General consensus on recent AAMC VR passages

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Is the general consensus that the VR passages are longer than the practice tests? Can anyone give me an idea of how much longer?

What about the questions--are they longer/wordier too?

 

[MSUSpartan642]

Use the search function.

But yes, it seems that passages are getting longer than the AAMC tests. But I haven't personally experienced it yet.

 

[Alvarez13]

I've been reading the other threads and keep seeing that they're longer and easier to read nowadays. As for the questions, not sure.

 

[LaCasta]

I'm a 4/4 taker and the pasages seemed like 2 to 3 paragraphs longer and the difficulty was similar to AAMCs.

 

[ziggyd0c]

i took it 4/24 and i honestly thought verbal was easier than the AAMC practice tests. this could be because test day nerves was making me focus on the passages more, but i really thought the questions were way more straightforward. if the passages were longer, it wasn't enough for me to notice.

 

[sdmd]

i took it 4/24 and i honestly thought verbal was easier than the AAMC practice tests. this could be because test day nerves was making me focus on the passages more, but i really thought the questions were way more straightforward. if the passages were longer, it wasn't enough for me to notice.

Yeah i second that! I actually thought that at least 5/7 passages were pretty damn interesting!

 

[JJMrK]

4/18 test here.

VR passages were slightly longer. Questions were more or less the same, maybe a little bit harder. Overall very similar to AAMC material.

 

[sdmd]

When i was practicing for the mcat using the aamc mcats, i was generally pretty tight for time, finishing with either no time to spare or with 30 seconds or so.

On the real exam (4/24) i finished with ~2-3 min. I dont know if that was a product of simply being in the zone on game day, but that is another reason, why I felt the VR passages (at least on 4/24) were not anymore lengthy or difficult, in comparison to the aamc practice materials.

Perhaps other who wrote that exam could comment? I know at least a couple individuals that feel this way.

 

[VCU07]

Is the general consensus that the VR passages are longer than the practice tests? Can anyone give me an idea of how much longer?

What about the questions--are they longer/wordier too?

I def. think the passages were longer than AAMC practice exams. I was finishing with a few minutes to spare on those. On the real thing, I had like 5 mins on the last passage. Questions were about the same difficulty wise.

 

[Appless]

I took the 3/28 test. The verbal was defiantly longer then the real tests but i wouldnt say harder or easier. It was about the same when compared to the practice tests. For me I always had about 2 mins left on the verbal for the AAMC tests, however the increased length on the real test screwed me big time. I didnt have enough time to finish and had to rush through 2 passages.

 

[G1SG2]

For those who have taken the MCAT-how much time should we be allotting for each passage? I've been practicing with 8 minutes per passage; however, given the fact that the passages are getting longer and harder, should I practice with 7 or even 6 minutes so as to be on the safe side and not be potentially crushed on test day?

 

[Protactinium]

I shoot for 6 minutes on practice - 3 minutes reading and 3 minutes answering questions. The AAMC diagnostics on the other hand...

 

[G1SG2]

I shoot for 6 minutes on practice - 3 minutes reading and 3 minutes answering questions. The AAMC diagnostics on the other hand...

What do you do on the diagnostics for VR? Is 3 minutes really sufficient for answering 7-8 questions?

 

[Protactinium]

That's where everything falls apart. I do well on EK (10/11) but on the AAMC diagnostics I'm between 7-9. Remember though, there are still 40 questions overall so if you have a lot of questions in one passage, there must necessarily be less in another. EK will have 5-7 questions on each and AAMC is just a crapshoot so it I just average between 6-7 minutes on EK, I never really took my time on AAMC because I hate watching the clock. I usually finish with about 10-15 minutes to spare on the AAMC's but I got my questions wrong because I can't tackle humanities. AAMC 8 (brutal verbal) I had 91% on soc sci, 80-90% on Nat Sci, and 35% on humanities. My problem was that I rushed my reading and didn't understand the complex articles. Once you understand the articles well answering questions doesn't take long. The time I got 9, I was already burnt out, I was surprised I did so well because I pretty much gave up halfway through (I wasn't reading for detail, I was specifically searching for the stance/argument because my brain couldn't take anymore detail absorption).

 

[flip26]

Longer, but no harder.

 

[sdmd]

For the VR section moreso than the sciences, it's really important to take full-length VR tests (7 passages/40Q) under timed (60 min) conditions. I would think 8 min/passage is a reasonable goal to achieve; however, as others have said, it depends on the complexity of the passage and the number of associated questions (whether 5 or 7).

Sometimes you run into passages that can be done in <7min and other times those that require >8 min. I think as long as one practices doing a complete set of 7 passages within the alotted time, they should be ok on test day.

That being said, there seems to be many ppl who feel that the actual mcat VR passages are considerably longer, so if you have the time, it may be in your interest to shave off as much time as possible when practicing VR.