low verbal score (5)

[wander]

I'm soooooooooo frustrated about my verbal score (5). I know this section is the hardest to improve.........but does anyone have any advice? I'm planning to retake this august, but I don't know if I can improve much.

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[onyxbp]

I'm soooooooooo frustrated about my verbal score (5). I know this section is the hardest to improve.........but does anyone have any advice? I'm planning to retake this august, but I don't know if I can improve much.

i just started studyin for the mcat this past week, but i kno what helps me is after reading the passage, or even after just reading each paragraph, id come up with what i thot the "main idea" was. I think this alone will help answer a lot of the questions

 

[DrTacoElf]

practice until your blue in the face, read a scientific article every day and do at least one passage with questions per day. Eventually you will start to see patterns.

 

[vinoyp]

Go to www.nytimes.com and get a free subscription.

For 30 minutes in the morning every day, read articles from various sections. Front page, Science and Health, Arts, Book review, Opinion and Editorial.

Later on in the day, while driving or eating, see if you can recall the details of the stories you read.

As exam week approaches, do all the problems in TPR VR questions book.

My score on VR went from a 6 to a 12 doing just this.

--Vinoy

 

[wander]

thanks for the comments

 

[bigdan]

A hot tip from an SDNer with a 15 verbal said to read "Harper's" ( i think ), which is chock-full-o'-difficult passages.

dc

 

[saildawg]

Do you have a link to harpers or the thread that contains it.
Thanks

 

[bigdan]

nope, actually.

I PMed someone that got a 15, and she told me such. Sorry.

dc

 

[jammin06]

i just started studyin for the mcat this past week, but i kno what helps me is after reading the passage, or even after just reading each paragraph, id come up with what i thot the "main idea" was. I think this alone will help answer a lot of the questions

i agree whole heartedly with this advice. I got a 5 on the verbal section diagnostic exam for TPR and after doin that for a couple of weeks, I feel like I have a bit more confidence. I really think that's what teh verbal is all about, if you feel confident in an answer, it's probably right. When u start overanalyzing each answer and start getting pressed for time, ur accuracy is bound to go down. Also, i found out that just trying to stay calm during the exam does wonders. I think test anxiety is something that everyone goes through while preparing for this exam. Something positive to think about is that at least u know you are weak in this area and can target your practice to doing better. Furthermore, hey, it's better now than on the real thing, right?

 

[Aegis]

I always sucked at verbal. On every practice test I was getting 6's and 7's, one time I got an 8. On the real thing I got a ten. It was probobly just a lot of luck but I do have one peace of advice. About two weeks away from the MCAT I came to the realization that Its not really about what I'm reading, but how I'm reading. Reading all of these scientific articles and the New York Times is great practice and everything, but just remember that practice makes permanent not perfect. So I took the big MCAT book that has a bunch of Verbal passages in it, and everyday I did a different passage. Each day I read it with a different strategy(they ranged from anything I could find, paraphrasing, underlining, whatever) Eventually I fould what worked best for me and I started to finish the passages faster. So you really have to experiment and find whats best for you. Don't be scared to try something different just because its not the Kaplan or TPR way.