How do I tackle the passage-based questions?

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xoxo111

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Hi everyone,

My MCAT is in about a month & I am not doing well in the passage-based questions. It's not about the content anymore, since I believe I am good at it; because I can answer the independent questions very well, but I can't seem to do well on the questions which infers to the passage, or the figures in it (except sometimes I can when the questions are direct). Could anyone please give me any advice on how to approach these questions, or how to approach the passages? I could really use some tips.

Thanks in advance.

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Which section are you not doing well on passage-based questions, or do you mean across the board? Try to examine what about the passages is making things difficult for you: is it reading the graphs, is it understanding explanations of the experiments, is it reading comprehension of the passages, or is it applying info/data/questions from the passage to the questions?

For figures/graphs, try to practice on some questions by trying to write in words what the graph says. Something along the lines of "As temperature increases, volume increases.

For inferring things from passages: try to interrogate what exactly you're having trouble with. Is it experimental details? This might mean you need to brush up on experimental techniques vocab, or practice identifying components of an experiment described to you (IV, DV, etc.). Is it which numbers from the passage to use for a formula on a question? One trick is to "hunt" back around the passage for the units you need (ex. N), or if you can't find the exact units you need, then find the "component" units (ex. for N look for a kg and look for m/s2).

If you have more details on what exactly you're having trouble with from passages, I can give more specific advice.
 
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Which section are you not doing well on passage-based questions, or do you mean across the board? Try to examine what about the passages is making things difficult for you: is it reading the graphs, is it understanding explanations of the experiments, is it reading comprehension of the passages, or is it applying info/data/questions from the passage to the questions?

For figures/graphs, try to practice on some questions by trying to write in words what the graph says. Something along the lines of "As temperature increases, volume increases.

For inferring things from passages: try to interrogate what exactly you're having trouble with. Is it experimental details? This might mean you need to brush up on experimental techniques vocab, or practice identifying components of an experiment described to you (IV, DV, etc.). Is it which numbers from the passage to use for a formula on a question? One trick is to "hunt" back around the passage for the units you need (ex. N), or if you can't find the exact units you need, then find the "component" units (ex. for N look for a kg and look for m/s2).

If you have more details on what exactly you're having trouble with from passages, I can give more specific advice.

It's mostly the B/B section I have trouble with. Also, yes I do have trouble finding IV and DV, and tbh I have tried to learn the difference between the two so many times but I still can't distinguish between them.

Could you also go deep into how to hunt back around the passage for units?

Thank you in advance.
 
It's mostly the B/B section I have trouble with. Also, yes I do have trouble finding IV and DV, and tbh I have tried to learn the difference between the two so many times but I still can't distinguish between them.

Could you also go deep into how to hunt back around the passage for units?

Thank you in advance.
It is critical to your success on the MCAT that you are able to quickly and reliably tell the difference between IV and DV, so you should make sure to drill this in and practice this until it is second nature. Oftentimes, questions might simply be asking you what the IV or DV is, so don't miss these "easy" points.

By hunting back around the passage, I mean that after you've read/skimmed it (whatever your strategy is), look at the question. If it looks like it requires a value from the passage, identify the units that value would be in (ex N) and then instead of rereading the passage, just jump around searching around the passage for anywhere it might give a value in Newtons. If it doesn't give any values explicitly in Newtons, then repeat the process for any units that could be components of Newtons (kg and m/s^2).
 
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