MCAT Writing Sample Explanations Thread

[lorelei]

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To Futuredoctr: That's a really good question, and I think most people have the most trouble with those "what does the author think?" questions. It's a difficult skill to develop, but if you're willing to work at it you can do it.

I think the biggest thing is how you're approaching the passage. In the sciences, you try to read a passage primarily for understanding. In verbal, not only do you have to understand what the author is saying, but why s/he's saying it and how s/he forms the argument.

So try reading some passages, thinking about the following questions:

-what is the purpose of this passage? Why did the author take the time to sit down and write this? (In the sciences, the answer is often "to explain an experiment" or "to teach us about X reaction" but in verbal you're frequently looking for "to convince us of Y argument" or "to defend Z position." The author has some sort of interest, or he wouldn't bother to sit down and write an essay. If you can find the author's bias you're there.)

-what is the purpose of this paragraph or sentence? Is it background information? Is it an explanation of an opinion? Is it supporting examples?

-if I were arguing with this person, where would I attack their argument? Where are there assumptions or personal opinions? I find this strategy useful because it makes you look at how the author is building the argument.

Watch out for key words that show you opinions: these aren't just things like "I think" or "personally" but also clearly, obviously, on the contrary, simply, everyone, no one, pervasive, .... I'm sure people can think of more.
These are words that people usually don't use unless they have some sort of investment in the topic - and thus, a particular viewpoint. Noticing them can help you find out what the author thinks.

There are also key words that help you follow the structure of an argument. Some of these overlap with the above set, but here I'm looking for ways to follow how the author builds his case, more than what exactly the case is. Some of these might be then, however, also, but, primarily, further, in contrast, ....

The overall goal is to see the passage as not just a bunch of information, but an argument.

I would suggest trying to read some passages in this way - you can use other pieces as well, like newspaper columns or opinion pieces in higher-level magazines like The Economist. Practice seeing the argument, don't worry about speed at this point. It sounds like you CAN read fast enough, so work on understanding and once you have that down, practice for speed.

 

[QofQuimica]

I took my first 30 minute verbal test in examkrakers. I got a 6 🙄
The hardest type of questions I find are questions that ask on what the author's stance is concerning what is being covered in the passage, it is so difficult to get a sense of the tone of the author. It felt awkward trying to do the verbal based on their suggested approach.

Adding to lorelei's great suggestions about always considering the author's purpose when reading MCAT passages, I'd like to also point out that most authors of MCAT passages are writing "scholarly articles," not polemics. In other words, it would be highly unusual to read an MCAT passage where the author is ranting and raving like a lunatic. Rather, most passages have a sober, considered, and deliberate tone. Even when an author is expressing disagreement with some other expert in the field, s/he will do so in a reserved manner. This subtlety is a part of what makes it difficult to pick out the author's viewpoint sometimes. But there will still be clues to tell you where the author stands with regard to the topic (positive, negative, or neutral). Look for the opinion keywords that Lorelei mentioned above to help you pick up on this. Also, avoid picking extreme choices for the author's viewpoint, unless the tone of the passage is also extreme. Again, such a passage would be uncommon.

 

[lorelei]

Neurolemma, that's a hard question to answer, because what worked for me doesn't work for everyone else. I bet we could get all the 14-15 scorers to share their strategies and they would all be different. There really isn't one single way to approach it.

That said, here's what I personally did. I would read the passage through, reading critically but not taking a huge amount of time to figure out details I didn't understand. I did make sure that I understood the overall argument and thrust of the passage though. Then I read the questions, answered the ones I knew, and referred back to the passage for the few that I didn't.

I never skipped passages, because for me it was more trouble than it was worth to remember what I had to come back to.

Again, my strategy was what personally worked for me. I'm a fast reader (I did always finish ahead of time), I'm good at grasping arguments, and I had a double engineering/humanities major so I was somewhat used to reading humanities passages. (The art ones were the worst for me.) And I'm not used to marking up textbooks so it never really occurred to me to mark up the passages, though I did occasionally underline or star things that I knew I was coming back to.

