going back through your verbal practice?

[maverick51]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I wanted to get people's opinion if going back through ALL of the verbal is a good strategy for preparing for the MCAT. What do you think is the most EFFICIENT WAY.
1) Going back through every single answer and the explanations, no matter if you got it wrong or right

2) just going back through the wrong answers and looking at the explanations

3)just looking at the wrong answers u had and look at the right answer w/o looking at explanations

4) just keep doing practice verbal passages and questions and use an answer key with no explanations or anything (the more practice the better type of approach)

Thanks!

 

[FacelessMage]

I definitively found method 1 to be the best way. I made a spreadsheet, and for each question I would state whether I got it right or wrong, and then I would write down the reason it was correct/incorrect. I started to see trends in why I was getting certain types of questions right/wrong, and I was able to identify those and get them right doing further practice. For example, I got some questions wrong because I missed a specific detail in the passage. So when I did more practice, I made sure to fact check each answer and make sure that there was some sort of support from the passage.

 

[dropper]

I have a process that's a bit different from your choices. The important steps are #5 and #7.

1. Fold my page in half and number 1-40 on both sides

2. Do a full length test

3. Write the correct answers on the other side

4. Unfold the halves, grading myself and putting a big bold (X) next to the ones I got wrong

5. Refold the halves, so the only info I have is that I got a question wrong, and NOT what the correct answer is

6. Go through EACH AND EVERY question - confirm to myself why I got the question right, why the other answers are wrong, etc. I don't look at the explanations unless absolutely necessary, and even in that case, the explanations don't serve me jack ****. They usually just make me angry since they're so succinct and usually really ****ing stupid.

7. For the questions I got WRONG==> (remember I can't see what the correct answer is) I try to deduce now what the correct answer is. I make an argument in my head why the answer I previously chose was wrong, and why this new answer is right, etc. I quickly flip to the real answers to confirm if my new answer is correct - lo and behold, 90+% of the time the new answer is right. This is generally the case when it comes down to two answer choices and you go with the incorrect one.

I try to avoid the explanations for the most part. The only time when I absolutely need to look at the explanations provided, is when doing step #7, my new answer is incorrect.

 

[maverick51]

i like that strategy, may try that out myself! Thanks!

 

[glassdoll]

It depends on how good your verbal scores are, I think. When you're starting off, it really pays off to use method 1 painstakingly until you get a good intuition for verbal. But if you improve to where you're getting 90%+ of the questions correct, it becomes most efficient to review only the questions you marked as having trouble with and questions you got incorrect. At that point, it's not very effective to read the answer explanations to every single question.