found that the techniques I learned from the different books all started to sound the same eventually and I developed a hybrid of all of them. No technique is foolproof, so have a different strategy for each type of passage.

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

I've actually noticed that EK would have around half the questions that can be answered by just looking back at the passage, whereas TPRH VR, it's only like 1/3rd of the questions. How does the AAMC relate to that? From what I have read, it's almost opposite in a sense that you don't need to refer back to the passage to get an explicit answer; in other words you would have to determine the question stem and analyze the general idea of the passage to find which is the best answer to that question, not necessarily straight from the passage (not talking verbatim, but with subtle hints and such). Can anyone chime in on this? I wanted to save most of the AAMC for the end of content, while drilling all the others since I feel I would run out of practice material while on my Phase II (FL and passage drilling).

 

[TreadLightly]

Can someone please answer OPs question? For I too am very curious to hear peoples opinions

I primarily based my test taking on the EK strategies. I may have done a thing or two differently to my liking, but I believe EK will get you to at least a 10 if you can read decently. People are going to keep saying that verbal is not actually that hard, and it's true. Just find a strategy and stick to it. Do tons of passages and make sure to apply those techniques every single time. If you do that, your score will go up.

I took the EK course and before that I was scoring 8-9 in verbal. During all of the practice CBTs after I applied the techniques, I scored 10-11, never less than a 10. I got a 10 on the real thing. Know the techniques very well and have them in mind when taking the test. Remember that you can use question stems, main idea, etc. Try it without timing yourself a few times and try to apply as many as you can, then do it timed.

 

[RC4L]

I really liked EK's strategy and found it to be of great help, but I feel like it only covers one aspect of proper verbal prep. From what I remember, the whole book revolved around extracting as much information from the questions and answer choices as possible so that you don't have to rely on the passage as heavily to answer correctly. This is a wonderful idea and works great but I don't think its enough to pull a really high score. I may be wrong but I don't recall them talking about effectively reading the passage which is the most important aspect of defeating the verbal. Not every question is going to give answer references and in such case, you're going to need a solid understanding of the passage. I found EK's strategy most effective when attempting to answer questions in a timely manner on a confusing/ambiguous passage. For instance, when you get one of those terrible wordy passages that make no sense and you are running out of time drawing blanks on the questions, your chances of guessing correctly are significantly improved when you choose an answer that actually makes sense in relation to the question despite not being able to relate it to the passage. This can be life saving in a situation where you have 3 minutes to go and entire passage left.