In general, I think it's a good idea to read the passage first, because if you can get a handle on the argument (as I described upthread) you will be able to answer several of the questions very quickly, and know where things are when you need to refer back. Whether to underline or make notes is up to you - I essentially mapped the passage in my head, but I think most people do better with some actual marks on the page.

Skipping passages, again, is a personal thing, but I'd recommend only doing it if you come to a passage that's making you freak out for whatever reason. If you're going to be wasting time hyperventilating, go on to the next one, but as long as you can stay calm and tackle the passages one by one I think steaming ahead is probably the best way to go.

If you feel like you need to try out some different strategies, be sure to do it on practice full-lengths well before the MCAT. You may find that a certain technique really helps you, or you may be surprised to find that it doesn't work at all. And you don't want to be showing up on test day, still dithering about whether to read the passage or the questions first. You should have your style pretty much down by then.

I'm trying to think of tips for the humanities passages. I'll get back to you on that.

 

[mustangsally65]

I'm doing the EK 1001 Gen Chem questions, and have checked the EK website for typos on this, and haven't found any.

Number 51 on page 4 says:

Which of the following is ordered correctly in terms of atomic radius, from smallest to largest?

A. Al_3+, Al, S, S_2- (these numbers are supposed to be charges)
B. Al_3+, S, Al, S_2-
C. S, Al_3+, S_2-, Al
D. S, S_2-, Al_3+, Al

I picked A, but the back of the book says:

"B is correct. Positive ions are much smaller than their neutral counterparts; negative ions are much larger. Since the size of neutral atoms decreases as you move from left to right across the periodic table, neutral Al is bigger than neutral sulfur, and the correct answer is B."

I thought elements increased in size going left to right? Have I missed one of the most fundamental concepts in Chemistry?

 

[stoleyerscrubz]

This a cut and paste by a post made by lukewhite some months ago. Hope it's ok:


On the questions, get good at inferences. While I'm biased, I'd say that Kaplan is exceptional on this point, both in the amount of questions you have available to hone the skill and in the method. The main thing to remember for inference questions is that the right answer MUST be true based on the passage; if it may or may not be true, it's incorrect. This, in my opinion, is the single biggest factor keeping students who score in the 9-11 range from getting to the 12+ range: if you mistake something possibly true for something definitely true, or vice versa, on only a few questions you've automatically taken your score down a few points.

Make sure you understand what certain types of questions look like. Again, Kaplan's excellent on this, both in terms of volume and instruction. If you can glance at a question and know its category, you can spend less time trying to analyze what it's asking; you'll already have a good idea.

And finally, don't fall into the trap of trying to justify every wrong answer choice to yourself--when I take a practice test, I routinely skip answers I don't understand. Chances are that if they don't make sense, they're wrong and you'll find one much better a little below. Students often run out of time because they insist on fully understanding every choice, when you're only rewarded, of course, for picking the right answer.

Get in the habit of doing a couple "scans"...an easy question may only require one scan, while a hard question may first get you down to two answer choices and then allow you to compare them to each other. It's way easier to compare two choices than four!

We perhaps sometimes don't emphasize the inference enough. Not only is it a common problem area for students, but it's really the foundation for all other major question types...the higher-order questions all depend, to some extent, on the ability to make inferences and then do something else.

Remember that an inference will necessarily be very close to what the passage says. I'm constantly flipping back and forth while taking a practice test; missing a particular phrase is often enough to miss the justification for an inference. When you see an answer choice on an inference question, I'd go through these "filters":

1. Does it look wrong? If so, move on
2. Does it look obviously right? If so, you're probably done once you scan the others quickly to be sure.
3. If you're unsure, before evaluating the choice, figure out what it's referring to in the passage (this may be more than one place!) With a good idea of the passage's structure, you can go back, quickly look for relevant words/ideas and compare them to the choice. This is incredibly helpful for narrowing down and clarifying your thought processes.

