Kaplan Verbal Edge

[ucdbiochem]

did anyone take the kaplan verbal edge? did it help at all compared the full course's VR section? thanks.

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[Mudd]

It never made sense to have an accelerator course for any other reason except to extract more money out of students. Shouldn't all of that be included with the regular course?

You don't post much in the MCAT forum, so I assume you must have done well on the MCAT. Was the teaching at Berkeley Review all that people here rave about? The cult-like following people have about the teachers seems too strong to believe. Is it really as great as everyone says?

 

[medhopefully]

well, i took the verbal edge it this past summer, cause i didn't want to shell out the money for the entire course (and because i was confident enough in all other sections). I used all of kaplan's practice tests (probably around 30 of them), studied their approach to VR, but i also forced myself to do a tremendous amount of boring intellectual reading on my own, for the entire summer.

However - i most of the people taking the verbal edge course were also taking the full kaplan mcat course, cause they either had ESL, or were just plain bad at reading. This course WILL NOT, i repeat, WILL NOT help you read better or understand better, but it will show you some useful tips, and useful methods for tackling VR. If your english is already crappy, or if you can't read well, this course isn't gonna help you do well, but at least you won't get a 3.

I found that the course probably helped me out for about 10-15 questions, honing my reasoning skills in deciding between two answers, and focusing my attention on certain key ideas while i was reading the passages. In the end, I boosted my score three points to a 10 on the VR D), for my second (and final) time writing the bloody test.

my 2 cents.

 

[Lebesgue]

I took the full length and went from a 5 diagnostic to an 11 in August. I'd agree with not improving your reading speed or general intelligence. I would say that by doing it a lot you can build some skills so that you can anticipate what they will ask since it takes some practice to get used the type of things they think are important. It will also help figure out what works best for you, which may or may NOT be what they recommend. I thought their "not reading for content" theory was useless. I'd say though that while reading the wall street journal or something might help a little, you really need to do as many practice tests as possible to get some scores and refine your techniques... Good luck.

 

[history _ice]

Count me in as well...i just started reviewing... I have the Kaplan materials but I'm not going to take their course.


my AIM is SAMDAPOOH

-history ice