for people taking the MCAT the first time, don't neglect verbal! i can't say much about the sciences, but for verbal, you need to get in a habitat of doing passages EVERYDAY.
do 2-3 passages a day, 6 days a week in addition to all of your scheduled full-lengths.
also, reading good material such as the Economist, etc. can help indirectly, via increasing your reading speed/comfort level with foreign material.
lastly, when tackling the verbal section, never spend more than 2-3 minutes reading the passage. you want to get to the questions as soon as possible because that's where the points are. quite often, you don't need to understand every single paragraph (or even the majority of the passage) in order to miss fewer than one question on each passage.
and lastly, having a confident, positive attitude will do wonders for you in this grueling process. when i took mine this july, i went into the exam not really caring much about the outcome. i was very relaxed and just approached the test like any other practice exam i've done.
good luck