Too many students try to power through an inference through sheer logic without reference back to the passage, which is deadly. Identify the question as inference, figure out what the likely choices are (usually you can narrow this down to two fairly easily) and then use the passage as your final filter to get down to 1. I'd say that this will get you the right answer 70-90% of the time, with the other 10% involving a little more reasoning and synthesis.

 

[stoleyerscrubz]

Another post by lukewhite. Hope it's ok.

A more specific Verbal tip today since I've been posting fairly broad strategies. This one deals with possibly the worst species of question on MCAT Verbal:

"Which of the following is a claim made in the passage, but not supported by evidence, explanation, or example?"

On the surface, this would seem to be a detail question with some evaluation. Most test-takers approach this by painstakingly locating each choice in the passage and then reading in context to see if it has supporting details. That's the sort of approach that can lose you 1-2 minutes on a single question: not worth it!

As with most MCAT Verbal, the trick is to think about it structurally. Where is a claim made in the passage but not supported by e/e/e likely to be? Probably at the end of the passage or the end of a major point. Scan the choices to see if one of them fits that criteria, and then go back to double check.

This won't always work; there's another criterion to try. What sort of claim is unlikely to be supported by e/e/e/? One that is itself evidence, explanation, or example. Does one of the answer choices involve something the author mentioned, but only as an off-topic reference to support the main point? Chances are it's going to be your answer--authors rarely provide evidence for their evidence.

Remember: The Verbal's set up not only to reward people who can get the right answer, but people who can get the right answer quickly. Doing a question fast is as important to your score as doing it correctly!

 

[QofQuimica]

I find that writing on the side of each paragraph takes a bit of time to do. Plus, I do not find that it helps me much! I am wondering if I am writing the wrong type of information. What do you experts recommend to write in the margins of each paragraph? Please be explicit. In addition, do you experts find reading the questions first helps? My problem with the Kaplan tests is that I read the passage and annotate the living crap out of the passage, then I get to the questions and the annotations do not really help me! I just get overwhelmed because I feel like I have wasted time annotating and have to go back to the passage to located things!! Thanks

It sounds like you are writing way too much. There are two very important things to keep in mind when annotating paragraphs:

1. Your annotations should be SHORT. If you're writing entire sentences, it's too much. You should only be writing a few words or a phrase at most. Also, do not write out whole words if you can avoid it. Abbreviate as much as possible (eg., write "rxn" for "reaction" and "exp" for "experiment.") If you don't know formal shorthand, then make up your own. I use Spanish words sometimes if they're shorter than the English ones, such as "y" for "and," and "sino" for "but rather." Other people might not understand your shorthand, but the only thing that matters is that you do.

2. Your annotations should focus on the passage's ARGUMENT, not the DETAILS. This is difficult for many pre-med students, because it's the opposite of what you generally do in your science classes. Say you have a passage about two competing theories of what causes the greenhouse effect. In an environmental science class, you'd probably be expected to memorize the evidentiary DETAILS for each theory and list them on your test. But on the MCAT, most questions will not be about the details. Rather, they will largely be about the ARGUMENTS made for, against, and by each theory. The details are just there to bolster the author's case. You will be asked questions like what the author means when s/he makes some statement, how to strengthen or weaken an argument, and whether the author would agree with some statement based on his/her position in the passage. So, to do well on the MCAT VR, you need to focus your attention on the arguments themselves, rather than on the evidence given to support or refute them.

Lorelei's previous post about pretending to debate with the author is a good suggestion for teaching yourself to focus on the arguments rather than on the details. You might also try asking yourself whether the author takes a side in a debate, and if so, which one and why. In some passages, the author will present one side of a controversy, but then agree with the opponent. In others, s/he will simply present both sides and remain neutral.

 

[QofQuimica]

what do you do when you dont understand the passage, and even if you read it slowly, you still dont understand it? also, when you read the answers the MC questions, it also still does not make any sense.

