Have anyone heard of MCAT verbal course by Leonardo Radomile???

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penguin1985

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Hi there,

Just wondering if anyone have ever heard of/taken the MCAT verbal course from Cambridge Learning Center? If yes, can you tell me how your experiences were? I came across their videos about verbal strategies on YouTube and it seems they have verbal prep courses.
 
Hi there,

Just wondering if anyone have ever heard of/taken the MCAT verbal course from Cambridge Learning Center? If yes, can you tell me how your experiences were? I came across their videos about verbal strategies on YouTube and it seems they have verbal prep courses.

Ah yes, this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g57zwA3gnFk

Leonardo is an intelligent motivating pleasant instructor. I believe that he is a native Italian with English degrees from Harvard, and that he specializes in helping ESL students. My sense is that ESL students who study with him generally do well on the verbal reasoning section of the MCAT. If you are not ESL or are good at grammar, he might allow you to save some money by allowing you to self-study the grammar review portion of his course. In the grammar review, he goes over something like chapters 16-22 of Warriners textbook. The only downside to studying with Leonardo, that I am aware of, is the cost. If he allows it, the combination of a group class and doing your own grammar review might decrease the price tag a little bit. He also has a profile on Wyzant.com and various places on the internet. (After Warriners, he goes into Examkrackers 101.)
 
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Definitely starts with the basics. He is very convincing and motivating, and has high confidence in his methods. But he is expensive, expect to pay $3,000+ for his course, and that's for group study. If you're on a budget, and don't need a lot of remedial English, it might be better to find a cheaper tutor on craigslist.
But if your reading skills are very poor, I would suggest giving him a try because he is very comprehensive. For others, you may feel bored during his initial sessions when he starts teaching what nouns and adjectives are.
 
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The first time I took the MCAT I got a 5. Cambridge Learning Center helped me turn that 5 into an 11! As someone who has always struggled in reading and comprehension, I never thought I was capable of an 11 on the MCAT. I have never seen anyone as committed and focused on my success as Leonardo is. He has a keen ability to focus on your individual weaknesses, whether they are specific to reading or more general to confidence and managing anxiety. He tailors his teaching directly to your needs. In addition to reviewing grammar, he has a never ending set of tools to help you with focus, confidence, anxiety, and cognitive abilities. I couldn't recommended the Cambridge Learning Center enough! They will ensure your success!
 
The first time I took the MCAT I got a 5. Cambridge Learning Center helped me turn that 5 into an 11! As someone who has always struggled in reading and comprehension, I never thought I was capable of an 11 on the MCAT. I have never seen anyone as committed and focused on my success as Leonardo is. He has a keen ability to focus on your individual weaknesses, whether they are specific to reading or more general to confidence and managing anxiety. He tailors his teaching directly to your needs. In addition to reviewing grammar, he has a never ending set of tools to help you with focus, confidence, anxiety, and cognitive abilities. I couldn't recommended the Cambridge Learning Center enough! They will ensure your success!

what materials does he use in his course? Does anyone know?
 
Pacer:

Leonardo uses Warriner's Grammer book, Examkrackers 101 VR, and google documents that he authored himself.
 
The first time I took the MCAT I got a 5. Cambridge Learning Center helped me turn that 5 into an 11! As someone who has always struggled in reading and comprehension, I never thought I was capable of an 11 on the MCAT. I have never seen anyone as committed and focused on my success as Leonardo is. He has a keen ability to focus on your individual weaknesses, whether they are specific to reading or more general to confidence and managing anxiety. He tailors his teaching directly to your needs. In addition to reviewing grammar, he has a never ending set of tools to help you with focus, confidence, anxiety, and cognitive abilities. I couldn't recommended the Cambridge Learning Center enough! They will ensure your success!
Hi Jessy, I took Leonardo's class and I have improved my overall performance a lot. I was curious if you used stacking in the real test. I am still struggling a bit with my speed and stacking takes away another minute from my time. I'd appreciate your answer.
 
what materials does he use in his course? Does anyone know?

Hi Sabrina, I am so glad to hear Leonardo's class has helped you improve! Yes, I used stacking. I know it feels like you are losing time, but it pays off. When I tried not stacking, I found sometimes I would do harder passage early on and lose time and confidence, which significantly impacted my score. In the end, I found Leonardo was right and there was definitely value in completing the easiest passages first and building momentum for the harder passages. But I tried not to spend more than 60-90 seconds stacking, so I wasn't losing too much time. Hope this helps.
 
