This is the advice that someone gave me for doing well on the mcat verbal section. It helped me tremendously so I will share it with you guys. Hope it helps you too and good luck!
1. At first practice reading and answering one verbal section in 10 minutes. To get through the passage quicker, try gliding your pencil across the words. Weird I know, but it worked for me. Secondly, do not write too many notes on the passages. Simply circle key words or underline key phrases
2. Work on accuracy
3. Try doing two passages in 20 minutes, then 3 in 30 minutes...Once you can do 4 o4 5 in the 10 minutes time frame, its time to step it up.
4. Try doing one passage in 8 minutes, then two in 16 etc. You will see that you can easily do one passage no problem, but the more you pile on, the harder it will become. Get your brain used to the mental fatigue--in the end it will be good for you to do a whole bunch at a time. Mental fatigue, I felt, was a big thing for me to overcome.
5. Once you start doing entire test, work on skipping around. I f you start reading a passage and its hard or its about something you know nothing about skip it go on to another and get back to it at the end. You have to make this decision, though, within the first minute of reading it. If you are 5 minutes into it and decide to skip it, you've wasted 5 minutes and will have to go back and read again later. Likewise, if yo read a passage and a question is hard, skip that and go too another. Get back to it at the end. What I used to do was that for questions that were very
particular, that demanded that you go back and look for the answer, I would skip that and go back to it unless I knew it off the top of my head.
6. Berkley Review. You will find that these passages are very hard. I wouldstart first with the Princeton review books. Once you can do steps 1-5 on the PR stuff then move onto the Berkley stuff. Make sure that when you do either you Xerox them that way when you run out of passages, you can go back
and do them again. Yo will not remember them...there are a lot.
7. Once you can handle the 8 minute passages, try the Berkley review. The passages are a little bit longer and they throw in an extra passage or two so you have 85 minutes to do 11 instead of 9. On the actual test most people get 9 but some may get 10 or 11. If you can honestly do 11 in 85 minutes, time will not be an issue for you on the real deal Check on the amount of
time and amount of passages--I can't remember for sure. But I do remember that the BR had one or two extra.
8. Two months before the exam, what I did was I would wake up three times week, as if it was exam day and did the first part of the exam i.e. wake up at 7 am eat breakfast shower got to the library with a pen, scantron sheet, stop watch. I would do the verbal section like it was the real thing (I got into the habit of filling out the scantron sheet, instead of circling my
answers in the booklet. It really gets you used to taking hte test. Also fill out those circles take time so you need to take thins into account when practicing for this time oriented portion of the test
9. One month before the exam, I would take a full MCAT once or twice a week with the same routine as it was on test day. My friend also did this and we both felt test day came and we were used to the routine and just felt like it was another day taking a full est? We both did not feel mentally fatigued.
I actually thought it went to fast!
10. You may want to look at the Berkeley review verbal book I think it has some tips
11. Just get in the habit of reading--things that have a lot of information but are short in length. I read TIME, Newsweek and Nature.
Again, these are thing that I did or my friends did in preparation for this exam. Please do not confuse these suggestions as keys to success. You will have to decide what works best for you. Following what I did will not guarantee that you will do well. I just want to make that clear.
Take note, The MCAT tests how well you take tests. That's it. It does not measure how good of a doctor you will become nor will it predict how well you will do in medical school. It does not measure how smart you are. It will
unfortunately decide whether or not you get in. Schools focus on your score because many believe your MCAT performance will predict how you will perform on the boards.
1. At first practice reading and answering one verbal section in 10 minutes. To get through the passage quicker, try gliding your pencil across the words. Weird I know, but it worked for me. Secondly, do not write too many notes on the passages. Simply circle key words or underline key phrases
2. Work on accuracy
3. Try doing two passages in 20 minutes, then 3 in 30 minutes...Once you can do 4 o4 5 in the 10 minutes time frame, its time to step it up.
4. Try doing one passage in 8 minutes, then two in 16 etc. You will see that you can easily do one passage no problem, but the more you pile on, the harder it will become. Get your brain used to the mental fatigue--in the end it will be good for you to do a whole bunch at a time. Mental fatigue, I felt, was a big thing for me to overcome.
5. Once you start doing entire test, work on skipping around. I f you start reading a passage and its hard or its about something you know nothing about skip it go on to another and get back to it at the end. You have to make this decision, though, within the first minute of reading it. If you are 5 minutes into it and decide to skip it, you've wasted 5 minutes and will have to go back and read again later. Likewise, if yo read a passage and a question is hard, skip that and go too another. Get back to it at the end. What I used to do was that for questions that were very
particular, that demanded that you go back and look for the answer, I would skip that and go back to it unless I knew it off the top of my head.
6. Berkley Review. You will find that these passages are very hard. I wouldstart first with the Princeton review books. Once you can do steps 1-5 on the PR stuff then move onto the Berkley stuff. Make sure that when you do either you Xerox them that way when you run out of passages, you can go back
and do them again. Yo will not remember them...there are a lot.
7. Once you can handle the 8 minute passages, try the Berkley review. The passages are a little bit longer and they throw in an extra passage or two so you have 85 minutes to do 11 instead of 9. On the actual test most people get 9 but some may get 10 or 11. If you can honestly do 11 in 85 minutes, time will not be an issue for you on the real deal Check on the amount of
time and amount of passages--I can't remember for sure. But I do remember that the BR had one or two extra.
8. Two months before the exam, what I did was I would wake up three times week, as if it was exam day and did the first part of the exam i.e. wake up at 7 am eat breakfast shower got to the library with a pen, scantron sheet, stop watch. I would do the verbal section like it was the real thing (I got into the habit of filling out the scantron sheet, instead of circling my
answers in the booklet. It really gets you used to taking hte test. Also fill out those circles take time so you need to take thins into account when practicing for this time oriented portion of the test
9. One month before the exam, I would take a full MCAT once or twice a week with the same routine as it was on test day. My friend also did this and we both felt test day came and we were used to the routine and just felt like it was another day taking a full est? We both did not feel mentally fatigued.
I actually thought it went to fast!
10. You may want to look at the Berkeley review verbal book I think it has some tips
11. Just get in the habit of reading--things that have a lot of information but are short in length. I read TIME, Newsweek and Nature.
Again, these are thing that I did or my friends did in preparation for this exam. Please do not confuse these suggestions as keys to success. You will have to decide what works best for you. Following what I did will not guarantee that you will do well. I just want to make that clear.
Take note, The MCAT tests how well you take tests. That's it. It does not measure how good of a doctor you will become nor will it predict how well you will do in medical school. It does not measure how smart you are. It will
unfortunately decide whether or not you get in. Schools focus on your score because many believe your MCAT performance will predict how you will perform on the boards.
