How to get to 35+ from 30s?

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nityking

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Hey ya'll...

I just recently joined SDN and have been looking through some threads to see if anyone knows the secret to reach consistent 35+ from low 30s on practice exams. I'm taking Aug 15 MCAT and have been doing self-study (4/5hr day) + Kaplan Class for last whole month. After taking first five kaplan FL 1-5 and AAMC 3, my scores are consistently anywhere from 30-33 - around 12s on PS/BS & 8 on Verbal. I'm trying really hard to get to my goal of 35+s on practice exams and on real one 🙂 However, its just NOT WORKING!! I've reached a point where I don't know what I should do other than take remaining 6 kaplan and 6 aamc exams with same old outcome and then keep reviewing ?s I got wrong/why.

It'll be great if I can get some advice from ppl on SDN related to this as I'm sure a lotta ppl have been in and thru this situation!! Verbal is the biggest problem as English is my second language. I'm quite proficient in it except when it comes to reading/concentrating on those gawddaymn dry passages MCAT uses. Thanks!
 
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haha.. so true! If know you are good with sciences, its just going to be pure luck on the test day. There have been couple of 14s and 10s but mostly its around 12s, which is a good prediction for real day.

Anyways, whats your strategy for verbal? I have EK 101 but got tired after doing first five exams as they are not as hard as kaplan and more like SAT. Currently I'm not doing anything to improve other than reading Economist and WSJ as much as possible. I hate kaplan's strategy of mapping when you already get the topic, purpose and scope. And when I don't on the humanities passages, I'll have to read a paragraph twice before I can get anything outta it to write a working sentence summary.
 
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I actively read the passage. I try to get excited about reading it and then really get in there. Then, answer the questions. I do not do any mapping or notes. It just wastes time to me.

Kaplan is not representative of the real thing. AAMCs are the best practice period. EK verbal is the next best thing.


Really, I all I can say is that practice makes perfect here.

Find a strategy that works for you and perfect it!!
 
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I'm one of those people that doesn't really of the school that scoring a 12 or higher is more luck than not. When I started studying I definitely thought that was the case. Then I started hitting consistent 13s in BS, and consistent 14 and 15 in PS...now those extra 1 or 2 questions to get 14 or 15? That might be luck, but realistically, 13s should be your goal. Aim for 13s on every section, and you're pretty much maxed out.
 
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Vihsadas said:
I'm one of those people that doesn't really of the school that scoring a 12 or higher is more luck than not. When I started studying I definitely thought that was the case. Then I started hitting consistent 13s in BS, and consistent 14 and 15 in PS...now those extra 1 or 2 questions to get 14 or 15? That might be luck, but realistically, 13s should be your goal. Aim for 13s on every section, and you're pretty much maxed out.
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I completely agree! V's always right 👍
 
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haha.. I concur with vihsadas! 13-13-(8/9) looks reasonable but 14-14-10/11 would be IDEAL on PS/BS/VR respectively. Daymn.. I'm addicted to SDN after my frnd told me about it~ not good 😀 Now, only if I can find someone to study with who's on the same level and boat as myself. Should've waited till end of my junior year instead of taking it yr in advance...daymn I'm so ready to get done with this mothafoin' test and take it down like a biatch. BTW kaplan classes are useless and total waste of time except the online stuff which is GOLD along with EK heheh..anyone think this is true?
 
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Vihsadas said:
I'm one of those people that doesn't really of the school that scoring a 12 or higher is more luck than not. When I started studying I definitely thought that was the case. Then I started hitting consistent 13s in BS, and consistent 14 and 15 in PS...now those extra 1 or 2 questions to get 14 or 15? That might be luck, but realistically, 13s should be your goal. Aim for 13s on every section, and you're pretty much maxed out.
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Wow I just read your MDapps and I am quite impressed, not only by your mcat score, but also by your upward GPA trend. Good luck and hope you get in all your schools.
 
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J DUB said:
Usually anything above a 12 in the sciences comes down to luck. You might can get a point or two there.

I would put my focus on the verbal because you have the most room for improvement there.
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I don't think anything above a 12 is pure dumb luck. I was consistently scoring 14-15 BS and 12-13 PS and 11-12 Verbal and guess what I got on the actual thing? 14 BS, 12 PS, and 11V... Yes there is the possibility that the MCAT hit upon everything you didn't know, but there is also the possiblity that everyone taking the test the same day as you is a genius and will miss zero questions. These things are all NOT going to happen. There are going to be a couple questions you don't know. Get over those when you are taking the test and drill that material later. The key is to knowing more, being quicker and making less stupid mistakes.

I would agree however the verbal has the most room for improvement. On my diag I got a 7 on verbal. Just by changing my approach I was able to bump that up 4 points immediately. PS and BS require the most work to bring up.
 
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hey..what was that changing approach that helped u bump up 4pts? I've realized that with little extra time (2mt/passage) and 100% concentration I miss only one/two per passage. But haven't really found any specific strategy yet that will help me. Thx
 
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jgberken said:
:laugh: Don't be modest...your advice is amazing!
Click to expand...