Hi Jessy, I took Leonardo's class and I have improved my overall performance a lot. I was curious if you used stacking in the real test. I am still struggling a bit with my speed and stacking takes away another minute from my time. I'd appreciate your answer.

Hi Sabrina -- sorry I posted to "pacer" post instead of yours! my apologies. Please see my response above.
 
Hi Sabrina, I am so glad to hear Leonardo's class has helped you improve! Yes, I used stacking. I know it feels like you are losing time, but it pays off. When I tried not stacking, I found sometimes I would do harder passage early on and lose time and confidence, which significantly impacted my score. In the end, I found Leonardo was right and there was definitely value in completing the easiest passages first and building momentum for the harder passages. But I tried not to spend more than 60-90 seconds stacking, so I wasn't losing too much time. Hope this helps.
Hi Jessy. Thanks for your response. My other concern is to start with an easy passage which ends up having harder questions. Sometimes tough passages have easier questions. How did you handle those easier passages with difficult questions? Also, how did you improve your overall speed? I seem to be 3min behind. Did you take his speed classes? Thanks again!
 
Hi Jessy. Thanks for your response. My other concern is to start with an easy passage which ends up having harder questions. Sometimes tough passages have easier questions. How did you handle those easier passages with difficult questions? Also, how did you improve your overall speed? I seem to be 3min behind. Did you take his speed classes? Thanks again!

Hi Sabrina -- I know what you mean. It is hard to judge passages and then questions! I tried to read the first sentence of each paragraph (or at least most) and then did a quick skim of the questions. Again, I didn't want to lose too much time to this, so it really was quick. But enough to get an idea. 3 mins behind isn't bad at all! But I know you'd rather not be behind at all. When I started I was really worried about time and focused too much on pushing myself to move faster. But I found the greatest success when I focused all of Leonardo's techniques and suggestions and didn't make moving faster my number one priority. Speed came with mastery of his techniques. If that makes sense.
 
Leonardo Radomile is a phenomenal teacher. I worked with him extensively in 2013 and did well on my verbal section. I highly recommend him. PM me if anyone has any questions.
 
Hi Sabrina -- I know what you mean. It is hard to judge passages and then questions! I tried to read the first sentence of each paragraph (or at least most) and then did a quick skim of the questions. Again, I didn't want to lose too much time to this, so it really was quick. But enough to get an idea. 3 mins behind isn't bad at all! But I know you'd rather not be behind at all. When I started I was really worried about time and focused too much on pushing myself to move faster. But I found the greatest success when I focused all of Leonardo's techniques and suggestions and didn't make moving faster my number one priority. Speed came with mastery of his techniques. If that makes sense.
Hi Jessy, I've been doing several practice tests in the past couple months using Kaplan, EK and Princeton Hyperlearning and my scores went up. However, I've started working on the AAMC tests, I am not performing as well. I feel like their questions are not as straightforward. I am having difficult time applying the techniques that we learn. I feel like I need to extrapolate from the passage to be able to answer the questions. Did you experience the same thing? Could you give me any advice please?
 
What's up with everyone having 4-5 posts and saying how great this program is? Something tells me this "Leonardo" is up to something.

As funny as that thought is, I think Leonardo might have better things to do with his time. He definitely uses words like, "phenomenal," and other stuff above. I've had a good laugh, but am still not 100% sure one of his students didn't pull this. But then again, I have a high degree of doubt.
 
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Wow, it looks like he was in some hot waters.

And an excerpt from that article would make a good verbal reasoning passage.

If that was really him, he's kept his head up pretty well and didn't let that get him down too badly. I only skimmed the article, but it looks like the article says he was an informant and failed to get immunity which eventually resulted in being disbarred (ouch). If this is the same Leonardo, I consider him to be quite resilient.
 
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And an excerpt from that article would make a good verbal reasoning passage.

If that was really him, he's kept his head up pretty well and didn't let that get him down to badly. I only skimmed the article, but it looks like the article says he was an informant and failed to get immunity which eventually resulted in being disbarred (ouch). If this is the same Leonardo, I consider him to be quite resilient.
Leonardo's the man!!!
 
Hey all,

I'm considering this course as there is a class that is apparently starting this week. I'm just a bit wary on the costs...other prep companies charge 2k and cover all subjects while CLC is just verbal (which is impt). That being said, can anyone provide what is it about this program/instructor that is so helpful? Is there any guarantee from money back? I didn't see anything on their website and that is concerning.
 