The first thing to do is to follow the immortal words inscribed on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Don't Panic. You don't have to understand everything in the passage in order to understand the main argument of the author and answer the questions. If the argument itself is what confuses you, try to at least figure out if the author is positive, negative, or neutral toward his/her subject. That will help you answer questions that ask you things like if the author would agree or disagree with such-and-such a position. My other suggestion would be to do a passage like this last. Finish every other passage in the section, and THEN come back and do the one that is hard to comprehend last. That way, if you spend too much time agonizing over it, it won't affect your work on the other passages, which you have already completed.

lorelei, shrike, anyone have any other ideas?

 

[lorelei]

PLEASE HELP,
I've practiced the verbal section of Kaplan for nearly a week, but never finished on time and always get the Roman numeral questionS wrong, please help

I studied for two weeks for verbals, but didn't improve at all. I feel so discouraged. Can someone help me? What did I do wrong? Did I approach the section wrong?

THANKS

First of all, QofQuimica and I both gave some advice upthread about tackling Verbal, so if you haven't checked that out it might give you a hand.

How are your practice scores? Do you think if you could just finish on time you'd be OK? And are you spending your time mostly on the passages or on the questions? Or is it more a problem of being able to get the answers right?

If you're spending too long on the passages, you should remember that you don't need to read for minute detail, as long as you remember where the details are - you can always come back. Try to get the structure, not every single piece of content. If you're spending too long on the questions, you may be overanalyzing. Keeping in mind the general idea and purpose of the passage can help there. Or if you're taking too long going back to the passage for answers, you might want to work on your mapping, so you can have a cheat sheet as to where various points are discussed.

For the Roman numeral questions, the strategy I like to use is elimination. See if any of the choices (I, II, or III) jump out at you - if II is definitely wrong, eliminate all the choices that have it, and if II is definitely right, eliminate all the choices that DON'T have it. Then go through the choices, focusing on which ones will eliminate the most answer choices. You can often figure out the answer even if you don't know whether one of the numerals is right or wrong.

 

[Nutmeg]

the passage had a lot of detail. a lot of review books say dont focus on the details, focus on the big picture. but.. how do you *not* focus on the details if you dont even understand the details? i feel that you need to understand the details to understand the big pic (?).

since you dont understand the details, you will just find yourself skimming the passage (since you think details dont matter) in hope of finding the big pic, and in the end, you are clueless on what the passage was about. (well, thats how it was for me 🙁)

The point in the details isn't that you retain each and every point made in each detail. You have to do two things very quickly--1) understand what is actually being described, and 2) figure out why the author wasted your time bringing it up. How does the point pertain to his argument? Look for combining phrases used to link a point to the rest--does the author say "additionally" (implying that it is further support of the previour point) or "however" (meaning that the point is a caveat that might be partially contrary to the previous point) or "nevertheless" (meaning that a conclusion holds in the face of the caveats presented)? You don't need to know the details, but you do need to understand them briefly enough to relate them to a central point. Once you understand a point, and you can meake sense of it in context, you can forget it and move on.

Look for these things also in the transitions between paragraphs. Ultimately, you should be looking for a thesis and for a structured support of that thesis. the author is not trying to make you remember a concatenation of facts--they want to convince you of the existence and dynamics of a process.

 

[lorelei]

Nutmeg has good advice about understanding WHY details are there, not understanding every little bit.

As far as recognizing what is skippable, there are some typical structures that give you that hint. For example: "Sandra Day O'Connor was a paragon, an example to women everywhere, a perfect choice as the first female justice." (I just made that up.) In that sentence, and pretty much any sentence with that structure, the three things set off by commas are all similar to each other. If you don't know what "paragon" means, that's OK - you know, based on the structure, that it has to be something similar to the other two. And you don't need to read them all carefully, just remember that this is stuff about why O'Connor is awesome.