Well, I guess I have some cool things to share in terms of MCAT studying, but it's still just advice! I mean, what worked for me, may or may not work for everyone else. So I hope that people understand that they still gotta find their own stride and their own method. Just take whatever works from the strategies that are posted here and use it if it's giving you success...I just don't want people to think that my method or anyone else's is the be all end all.
 
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My apologies. I should have said 13 or higher is more about luck.

Point is there is not much more room for improvement for the OP in the sciences. The OP needs to get better on verbal to get that 35+ more easily.

I rather try to raise the verbal than study for who know how many hours to get a point or two increase in the sciences.
 
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nityking said:
Hey ya'll...

I just recently joined SDN and have been looking through some threads to see if anyone knows the secret to reach consistent 35+ from low 30s on practice exams. I'm taking Aug 15 MCAT and have been doing self-study (4/5hr day) + Kaplan Class for last whole month. After taking first five kaplan FL 1-5 and AAMC 3, my scores are consistently anywhere from 30-33 - around 12s on PS/BS & 8 on Verbal. I'm trying really hard to get to my goal of 35+s on practice exams and on real one 🙂 However, its just NOT WORKING!! I've reached a point where I don't know what I should do other than take remaining 6 kaplan and 6 aamc exams with same old outcome and then keep reviewing ?s I got wrong/why.

It'll be great if I can get some advice from ppl on SDN related to this as I'm sure a lotta ppl have been in and thru this situation!! Verbal is the biggest problem as English is my second language. I'm quite proficient in it except when it comes to reading/concentrating on those gawddaymn dry passages MCAT uses. Thanks!
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Yo man... I had been getting those EXACT practice scores. 12/8/12 or 12/8/11.

Verbal: I got up to consistent 10s (and some 11s and 12s on practice tests) by following Big Vs advice ... lol he's so popular

I got done with the passages in under 7:30 each. To do that, I had to read fast... I did an experiment where I spend a lot of time reading a passage (10+ mins) and spending the same amount of time answering questions... my accuracy did not improve! Get to fast fast reading speeds so you can have more time to answer the questions!

The MCAT isn't all about remembering the main idea. More than half the questions will actually require you to dig around... and if you read the passage slowly like EK tells you to, you might get screwed. Try something new. Try reading faster and see if you do better.

Sciences: Log each question you get wrong and figure out why you got them wrong. (I made a post in the 30+ section about how I improved my MCAT score dramatically.. you should be able to find in the last few pages) Berkeley Review's Chemistry books helped me mucho also. Right before testing, I was hitting 14-15 on PS and 13s on BS.

I know how you feel right now man... getting 12s isn't easy. I was in your shoes just a few months ago. Stepping it up seems frustrating b/c you keep getting 44/52 right or something like that and feel that it's impossible to get those extra few questions right. Stick with it and you can do it. Don't be passive and just be like "Eh, 12s are good enough." You still have a loooot of time left. Check out the post I referred to.

Hope that helped.
 
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I agree with everyone else here. I think the OP is best investing a bit more time on Verbal than on any other section.

One thing I found with the AAMC (and confirmed on my real MCAT) was that the real passages are much longer than any of Kaplan's, but a bit simpler. A good way to go into each that worked for me was to know ahead of time that I need to read quickly. I don't like the Kaplan mapping strategy, it just wastes time. What I did do, however, was pause like 5-10 seconds after each paragraph and mentally (screw the writing down part) re-hashed the main point. I did this on my real MCAT and I got my highest VR ever. Better than any practice test (I'd been getting around 9's consistently).

Also as I remember, VR is the least lenient scoring wise. You literally go down 1 full point per question missed (approximately). Whereas the two sciences are a bit more forgiving (dropping a full point for every two or three questions missed).

Sounds like you're in the same boat as just about everyone. Good luck to you.
 
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Hey!
Kaplan FL verbal is not any shorter than the real mcat. Essentially I tested this by counting the words for a few of them...they average about 590ish or so. Same thing for AAMC. However, I also have the Kaplan book with like 11 Verbal sections, and yes there the passages vary greatly in length, anywhere from 450 or so to 630 or so words (*roughly). Therefore, it is about a difference of about 50 seconds between the two extremes, assuming a mediocre reading speed of 200ish words a minute. You really should not be reading it slower than 200wpm, or quicker than 300 wpm.
 
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BOZZ - do I know ya? lol.. You pretty much summed up everything 101% precisely and to the point about my case.

Good News: I've been doing some good verbal practice using varied resources and timed EK 101 tests - made one 8 and three 9s.

THX ya'll for the advice! I had been kinda slacking off doing verbal and taking it lightly (hoping that my sciences will compensate for it). But now I'm def. cutting down taking exams to maybe 1/week and just focus on verbal for at least a month. Some of the strategies mentioned in this threat helped a lot. Three key things I think are helping me to do well:

1 Unwavering concentration - pretend that the world is dead for those 3/4 minutes while reading passages.
2. Speed Reading w/o overanalyzing text/questions
3. Most Importantly: My own personal interest and motivation to tackle the VR rather than being helpless about it.

