MCAT Verbal Question!!!~~~

[Matrix]

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Hi all!!~~~

Ok, here's my question. my professors + advisors told me that to increase my MCAT scores on any section; practice! practice! practice!!!! doing MCAT questions + go back to the questions that i got wrong and study them by going through old lecture notes, or find out why i got it wrong by looking at the explanation in the answer section.
Now, for Bio + Phys sci sections, this method kind of works for me. When i get a question wrong, i know why i got it wrong + it helps in the future practice questions because i can see which information i was lacking when i read the answer section. For example, i'll know i got #7 wrong because i was lacking information on protein synthesis. Next time when a bio question related to protein synth pops up, i would have already studied + know detailed info about protein synth and get that question right.
The verbal section is a different story. No matter how many times i analyze that passage or know the reason why i got a question wrong, it still won't help in the future practice exams because the chances for a similar passage or info coming up on the verbal section ... 0 .... will it help if i analyze + read the answer keys in detail about a passage about the French revolution for my future verbal practice MCAT ... not for me ..
i know some of the tactics about how to approach the verbal section, for example, start with the passage that you're most confident with ..etc ... but how can you 'actually' review or study the questions that you got wrong so that you won't make the same mistake in the future?? .... is there a point in going back to the questions that i got wrong and analyze the entire passage again + try to figure out why i got the question wrong??? (for the science sections, i think this method works pretty well because while you're doing this, you get to pick up so much more information that you may have forgotten or just didn't know about)
or shall i just continue doing verbal passages, analyze what i got wrong using the description from the answer keys, so that oneday, something will just 'click'???
is there any other way of studying for this section other than continously doing the verbal practice questions + read Times, JAMA, The Economist, The NYT etc everyday??
English is my second language by the way and i just can't get a score higher than 6 on my practice verbal exams!
help!!!~~~~

 

[ntxawmx]

Someone posted this thread a while back. See if it's helpful to you:
http://www.studentdoctor.net/bbs/Forum1/HTML/000681.html

Good luck!

 

[gower]

I always believed that there is something called "test taking skill." Some folks have a natural talent, some can learn it and others never develop it. The skill is essentially the ability to go through an exam quickly, spot the questions where they are sure of the correct answers and temporaily bypass the others. After seeing all the questions, return to the others. If it is a multiple choice exam, like the MCAT, there are questions where some of the choices can be eliminated; make a guess at the other choices. Usually, that permits a 50:50 chance of being right. Finally, pick any choice on the remaining questions; on the MCAT that gives a 25% chance of getting a right answer. Try to answer ALL questions. The MCAT score is based on the total# of correct answers; nothing is deducted for wrong or no answers. So, you lose nothing for wrong answers; if you fail to complete the section you have no chance of getting credit for the questions unanswered whereas there is at least a 25% chance of getting credit if you pick any choice, and in some cases, a 50% chance. But that means you must learn to work quickly, not spending too much time on any single question. It requires discipline to do this.
The science questions require some subject matter knowledge. Chemistry and physics can usually be dealt with if you understand general principles and don't get bogged down with memorizing an overload of detail. Biology is more difficult to handle from general principles, but if you try to memorize too many details (however many is too many), your brain will become constipated and have difficulty retrieving the right answers. You will have to be the judge of how much is too much.
Verbal reasoning, unlike the science parts, does not respond well to memorizing. You would need more than a lifetime to memorize what might conceivably be asked. It pays to be well read, to be able to read and understand when there isn't enough time, and to have developed your sense of reasoning. And that is exactly what the MCAT is trying to assess! Talk to any medical student and you will hear that the amount of information they have to master is often overwhelming. There is never enough time to learn it all.
Slow readers are at a disadvantage. While the VR part of the MCAT is not all about science, the principle is the same.
Some years ago, a woman whose speciality was teaching freshmen test taking skills, decided to take the MCAT herself. (I no longer have the reference to the paper she published). Her only college science was a freshman, non major biology. She never had chemistry of physics. When she arrived at the test site she found some students still filling in forms. Not a good sign. She noticed another who had everything ready, took a seat, put his sharpened pencils neatly on the desk, took off his shoes and placed a pillow on his seat. Good test taker she thought. She was a bit panicky at first, but settled down. I don't remember her exact scores, but she did rather well in chemistry and physics (using reasoning) and less so in biology because that required more subject matter knowledge. It would not have been a good enough score if she were actually an applicant, but considering that she did not have the science coursework, it was remarkable.
In my experience, too many students engage in overkill preparing for the MCAT and for all that do not necessarily do well. Study should be consistent, requiring discipline, but not overwhelming. I always recommended to students to stop reviewing the evening before an exam, find something relaxing or diverting to occupy your time. Do not continue to study right up the moment before
exam papers are handed out. Lighten up, even if the stakes are high.
And read, read, read: not textbooks, but novels, poetry, history, a newspaper, whatever appeals to you most. Learn on your own outside the classroom, educate yourself and don't depend entirely on college to do the job for you. You will be happier camper for it and have pride in your own skills. Or you can be a happy camper by partying all the time, but that is much less likely to get you where you want to be. Self-discipline.

 

[medgrrl]

Here's what I got from going back and analyzing specific questions that I had gotten wrong- I figured out that;
1. If you have a choice, pick the most OBVIOUS answer. I found that when I nit-picked and tried to narrow down 2 choicecs by analyzing the words in the passage, I invariably OVERTHOUGHT the questions. So I learned to take "the simple way out" when I was stuck between 2 answers.
2. I did about 5 practice exams in my prep course, and I found that going back and correcting my answers in the last 5 minutes of the test WAS NOT WORTH IT (I usually was right the first time). Exception- if I managed to find a SPECIFIC sentence in the passage referred to (implicitly) by the question that I had not managed to locate the first time around, then I knew I could safely change the answer.
3. In general, I found that I missed about 1 question per section because I had failed to realize that the info I needed was straight out of the passage. I realized that this was a no-no- if you "need" to get a wrong answer, you want it to be limited to the kind you really couldn't have done anything about, like inference questions- not giveaways.

That was really the only use I had for going back to incorrect verbal answers- to see what types of questions I was gettting wrong, and to develop future strategies accordingly. But otherwise, I wouldn't spend too much time analyzing old verbal questions- your precious studying time is better spent, well, studying!

HTH

 

[ask698]

Don't concentrate on the content that appears in the verbal passages. In stead look at the type of passage and type of questions you are having problems with. For example, be aware if maina idea type questions are gnerally what give you trouble.