There's a similar structure, like this: "Condoleezza Rice is a classically trained pianist, a figure skater, and a football fan." The "and" in there means that the details are NOT all the same thing, but they are three details that are somewhat related. In this case, it's Rice's hobbies. Still, you don't need to memorize them or even necessarily understand them all (my examples are obvious, but there could be one with words you don't know), just note what they're about in general.

Also, anything with numbers is a detail. Don't worry about memorizing or understanding them, just note where they are and what they're about.

Another hint: repetition usually hints that there are several examples or statements about the same thing. For example, this quote from the VR example on aamc.org (http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/vrsampleitems.pdf):

"It is important to see that we don't just talk about
arguments in terms of war. We can actually win or
lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing
with as an opponent. We attack his positions and we
defend our own. We gain and lose ground. We plan
and use strategies."

All those sentences that start with "We" are examples of how arguments are not just TALKED ABOUT in terms of war, but really experienced and structured in terms of war (which is what the author says in words in the rest of the paragraph). This is typical. When you get a list like this, you don't need to necessarily understand every item, but understand what the list consists of, and why it's there.

I will try to keep an eye out for more examples of ways to identify details, but I hope these few starting points help.

 

[lorelei]

Mostwanted: Something I've done on occasion to figure out the author's point of view is to find the place where s/he is talking about the relevant point, and look for any non-necessary words: words that don't absolutely have to be there to convey the facts, as well as words that could have been chosen differently to give a different impression. See what would be lost by stripping the prose down to the bare minimum, and that usually gives you an idea of the author's viewpoint.

Unfortunately I haven't had enough time to find good public-domain examples, but here is one from a blog I'm currently reading that might give you the idea. (Copied from http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/06/16/look_up_in_the_sky_flying_hobbits.php)

Skeptics find this possibility implausible, arguing that it’s more likely this individual was just a pygmy human with some genetic defect. As far as I can tell, this skepticism about shrinking hominid brains flows from two sources.

(first source snipped)

The other source of skepticism, which I mentioned in my last post, is a vague sense that when it comes to hominid brains, evolution cannot run in reverse. It’s certainly true that if you draw a graph of hominid brain size over time, it has climbed to spectacular heights...

In the first paragraph, take "skeptics" - that's a loaded word. Does he consider himself a skeptic? Probably not. Saying "as far as I can tell" implies that he doesn't really understand the skeptics' viewpoint, so presumably he doesn't share it. ("implausible" and "just" are two other words you might take notice of.)

Second paragraph, "vague" also implies that he doesn't share that sense - respectable scientific hypotheses shouldn't be vague. Then in the next sentence, the use of "certainly" in this case is implying that a "BUT" is coming up soon (it's the next paragraph, in fact) - like saying "well, I'll give you that, BUT that's the only part you have right."

This is obviously not an ideal passage for this use, because Zimmer isn't at all trying to hide his viewpoint, but it might give you an idea of the kind of thing to look for.

If people think it would be helpful, I can try to find some more-suitable passages to point out these sorts of key words in.

---

rrshah, it's true that detail questions are relatively rare, though I don't know an exact percentage. Different test forms will vary. I don't think there's much of an analytical strategy - just use your passage map to find the relevant section, and look up the detail. If it takes more analysis than that, it's not a detail question.

 

[Twitch]

The density of a 3.54 M solution of NH4Cl in water is 1.0512 g/mL. What is the molality of the solution? (The molar mass of NH4Cl is 53.45 g/mol.)

 

[Nutmeg]

lorelei,

I've been having trouble coming up with a main idea. I seem to coming up with a summary rather than a main idea for those more scientific passages. As well, sometimes, my main idea doesn't seem too "detailed" as I compare it with some of the answers presented in questions.

I think a lot of what this test looks for is the ability to separate fact and opinion. That's why you get questions like "does it strengthen or weaken to say...?" and so forth. So with each assertion, you need to look for the facts (which mean something to the summary, but not to the point) while the conclusions derived from those facts--which are opinions that they seek to support by the facts--are the main idea.