ColombianDoc - Yeah I think you're right about that although I haven't taken the real MCAT. Kaplan uses passages that are super boring and taken outta nowhere while AAMC&EK have much longer but simple/interesting ones. This takes actually less time to read (or maybe the same) but you get the point right away most of the time and understand it very well.

Anymore responses/suggestions are welcome 🙂 SDN rocks~
 
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I think an important key to hitting 35 is simply being scrupulous.

1) In the sciences, keep inferences to an absolute minimum. Even when dealing with topics you think you know (especially in Bio). If possible, you should try to assure that every answer you choose is backed up by a sentence in the passage.

2) double checking (units, decimals, etc....)after I got through sections helped me pick up at least 4 calculation mistakes I made.

3) If they provide you with a formula, chart, or table, use it. you should use it to back up your answers as to rid yourself of all doubts. If you go through a whole passage without using the given table or formula, this should signal a red flag.

4) The best way possible is to practice until your hand goes numb. A lot of this material should be second nature.
 
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vihsadas, could you show me a link to or just tell me about your verbal strategy/mindset/philosophy? lol
 
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mterp45 said:
I think an important key to hitting 35 is simply being scrupulous.

1) In the sciences, keep inferences to an absolute minimum. Even when dealing with topics you think you know (especially in Bio). If possible, you should try to assure that every answer you choose is backed up by a sentence in the passage.

2) double checking (units, decimals, etc....)after I got through sections helped me pick up at least 4 calculation mistakes I made.

3) If they provide you with a formula, chart, or table, use it. you should use it to back up your answers as to rid yourself of all doubts. If you go through a whole passage without using the given table or formula, this should signal a red flag.

4) The best way possible is to practice until your hand goes numb. A lot of this material should be second nature.
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Awesome nifty tips dude for improving sciences!! I'm def. gonna remember these while practicing. There have been many instances where I would check answers and then realize that I missed a few easy ?s cuz of some silly mistake.

BIG V - it'll be awesome if I can get link to your extensive magical post about improving verbal score that the above ppl are talking about :laugh:
 
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Vihsadas said:
I'm one of those people that doesn't really of the school that scoring a 12 or higher is more luck than not. When I started studying I definitely thought that was the case. Then I started hitting consistent 13s in BS, and consistent 14 and 15 in PS...now those extra 1 or 2 questions to get 14 or 15? That might be luck, but realistically, 13s should be your goal. Aim for 13s on every section, and you're pretty much maxed out.
Click to expand...
Yeah, for someone with a solid foundation and careful reading skills 13 is definitely possible, maybe even 14 consistently. However there are always like 2-3 questions per section that are worded in such a way that multiple people could legitimately interpret the question differently. Every once in a while there is a question that is so crappy that the correct answer rate is the equivalent of random guessing!
 
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Is the August exam usually harder than ones offered during other time of the year? Or maybe the curve is not as "generous" cuz a lotta people probably will be taking it after having done a good amount of studying during summer. Just wondering 🙄
 
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With 14 days to go, I'm quite worried about the verbal section! I've definitely improved from 7/8s to near 10s but that took a good month or more for me. My sciences are getting extremely strong as seen from the recent four exams I've taken in July: AAMC 9 - 35 (14,9,12) Kaplan 6,7,8 being 33 (11, 9, 13) ,35 (12, 9, 14), 38 (13, 10, 15) respectively.

My main problem is that I get around 75% hard questions right on verbal and miss a lot of easy and medium ones according to the online score reports. Any advice on how to get to 12 on verbal within two weeks will be really appreciated. I still have AAMC 4,5 and 8 to practice along with Kaplan 9, 10 and 11.
 
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Take a practice test every week, go over what you get wrong and think about why that error occurred. Do it consistently and eventually you will be scoring in the high thirties.
 
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Most people have a hard time improving their score because they study content they already know. How can you identify your weak spots?


Get a practice exam and go through this exercise. You may be surprised to discover your knowledge gaps:

Step 1
Get a practice exam (say with 50 to 100 questions).

Step2
For each question, as you fill in the answer, on another sheet of paper, rate your level of confidence from 1 to 10 (1 = I don't know this answer; 10 = I definitely know this answer).

Step3
After you complete the practice exam, see which answers you missed and rated a confidence = 9 or 10. These are areas where you have MIS-INFORMATION and you must replace what you think you know with the correct information.

Step4
For the areas where your confidence was weak (rated 1-3), you recognize that you lack that information. Review these subjects to gain confidence.

When you are studying, ask yourself, "Do I really know this information, or do I just think that I know it (when in fact I really don't)." This is the key question to help you improve your scores.

Take as many practice exams as you can and rate your confidence level for each question that you answer.
 
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Practice tests--tons of em

Also if you are weak in a particular area do tons of discrete questions on that topic in an appropriate book (EK1001, Kaplan Qbank, etc)
 
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