How much time should you spend per passage for self assessments?

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Ash366

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It says 2-3 hours but I was wondering what the proper amount of time I should spend per passage. Please consider the stand alone questions as well.

For SN2ed schedule it said 7 mins per passage. Should I do the same for this? But add a couple more mins for stand alones?

How should I take the self assessments? I'm planning on finishing the entire passage in one day so should I do 7 passage then take a break then next 7 passage? Thanks.

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This is a really good question, specifically because the SA passages are quite a bit shorter than regular MCAT passages. If I remember correctly, that guideline of 7 minutes per passage referred to regular-length passages, like those in BR (though I could be wrong). If timing is a big concern for you, it's probably best to shorten the time to 6 min (at least one of the physics passages literally only has 3 questions).

However, it also completely depends on where you are in your studying. Are you taking a Jan exam? Basically, if you were taking the SAs early on to see where your weak areas were, I would advise going pretty slow on the timing - that way, the questions you miss are ones where you truly don't understand the topic, not ones where you were just rushed. But if you're taking your test soon and are just using this for extra practice, you may want to shorten the time to around 5.5 minutes per passage.

My advice on taking the SA in general? Take LOTS of breaks. If you do want to finish it in one day, that's totally fine, but I would split it up into sets of 7 passages with at least an hour between sets. Otherwise, you'll miss many more questions near the end due to sheer exhaustion and it will give you less info about where you stand.

Good luck :)
 
Working on all the problems in one session doesn't really tire me out so I decided to do one section per day. What tires me out is actually spending time and reviewing the solutions even on ones I got right.

My exam is Jan 22 and I still have 70 verbal passages (Princeton workbook), 8 Kaplan and 21 self assessment verbals. It came out to about 4 verbal per day (subtracting the days where I'm taking AAMC Fls). Out of all sections verbal scores are the lowest so I don't know if I should complete all of self assessment verbals at once or do Kaplan, Princeton then SA respectively as I get close to exam date. Thank you.
 
Hmmm I think it would be best to do PR first while throwing in the Kaplan passages a few at a time (to avoid prepping with one source only for too many of your remaining weeks). Then finish up with the SA materials (similar to what you said). This avoids one of the major mistakes people make in their test prep, in which they do all of the AAMC materials first, leaving practice passages that are progressively less and less helpful as their test date approaches. Verbal SAs aren't like the others, where it's helpful to do them early and assess your problem areas! Save the AAMC passages for last, as long as you make sure that you have plenty of time for analysis.
 
my advice would one hour after every 4 hours.Personally i used to study 12 to 13 hours a day with 30 min break after every 3 hours.
 
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