View all authors as attempting not to inform you, but to pursuade you. What conclusion are they trying to make you draw from the data? Are there any conceivable ways in which the data might be construed to mean something else? Even if you know nothing about the subject, can you imagine a person disagreeing with the conclusions?

When they ask you "what's the main idea?" the answer is not likely to be the pure informational themes that they give, like "many painters in the 18th century worked with one another." That's just informational--it sounds like that's just a trend demonstrated by the anecdotal evidence that might be presented. More interesting as an idea is that, say, they were not appreciated in their time, or that European painters were more appreciated in the US than at home, or so forth. There's a subjective quality to these sorts of assertions, and to back this up, one would likely give a series of anecdotes.

Don't just try to identify what the anecdotal information has in common; try to seek why it is relevant. Try and find the assertion which would be constroversial or unexpected if the anecdotes weren't there.

Apart from that, there are situations with those sorts of questions where every answer choice is an opinion. It these instance, you want to be sure that you find something that applies to every (or almost every) paragraph, rather than applying to only one paragraph. If the selection applies to one example given, it is not the theme.

The final pitfall is the qualifiers seen at the beginning of the article. Sometimes you have a choice which refers to a statement made in the opening paragraph that is not the thesis itself. Generally, such a claim, made at the outset, is made to justify the course of reasoning that will proceed. It is common for people that are seeking to pursuade that they first rty to justify why you should read the article, or to dispel a common conception that impedes their ability to teach you something new. These things are not theses.

*In short, look for the theme/thesis/main idea as an *opinion* that acts as a recurrent theme throughout, and that the supporting evidence would act to support in all or most all instances.*

 

[QofQuimica]

hey q and lore!...
I have been doin really bad in verbal so far....I am takin kaplan and i have done every single kaplan hw so far. I had a 6 on my verbal on the diag..then i got a 7 on fl1 and an 8 on fl2 and now i got a 6 again on fl 3.....I have no idea wat is going on...First, I tried to use kaplans strategy of mappin things and I ran out of major time when i was doin sectional tests at home...Then i started using EK strategy of reading the passage str8 thru keepin the purpose and main idea in my mind and i did that for FL2 and got an 8 so i figured that would work for me...However, with the same thing i got a 6 on fl3 like 10 more wrong than the previous exam....I am also getting bogged down on questions too much which is why i have yet to finish a verbal section on time...i always have atleast a passage left over...NEED HELP PLEASE!!!

I'm not very familiar with EK's method, so I'm not going to comment about it. But I can tell you that the biggest mistakes that Kaplan students make when trying to map passages is that they write too much, and they focus on the wrong things. Lorelei has written some excellent posts previously about how important it is to focus on the author's purpose, argument, and thought process, and not on the details s/he uses to support that argument. Your map should be an outline of the purpose of each paragraph, not the details (in other words, not just a paraphrase). Also, it is absolutely essential that you write very little. Be as lazy as possible. Abbreviate as much as you can, leave out articles (a, an, the), and take other shortcuts to minimize the amount of writing you can do while still making your notes readable. If you are writing whole sentences, you are writing way too much. Save that for the essay section. Finally, you mentioned getting bogged down on questions; are you predicting answers before you look at the answer choices? If not, start doing this, as it helps to force you to think about the important parts of the passage and avoid choosing answers that are outside the author's scope and purpose.

It is definitely harder to raise your VR score compared to the science sections, but it IS possible with enough practice and effort. Unfortunately, there isn't any suggestion I can give to you that will automatically make it easy. Try to keep a positive attitude, and keep practicing your critical reading and answer prediction skills for the next few weeks. A very large portion of success in this whole process of becoming a physician comes from simply refusing to give up.

 

[lorelei]

Hey guys, I'm sorry I've been incommunicado for awhile. My move to St. Louis has taken me away from an internet connection for huge stretches of time. However, Nutmeg and Q have been doing a great job in my absence.

Re: strengthening and weakening questions.

