My Verbal Experiences - a tip for people who struggle

[dartmed]

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I have been trying to stay away from there forums for the past few weeks (to avoid freaking-out), but I thought I would take the time to share a tip that's been helping me tremendously.

My initial verbal score on my diagnostic was a 6...terrible, I know. I have been doing 3 passages a day of verbal, trying new strategies, new ways to approach the questions, etc. I found Kaplan's strategy too tedious and EK was not effective for me either. So, I came-up with my own strategy.

My biggest problem was "remembering" the important information. When I read a passage, I tend to focus on things that are not important. So, when I got the questions, they NEVER asked on things I was anticipating or focused on. Sometimes, I didn't even know what the questions were asking until I referred back to the passage again. This was a BIG PROBLEM. I usually got the big picture, but that wasn't sufficient to get most of the points on verbal. I personally think you need to have both the big picture of the passage as well as looking at the relationships between how the paragraphs relate to each other.

So, this what I did: I read the first half of the passage in 1.30 minutes, get the main gist, and get a mental picture of what each paragraph is talking about. Then, I go to the questions and answer the ones that test on the first half of the passage. I leave the main idea questions for the end. Answering some of the questions should take (~3 minutes). I now go back and finish reading the passage. THIS IS THE PART THAT'S MOST HELPFUL. Because I have some idea on what the questions are about, I can now focus in on information in the rest of the passage that they actually test on...instead of the details that they don't test on. As I quickly finish off the passages (1.30 minutes), I take a quick glance on the relationship between the first half of the passage and the next half.

Then, I finish off the rest of the questions

Some might suggest reading the questions first, but that wasn't helpful for me because I didn't really grasp what the passage was about from the questions. So, I forgot the questions when I got to the passage.

As science majors, it's easy for us to focus in on details...most of the time, the wrong types of details. For all those struggling out there, take a jab at this strategy and see what you think. I know this might not work for everyone, but hey, it's worth a shot.

My last two verbal scores: 11/12.

 

[angldrps]

Congrats on the improvement. I just wanted to point out that the verbal passages on real mcat are longer by 1-2 paragraphs so be prepared for that and make sure your strategy will allow you to finish on time.

 

[COTA2Phys]

Thanks for sharing 👍

 

[Acoustica]

The skill I thought was quite important for me was to make sure I read through the passage in one thought and on a clean slate. Non of that pausing and thinking about what the paragraph meant--I could do that after I had read the entire thing and had taken in the entirety of the author's purpose.

I would take a few seconds after each passage to clear my head before jumping into the next one, so that you'll stop thinking about what happened previously and solely concentrate on what lies in front of you.

Also make sure that you go through every question (both right and wrong) to evaluate why certain choices were wrong or right. You can kind of get a feel of what tends to be trickier and what like to warrant the slightly better and correct answers.

For me, I was very wary of excessively marking questions or telling myself it's okay to come back to the passage later when I've finished the rest. Why? You've read through 6 or 7 long passages by the time you return to passage number 2....I don't know about you, but at this point my head is all jumbled and I need to waste time rereading the passage, or at least parts of it, and start my whole thinking processes again. Learn to trust your (cautious and wary) gut and make sure your thinking process leads to confident answers.

Sit straight, don't get too comfortable, and rock the verbal.

 

[dartmed]

The skill I thought was quite important for me was to make sure I read through the passage in one thought and on a clean slate. Non of that pausing and thinking about what the paragraph meant--I could do that after I had read the entire thing and had taken in the entirety of the author's purpose.

I would take a few seconds after each passage to clear my head before jumping into the next one, so that you'll stop thinking about what happened previously and solely concentrate on what lies in front of you.

Also make sure that you go through every question (both right and wrong) to evaluate why certain choices were wrong or right. You can kind of get a feel of what tends to be trickier and what like to warrant the slightly better and correct answers.

For me, I was very wary of excessively marking questions or telling myself it's okay to come back to the passage later when I've finished the rest. Why? You've read through 6 or 7 long passages by the time you return to passage number 2....I don't know about you, but at this point my head is all jumbled and I need to waste time rereading the passage, or at least parts of it, and start my whole thinking processes again. Learn to trust your (cautious and wary) gut and make sure your thinking process leads to confident answers.

Sit straight, don't get too comfortable, and rock the verbal.

Bud, I think you misunderstood my strategy. I finish the entire passage in one setting. Read half of the passage, answer the questions relevant to the half of the passage, read the rest of the passage, and finish the questions.

It would be CRAZY to read half of Passage 1 and then go to Passage 2...that's just ridiculous. Lol.

 

[chiddler]

but there are often questions that use both! such as

Which of the following is whatever
I. paragraph 1.
II. paragraph 5.
III. paragraph 2

then you have to spend time filtering which questions to skip!

 

[typicalindian]

Yeah this may work for you but it doesn't sound like too good of an idea...you could easily lose track of time. Like in a stressful situation when you get a hard question and you accidentally take too long on one question then you'd have to go back and read the second half of the passage before even attempting to answer the questions that pertain to it causing you to panic, speed read, and mis understand information resulting in an endless loop of failure that would ultimately make you spontaneously combust. Just my 2cents. Nice improvement though, keep up the good work 🙂

 

[jgalt42]

I feel kinda weird annotating paragraphs and never using it when answering question. But I guess mentally, it helps provide structure/understanding to the passage during questions.

 

[Baller MD]

Come back after you have taken the real thing. Otherwise, you shouldn't get your hopes up. You might end up being more disappointed in the end. Trust me, I hate verbal with a passion.