how to review mcat science passages?

[yjj8817]

For anyone who was successful with mcat, how did you review the passages? I have been reviewing the concepts behind the questions and trying to get used to the question styles. What do you recommend?

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[Ismet]

Moving to MCAT discussions forum

 

[Redpancreas]

For anyone who was successful with mcat, how did you review the passages? I have been reviewing the concepts behind the questions and trying to get used to the question styles. What do you recommend?

Thousands of topics about the MCAT are discussed over and over again on SDN. That being said, many of us are willing to answer questions even if they've been repeated millions of times. However, the reason your question has not been answered is because your question (bolded part in particular) is SO vague and is somewhat confusing.

-My best guess as to what you're asking is whether or not you read the passages?

If this is your question then the answer is it depends. If the passage is in bio, it's generally something you read especially these days with the biology section resembling the verbal section. If it's a chemistry passage then it often depends. If it is an experimental passage I recommend getting a quick gist of what was done (was it compound isolation, electroplating, kinetics, etc.) and then keep that tid-bit with you and jump right into the questions and do a refer back to the passage method. If, on the other hand it's a chemistry paragraph read it QUICKLY without much attention to detail to get a general gist of it. These passages have a lot of unneeded info crammed into them and when they question the details, they'll often ask why something mentioned in the passage is the way it is (i.e. why was this gas likely used?). For physics, if it's a long passage, definitely read it and try to understand what's going on. If it's a chemistry/physics one filled with graphs and tables, try to quickly find out what's going on and go into the questions as you'll be able to refer to things later. As for Organic, the prose is almost always useless but there are exceptions. Generally they'll ask you about the arrow-pushing/nomenclature/stereochemistry in molecules given to you so sometimes it's better to jump right to the questions. It's almost a given that one question on the MCAT will ask you something about the chirality/number of chiral centers on a molecule given.

If that didn't answer your question, please feel free to PM me! Good luck!

 

[yjj8817]

actually I meant going over the questions after doing the passages to figure out what you can do to improve. I have been going over all questions whether I got them wrong or not and studying the concepts behind them. I just wanted to see what other examinees did. I also seem to spend too much time doing this.

 

[Command]

I took a passage, then read the cooresponding section over what was tested, made flashcards over key topics, then redid the passage to see how the new info allows you to answer the questions. You'll learn that the reasons why you got the question wrong like you didn't memorize a certain point or you couldn't interpret the data given in the passage.