Basically when you come to one of these questions, the first thing you have to know is - what is the author's argument? What assertions does s/he put forward, and what conclusions does s/he draw? Something that strengthens the argument will very often be something that supports the assertions - more data, or something that lets you know the author's assumptions are correct. On the contrary, something that weakens the argument will contradict the author's evidence or assumptions, or show that the conclusions don't necessarily follow.

So you have to be really clear on what argument the author is making. Then, you can frequently predict the type of answer that would strengthen or weaken the argument (though obviously you can't predict the exact answer).

As far as becoming clear on the argument, of course there's a lot of stuff earlier in the thread that QofQuimica and I have written. I think the overall best question to ask yourself is: WHY did the author take the time to write this passage? What is it that they're trying to convince the reader of? If you figure out why someone would bother to spend all that time writing something, you know what the overall point is, and the purpose of the argument.

I'm going to try and go back through and answer the questions that still seem to be outstanding in the next day or two - I know you guys are really getting down to the wire. Keep working at it - I think everyone who's asked questions and then gotten back to me with results has been making good progress.

 

[lorelei]

I've been reviewing the questions i've gotten wrong. I've been getting the questions about drawing conclusions or implications from a statement or the passage wrong. Are there any hints or suggestions that you guys think will help?

First, if you're not doing it already, look back over this thread for the tips QofQuimica and I have given on analyzing arguments. (I say that so often. It's good advice though!)

For these questions, it's important to understand what a conclusion or implication means in this context.

A conclusion is what the evidence adds up to: given A, B, and C facts or assertions from the passage, conclusion X has to be true. Look for something that HAS to be true given the evidence in the passage. (To check this, see what happens if you say your chosen answer is NOT true. Does it make the argument in the passage fall apart?)

An implication is what has to be true in order to build an argument. That is, it's something that's assumed as part of the evidence.

Here's an (obvious) example of this. I just moved, and while unpacking I couldn't find my box cutter. I told my mom "Only you and I packed boxes, and *I* didn't pack the box cutter into a box."

The (unstated) conclusion there is that my mom was the one who packed it into a box (useful place for a box cutter, eh?). The implication, as you might have noticed, is that the box cutter WAS packed into a box, as opposed to riding in the glove compartment or something.

While I'm analyzing arguments, let's talk about strengthening/weakening again. I could strengthen my argument by supporting either the facts or the assumption implicit in the argument. Examples of this: No one else who helped me move packed any boxes. It is discovered that the box cutter is not in the U-Haul truck.

To weaken the argument, again, I can either contradict the facts or attack the assumption. For example: My dad packed two boxes. A grocery bag full of important stuff was packed and carried in the front seat of the car.

(I still haven't found the box cutter.)

 

[QofQuimica]

Another question, is there anything that can be done to improve Natural Sciences? It's odd, but I generally am able to do fine on Humanities and Social Sciences, but the "Easy" ones eat me up...Maybe too much outside info?

Outside knowledge is definitely a big no-no on the verbal section, whether on science passages or any other type. There have been times when some of my students have known enough about a passage topic to be able to argue the point with the author; don't do this. For the purpose of the MCAT, go with what the author says, even if you believe that s/he is full of, ahem, excrement. You are being tested on your ability to understand the author's argument and apply it to new scenarios, NOT on the objective validity of the argument. So like Moose said, stay focused on the point the author is making, and don't ever think about your own beliefs on the topic.

adiddas125, if you get a question or passage that is hard to understand, my suggestion is to save it for last, and do the easier ones first. Remember that every question is worth the same amount on the MCAT, so there's no advantage to answering harder questions correctly like there is on some tests like the GRE. It's great to hear that you are improving so much on VR. Best of luck to you next week. 🙂

 

[N1DERL&]

Just for that I think I should vote for you again!

 

[hippocampus]

if Q > Ksp, a ppt form..

but what about le chat's principle? wouldn't it make it not form?

so does it ppt, or does it not?

thanks!