need some hope

[iloveonions]

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MCAT - 20. 8/3/9. Verbal reasoning - 3. I Can't afford any training classes. I took that test first time. GPA - 3.3 from a University of California (sci GPA -3.28). I had two quarters of research where I was able to contribute significantly in a project. Volunteered at red cross for a year where I did office work and help out the local chapter in setting up classes. Shadowed a doctor for couple months.

I had to work a lot to deal with financial hardships.

I am giving up my dream of becoming a doctor and thinking of joining military. My pre-med advisor told me no way I can get in any US schools or even carribean.

Any one here in a same submarine as mine?

 

[NeuroNYC]

Have you thought about DO?

 

[DokterMom]

That 3 is gonna kill your app. Period.

Work on that and ask again in a year. How to improve your verbal? Read. Read. Read. Read The Atlantic, NY Times, Wall St Journal, the Economist, Science, Scientific American, New Yorker. High quality reading material and lots of it.

 

[occams_razor]

Have you thought about DO?

OP won't get into DO schools with a 3 in verbal, he or she will have to retake that

 

[occams_razor]

That 3 is gonna kill your app. Period.

Work on that and ask again in a year. How to improve your verbal? Read. Read. Read. Read The Atlantic, NY Times, Wall St Journal, the Economist, Science, Scientific American, New Yorker. High quality reading material and lots of it.

Agreed

OP - I completely understand not being able to afford an MCAT course - I couldn't either. I was lucky to find prep books for cheap (most were used). I recommend trying to do that and read everything you can get your hands on

 

[LA1004]

You can definitely go to Caribbean schools since some don't even require the MCAT. Not that you should though.

I agree with what others said: retake the MCAT after doing a lot of reading. If medicine is your dream you won't let a 3 in VR stop you. If you get an 8 your MCAT would rise to mid 20s, giving you a shot at DO.

Ten years from now when you become a doctor you will be glad you gave that extra push now to improve your VR score.

 

[lall]

Coming from someone who had no issues with verbal (14) this may not mean anything, but I really think there's nowhere but up from the 3. Take it again.

There's excellent suggestions all over SDN for do it yourself VR study, no need for a course. I didn't take one

My personal suggestion is to read A LOT. Get comfortable with speed. Secondary, be cool-- everything you need is available on the screen...no outside knowledge necessary. Therefore, if you just take what you read and compare to whats being asked of you, you're cool

 

[iloveonions]

Thank everyone. Yes, I am studying again and also considering DO schools. How do I get help with verbal reasoning on this website? I read quite a bit. I would finish my verbal reasoning essay and wouldn't know what just happened. I don't know why. I thought I had ADHD. But I don't.

Alright, time to hideout. Will come back around June with a new score possibly new me.

Thank you

 

[dlqo0oplb]

Op- verbal was the hardest part on mcat for me as an ESL student. I strongly recommend examcracker passage 101. Just time yourself everytime...make sure you know how to grasp the main idea of the passage. Even if you are a slow reader like me, you will be able to at least improve to an 8 or above. I don't read a lot at all. I think just by doing more passages you can pass your mental block on vr and also get the idea of what vr is testing you.

 

[lall]

Lol. I have ADHD. Soooo......

Honestly, I think maybe its a different type of brain that does well on VR types of tests in general. For me personally, I never felt like "I (didn't) know what just happened." And I grew up in an ESL home though I wouldn't say I was ESL. I really think you could benefit from a crash course of just reading, if that's honestly how you feel after a VR test. Read anything at first- go pick out a novel that interests you to start, continue with novels until you feel comfortable with reading. Then migrate to the sources others quoted above.

Google something along the lines of "verbal reasoning help sdn" and you'll find tons of threads.

 

[Jennyfishy]

Raising your VR score is a lot harder than raising your PS or BS score because it takes a different approach. You can't study for verbal reasoning, and even if you knew all the test-taking techniques, it comes down to your own abilities of speed-reading + comprehension and integration.

My parents didn't speak English in my household growing up and I was in ESL classes until I tested out when I was 8. However, my reading comprehension was always sub-par, and my writing was 'basic' at best. It takes a lot of dedication, but reading everything and anything that you come across helps build your vocabulary and ability to process information faster. Work up to more "dense" material like the Economist, or different news reports. Read everything and anything, and write about what you read. I kept a personal blog and would just summarize/respond to everything I read about, and then discuss key issues and relate them to older material I've read. I still maintain a blog/free write regularly, but I was averaging 13-14 on my VR tests on AAMC and all the free tests that Kaplan offered on campus (disregard my actual MCAT score, because it doesn't reflect how I should've done lol).

This is just advice if you remain determined to become a physician, as you will have to retake since there's no way around a 3. If you had 3 solid months to prep and read something everyday, you should theoretically be able to raise that score to at least an 8. It's going to be a rough journey, but if you commit to it, I'm sure you can do it! 🙂

 

[NeuroNYC]

The hard part for me with Verbal was preventing myself from bringing in outside information or biases. For the most part, everything they want you to work with to arrive at the answer is in the passage. While I can definitely see how having English as a second language might be a handicap, I don't think building a gigantic vocabulary is the way to achieve on this section. Practice reading journal articles, not just technical science but also social science. With every sentence and every paragraph you complete, ask yourself what the author is trying to demonstrate/prove, what information he/she is using in order to do so, and what the underlying assumptions are. And always always always consider the unreliable narrator. Consider the biases of the author, and that furthermore, even if the author is 100% objective, he/she is still prone to error.

 

[streampaw]

Retake MCAT. Pay for a prep class for MCAT. Maybe retake classes for GPA boost for DO schools. Or you can try applying to low tier MD schools (or both MD and DO)