How long did it take you to reach your VR goals?

[LaurenMarie]

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For those of you that practiced VR every day (or nearly every day) how long did it take for you to start scoring in the range you wanted to? What approach did you take to ensure that you consistently improved?

 

[unrealplayer]

About 3-4 weeks. Verbal is hard in general and it was the section I struggled with most. My advice is to do at least one passage a day and time yourself. Make sure you are going over your mistakes to see why you got them wrong and also review your correct ones to see if your logic was correct. It's easy to get frustrated with VR, take a day off if you need to. Don't over work yourself. Another big factor is confidence. A lot of the passages are really dense and boring. Try and actually read them with interest, it will make understanding what you're reading less of a chore. Lastly, have confidence!

 

[rgll]

I didn't reach my VR goal (11) until my actual MCAT. It was a pleasant surprise.

Edit: I didn't study verbal everyday, though.

 

[LaurenMarie]

I didn't reach my VR goal (11) until my actual MCAT. It was a pleasant surprise.

Edit: I didn't study verbal everyday, though.

How often did you study and how many of the VR books (EK 101, TBR, TPRH) did you use/get through? If you don't mind me asking.

 

[PreMedOrDead]

I'd say it's the most difficult section to get a great score (12+) on. I never really 'improved' like I did in the PS and BS sections. In fact, I was almost always up and down within the same range no matter how much I practiced.

 

[gumbyj]

2.5 weeks and 7 EK 101 tests

 

[ur2l8]

First practice test 😛

jk, well, not really. I did the first quarter of the TPRH guide until I got bored, but sort of "trained' a couple years in advance by reading The Economist, various other publications, and the news every day. Also did 5 AAMCs (and initally looked at kaplan material for about 25 minutes the first day, dumb).

Honestly nothing beats reading for your own knowledge. IMO, a good reader doesn't have to do a lick of studying to get a boss score.

Ended up with a 13 on VR, which was actually lower than I expected considering it was my strongest section

 

[BestDoctorEver]

First practice test 😛

jk, well, not really. I did the first quarter of the TPRH guide until I got bored, but sort of "trained' a couple years in advance by reading The Economist, various other publications, and the news every day. Also did 5 AAMCs (and initally looked at kaplan material for about 25 minutes the first day, dumb).

Honestly nothing beats reading for your own knowledge. IMO, a good reader doesn't have to do a lick of studying to get a boss score.

Ended up with a 13 on VR, which was actually lower than I expected considering it was my strongest section

Seriously...Were you expecting a 15?

 

[LaurenMarie]

Seriously...Were you expecting a 15?

👍

 

[altitude]

Just a sort of general/ambiguous question- how exactly does one set a goal?
For example, why would someone set a 12 as their verbal goal rather than a 13, 14, or 15? (Especially since: if you set your goal as a 15, if you fall short maybe you'll get 12, 13, or 14. But, if your goal is a 12, if you fall short, you may get a 9, 10, or 11).

I understand the purpose of a goal, as it is something to work towards and to stay motivated, but does it really come down to just arbitrarily picking a number that you "like"?

And if anyone has any actual advice on setting goals for the MCAT, I'd love to hear it, because, despite how the above may sound, I'm all for setting a goal. Establishing goal scores for the MCAT would probably benefit me in staying motivated and to continue working to achieve it.

 

[LaurenMarie]

Just a sort of general/ambiguous question- how exactly does one set a goal?
For example, why would someone set a 12 as their verbal goal rather than a 13, 14, or 15? (Especially since: if you set your goal as a 15, if you fall short maybe you'll get 12, 13, or 14. But, if your goal is a 12, if you fall short, you may get a 9, 10, or 11).

I understand the purpose of a goal, as it is something to work towards and to stay motivated, but does it really come down to just arbitrarily picking a number that you "like"?

And if anyone has any actual advice on setting goals for the MCAT, I'd love to hear it, because, despite how the above may sound, I'm all for setting a goal. Establishing goal scores for the MCAT would probably benefit me in staying motivated and to continue working to achieve it.

When I say "goal" I basically mean break the minimum that I would be happy with. I of course will strive for the highest possible. I simply was wondering how long it took for people to see an improvement in their score.

 

[altitude]

When I say "goal" I basically mean break the minimum that I would be happy with. I of course will strive for the highest possible. I simply was wondering how long it took for people to see an improvement in their score.

Alright, cool. Also, to judge where you at (in terms of a verbal score), could you base this on doing 3 passages from EK 101, for example, and try to approximate a score from that? Or would you do this using a full 7 passages (as on the MCAT)?

