Kaplan verbal section tests vs. real thing?

[grburst]

I just signed up for a Kaplan course and have taken a few of the VR section tests (I should save some for later, actually...). I'm getting between 75-80% correct, which translates to a 10 I think. Are these tests known as an accurate representation of the real thing? How hard is Kaplan's material compared to AAMC 11, for example? And is there generally a lot of room for improvement starting from a 10 on VR?

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[kittykattat]

I just signed up for a Kaplan course and have taken a few of the VR section tests (I should save some for later, actually...). I'm getting between 75-80% correct, which translates to a 10 I think. Are these tests known as an accurate representation of the real thing? How hard is Kaplan's material compared to AAMC 11, for example? And is there generally a lot of room for improvement starting from a 10 on VR?

For me personally, I thought that the difficulty of the passages in Kaplan verbals were similar to the verbals I saw when I sat the test, however, the test day passages did seem a little longer, and a lot of other people reported the same thing. So if you are scoring double digits on kaplan tests that is probably a good sign, but see if you can do so without taking the whole time allotted (i.e. see if you can finish 4 or 5 minutes early) because you dont want that to hold you back on the real thing if the passages take longer to read.

That being said, having read a lot of sdn posts it seems like there are other sources with more difficult passages (Exam krackers and TPR I believe? someone with experience with these will hopefully comment) that you might want to try out so that you will be prepared for harder passages too in case you get a particularly tough section on the real thing

EDIT: forgot to answer your last question! Once I started hitting an 11 or 12 on my practice exam verbal section I found it pretty much impossible to score any higher. I think that is because the difference between a 12 and 13 or 13 and 14 is usually like one question, and it seems like every test has about 4 or 5 questions that have two really good answers/are somewhat ambiguous, and at that point it is probably just luck as to if you pick the answer they intend you to. However I have seen people score 13s and 14s so dont think its impossible with enough practice and perhaps a little luck!

 

[grburst]

For me personally, I thought that the difficulty of the passages in Kaplan verbals were similar to the verbals I saw when I sat the test, however, the test day passages did seem a little longer, and a lot of other people reported the same thing. So if you are scoring double digits on kaplan tests that is probably a good sign, but see if you can do so without taking the whole time allotted (i.e. see if you can finish 4 or 5 minutes early) because you dont want that to hold you back on the real thing if the passages take longer to read.

That being said, having read a lot of sdn posts it seems like there are other sources with more difficult passages (Exam krackers and TPR I believe? someone with experience with these will hopefully comment) that you might want to try out so that you will be prepared for harder passages too in case you get a particularly tough section on the real thing

EDIT: forgot to answer your last question! Once I started hitting an 11 or 12 on my practice exam verbal section I found it pretty much impossible to score any higher. I think that is because the difference between a 12 and 13 or 13 and 14 is usually like one question, and it seems like every test has about 4 or 5 questions that have two really good answers/are somewhat ambiguous, and at that point it is probably just luck as to if you pick the answer they intend you to. However I have seen people score 13s and 14s so dont think its impossible with enough practice and perhaps a little luck!

Thanks for your advice. I did them under test-taking conditions (quiet, with headphones) and I finished all of them 15-20 minutes early (I was too lazy to go back and check them again, maybe I should do that). So I won't have an issue with running out of time, though I should probably time myself better.

I will look at the more difficult passages in EK and TPRH. Thanks.

So you're saying 12+ is luck? That makes sense. I wonder if there's a way to nail down those last few questions. I guess I'll figure it out with practice.

 

[kittykattat]

Thanks for your advice. I did them under test-taking conditions (quiet, with headphones) and I finished all of them 15-20 minutes early (I was too lazy to go back and check them again, maybe I should do that). So I won't have an issue with running out of time, though I should probably time myself better.

I will look at the more difficult passages in EK and TPRH. Thanks.

So you're saying 12+ is luck? That makes sense. I wonder if there's a way to nail down those last few questions. I guess I'll figure it out with practice.

Oh wow thats very impressive, although then again I am a pretty slow reader so finishing 5 minutes early was a big feat for me, though I did go through and double check roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of the questions (usually just the hardest passage or two plus the ones I had marked) on each exam before moving on to BS.

Well some have argued that high scores are luck, but surely with more practice skill becomes more of a factor than luck. I actually started studying pretty late (only about 1.5 months before my exam) so I didnt have any time to try different techniques to boost my score (I hit that 11/12 point wall about a week or two before my test) so if you have to time to try different techniques I am sure you can do much better than I did