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What types of things are recommended to better prepare for the verbal section of the MCAT? Please give suggestions on actual places to look for readings.
MCAT Verbal Section
- Thread starter Futurephysician__
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Reading is developed through everyday experience - that matters much more than doing "practice" MCAT passages. That's my opinion, at least. You should try to get into the habit of reading well-written articles - both news articles like NYTimes and science articles like those in Nature or Science.
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Everyone in entitled to their opinion and there probably isn't a one size fits all solution to the CARS, but I'd have to disagree pretty strongly with the "general reading" approach. I taught for one of the big test prep companies and have been on SDN for a year now working with people on CARS and I haven't seen this approach really produce results. The reading/ answer question combo of the CARS is unique and highly artificial, it's unlike anything you've ever done before. This is the reason that very few people start out with super high CARS score. I read probably 25 to 40 NY Times, Economist, Atlantic articles a week for a couple of years before studying for the MCAT. I was a philosophy major and was finishing a masters in the humanities and I still had to do a ton of passages to get my CARS score where I wanted it. CARS is a strange animal. My experience is that you have to practice CARS to get better at CARS.
With so many cheap CARS resources (EK, TPR, etc.) as well as the AAMC's own materials (which you 100% must do before taking your test) there's really no reason to spend time reading articles that may or may not be all that similar to what you'll see on test day. Furthermore, the "just read" approach completely lacks the synthesis required for answering questions and there's no mechanism to determine how well you actually understood what you just read. I think it's fine to do if you're more than 3 or 4 months from your test date (it certainly isn't going to hurt), but I don't think you're going to see as big of a bump if you instead spent an hour a day reading passages alone. Just my two cents...and definitely not trying to step on anyone's toes
With so many cheap CARS resources (EK, TPR, etc.) as well as the AAMC's own materials (which you 100% must do before taking your test) there's really no reason to spend time reading articles that may or may not be all that similar to what you'll see on test day. Furthermore, the "just read" approach completely lacks the synthesis required for answering questions and there's no mechanism to determine how well you actually understood what you just read. I think it's fine to do if you're more than 3 or 4 months from your test date (it certainly isn't going to hurt), but I don't think you're going to see as big of a bump if you instead spent an hour a day reading passages alone. Just my two cents...and definitely not trying to step on anyone's toes
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