Improving verbal on the mcats

[Yogi Bear]

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Hi,

I recently took the April mcats and thought that verbal was aweful! For those who did well on verbal (10+), what did you do to score so well [especially pertains to those who initially got low scores but managed to make a significant improvement]? Any great material? If I have to take it again this august, i'd like to get an idea of how to prepare for it. Just do a bunch of passages? Buy examkrackers verbal book? read a bunch? Kaplan's prep course triage strategy didn't work for me.

 

[banannie]

My strategy: Become a humanities major, so that you will have to read 300+ pages a week for each class. Your entire education will be geared toward perfecting the art of quickly reading and analyzing texts. Voila: a 12!

Just kiddin. :wink: Since you don't have time for that, I'd really recommend reading a good newspaper (like NYTimes or Washington Post) every day online. Subscribe to (or go to the library and read) some intellectual, well-written periodicals like Economist, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly. Even if that doesn't improve your score, it will make you a more interesting, well-read person (and perhaps, a better interviewee!)

 

[TechMan]

I read 300+ pages of stuff per week in school and im not a humanities major... so don't think you humanities peeps have it tough.

 

[Mr. H]

I think the idea of reading scholarly articles is something you should have been doing, and starting now will be of great asset to you. Not only will it make you more-informed, but also improve reading skills. The key is to think critically about what your reading, try underlining key points, summarizing paragraphs, and deciphering what the author is trying to get at.
You should also seek new methods of taking the actual test, and the only way to do this is by repated practice passages, I'm talking like 20 full lenght verbals over the summer. Try different strategies that you haven't done yet. I'm sure with practice, patience, and luck, you will do just fine. In case your wondering, I started out my verbal with a 7 and got it up to 11. All of these strategies I employed, so just work at it, and you will be MONEY.
PEACE