Thanks!

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Just a sort of general/ambiguous question- how exactly does one set a goal?
For example, why would someone set a 12 as their verbal goal rather than a 13, 14, or 15? (Especially since: if you set your goal as a 15, if you fall short maybe you'll get 12, 13, or 14. But, if your goal is a 12, if you fall short, you may get a 9, 10, or 11).

I understand the purpose of a goal, as it is something to work towards and to stay motivated, but does it really come down to just arbitrarily picking a number that you "like"?

And if anyone has any actual advice on setting goals for the MCAT, I'd love to hear it, because, despite how the above may sound, I'm all for setting a goal. Establishing goal scores for the MCAT would probably benefit me in staying motivated and to continue working to achieve it.

"Goal" is just what you need (or think you need) to get into the programs you want. For example, I want to apply to MSTPs, so my goal is at least a 34, more ideally a 36. Obviously I'd prefer a score higher than that, but getting a 36 is already pushing it in terms of realistic expectations and the only reason I'm even trying to aim for a score that high is because that's the average for MSTPs.

Anyway, to answer OP, it took me three chapters of EK 101 before I hit my goal score of a 12 on verbal (started at 9), although I've only done that twice sadly. So far my average on both EK 101 and AAMCs has been 10-11. It really doesn't seem like it's going to change either and I'm almost considering not bothering with further practice since I know VR is the most resistant section to change on the MCAT, and I can see that very well now. Part of the problem (scratch that, the ENTIRE problem) is that there's no way you can study for VR, and there always seem to be several questions that you can't possibly get right unless you use the same arbitrary "logic" the question writer used. Honestly I think that after a certain point the VR section is less about logic and comprehension and more about how similar your usual thought process is to the question writers'.

 

[LaurenMarie]

Alright, cool. Also, to judge where you at (in terms of a verbal score), could you base this on doing 3 passages from EK 101, for example, and try to approximate a score from that? Or would you do this using a full 7 passages (as on the MCAT)?

Thanks!

I've been doing 3 or 4 passages, taking my decimal score and multiplying it by 40 then using this scale to determine my score

 

[altitude]

I've been doing 3 or 4 passages, taking my decimal score and multiplying it by 40 then using this scale to determine my score

Thank you for the link, but WOW, that is an intense scale. 4 out of 40 questions wrong bring you down to an 11?!?! Is this similar to the scale on the MCAT? I would have expected it to be somewhat more lenient given that verbal is one of the more challenging (and somewhat more subjective- given the ambiguous logic and answer choices) sections.

 

[LaurenMarie]

Thank you for the link, but WOW, that is an intense scale. 4 out of 40 questions wrong bring you down to an 11?!?! Is this similar to the scale on the MCAT? I would have expected it to be somewhat more lenient given that verbal is one of the more challenging (and somewhat more subjective- given the ambiguous logic and answer choices) sections.

It is super intense. 🙁

That's why I'm feeling soo nervous about my VR ability. And yeah, this scale is from one of the AAMC practice exams

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Thank you for the link, but WOW, that is an intense scale. 4 out of 40 questions wrong bring you down to an 11?!?! Is this similar to the scale on the MCAT? I would have expected it to be somewhat more lenient given that verbal is one of the more challenging (and somewhat more subjective- given the ambiguous logic and answer choices) sections.

The curve is one of the reasons why verbal is so difficult. Despite what the scaled score may look like, most people do well on the raw score, hence why the curve is so unforgiving. It's not that the material on VR is difficult, it's that everyone does so well at it that you have to perform almost perfectly to get a good score.

 

[ur2l8]

Seriously...Were you expecting a 15?

A bit, considering my practice tests. It honestly all came down to nerves on the real mcat. Odd I got the same score in PS, but initially got 7s...lol. Lucky I serendipitously came across these forums!
😀

 

[rgll]

How often did you study and how many of the VR books (EK 101, TBR, TPRH) did you use/get through? If you don't mind me asking.

I actually just followed the Kaplan MCAT Advanced syllabus. But I also ready the EK book on verbal because the Kaplan strategy wasn't really working for me. I think I did 3 practice (Kaplan) VR passages in addition the VR sections in Kaplan Full Length 1, AAMC 3, AAMC 9, AAMC 10, and AAMC 11. I did all of my MCAT studying over a period of ~2.5 months. So I guess that's a average of less than one VR passage per week. I know it doesn't sound like much, but each time I practiced, I really focused on the take away lessons from the EK book. It helped a lot and made my efforts much more focused.