Leonardo Radomile is a phenomenal teacher. I worked with him extensively in 2013 and did well on my verbal section. I highly recommend him. PM me if anyone has any questions.
Hi nighthawk, would you mind sharing your stats? Did you take the test prior to CLC? If so, what was the score difference and how long did you work with him for?
 
Ah yes, this one:

Leonardo is an intelligent motivating pleasant instructor. I believe that he is a native Italian with English degrees from Harvard, and that he specializes in helping ESL students. My sense is that ESL students who study with him generally do well on the verbal reasoning section of the MCAT. If you are not ESL or are good at grammar, he might allow you to save some money by allowing you to self-study the grammar review portion of his course. In the grammar review, he goes over something like chapters 16-22 of Warriners textbook. The only downside to studying with Leonardo, that I am aware of, is the cost. If he allows it, the combination of a group class and doing your own grammar review might decrease the price tag a little bit. He also has a profile on Wyzant.com and various places on the internet. (After Warriners, he goes into Examkrackers 101.)


Did you take this course? How much improvement did you see?
 
I took the mcat twice with VR score 6. After I took Leonardo's class, I was able to get it up to 8. I have friend who got 8 in VR in her first attempt and 9 after Leonard's class. I liked the class and my verbal comprehension has definitely improved. 8 is not ideal, but I believe VR is the hardest section to increase your score in mcat. I'd suggest giving Leonardo's class a shot if you can afford it. By the way, my native language is not English. If you are a native speaker, you may see better results after taking the course.
 
@sabrina99:

Great job on your improvement. Also thanks for being specific about your before and after score. However, for some reason I believe that you would/could have made that improvement on your own. That is, without Leonardo's class. I mean, we are talking about over $2000 for verbal only (and this is not like private tutoring.) Now for such an important area of the MCAT many would be more than happy to spend over $2000 on this one section--sure. However, there would have to be more prove that his method is better than what is available here for free. Not to take away from your effort, but if one puts in the work and Leonardo's method are any more effective than what is freely available here, scores of 11 would be the least that I would be expecting.

Sabrina99, just in case the tone of my response seems like an attack on you or your effort, that is not my intention.
 
I took the mcat twice with VR score 6. After I took Leonardo's class, I was able to get it up to 8. I have friend who got 8 in VR in her first attempt and 9 after Leonard's class. I liked the class and my verbal comprehension has definitely improved. 8 is not ideal, but I believe VR is the hardest section to increase your score in mcat. I'd suggest giving Leonardo's class a shot if you can afford it. By the way, my native language is not English. If you are a native speaker, you may see better results after taking the course.

What specifically about Leonardo's class did you find helpful?
 
As someone who recently took his class in a group setting, let me tell you what you will get from him:
1. First third of the class he goes over nouns, pronouns, adjectives, sentence structure stuff.
2. In the second part, he goes over passages (no questions, just passages) for the second third of the course. He goes over in detail, but it's slow going, especially in a group setting as he makes people analyze as well.
3. During the last third, he goes over some question stuff and how to read a little faster.

Course is VERY expensive for what you get. Results can differ. We had a student go from 6 to a 9 (this student took his speed reading course, shelling out another ~$1,500 after the first ~$3,500). The other 4 including me, we are still trying to break a 10. I start from an 8.

Is he worth it? I am not sure, I do agree that he helped me think deeper. But I am not at the score yet that I want. As a comparison, I have a friend who found a 1-on-1 tutor over craigslist who charged $60/hr and he went from an 8 to an 11 in 2 months and spent less than $1200. If I don't improve within the next month, I will try the 1-on-1 approach. Not ready to give up yet! 🙂
 
For the price this guy seems to be charging, I wouldn't drop a cent on him. There's a lot of people on this forum that have expertise in verbal, and I can't recommend you a better person for the price other than @Jack Westin. I keep on posting about how awesome Jack is because he really is great for learning the verbal section. His course for the 2015 MCAT is more shaped towards a strategy course. I would recommend him over anyone else in terms of understanding the strategy behind verbal
 
I found these guys on youtube and watched all their videos for the VR section and improved my score substantially so I wanted to take their course for the CARS section. However after paying the deposit and having some email traffic trying to figure out the best time to take the course, I haven't heard from them since last wednesday. No answers to emails, no one picks up the phone. Their blogs shows an update on friday but that's it. My last correspondence was them asking for my phone number so they could call me to coordinate course details (which was supposed to be starting this week).

Has anyone had any experience contacting them or know whats going on? I doubt they "took the money and ran" as that doens't appear to be their style at all, I'm just confused at how we could be having regular communications and then nothing. And I actually want to take the course.
Thanks.
 
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