Pacing..

[TTSD]

How do you guys pace yourselves? I find myself always rushing quickly through it which makes me glaze over key wordings or not read all the relevant choice answers making stooopid mistakes. Anyone else have this problem?

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[sgilani]

i hear ya. especially on verbal. i find myself checking time after every passage and then getting worried thinking that i'm not going to finish in time which leads to missing key words like EXCEPT.

 

[deez4life]

Strictly 9 minutes a passage. If you spend less, then that's great. If you're spending more than 9 mins, you're going to be hurting at the end of the section. It always worked for me.

Good luck you guys. Less than 2 weeks to go, and then you can party it up!

 

[MeowMix]

VR ONLY: 9 min/passage
PS/BS: 7 min/passage or set of discretes

Essential for getting through the Kaplan full-lengths. Timing on PS will not be such a problem on the real MCAT.

 

[deez4life]

9 minutes for a set of discretes!?! I never did that. IMHO, the discretes were usually simple, so I would just blow through a whole set in less than 2 or 3 minutes. I wouldn't suggest that for everyone though. Maybe that's why I got to spend 9 minutes a passage on the science sections.

 

[MeowMix]

Here's the thinking: if you allocate 7 min/set of discretes, then you KNOW you will have enough time to get through everything and you will not get thrown off and panic if you have hard discretes that take extra time. It is really a confidence-building trick, to get people to relax because they know FOR SURE they will finish on time.

The extra few minutes then get used on the passages where you end up going a minute or so over time.

In theory, one should be relaxed and proficient in pacing so that on the real test, you would not have to time yourself; you would be right on time anyway. However, in practice, most of my students are still struggling to finish on time. If they spent more time practicing, and if they could get out of undergrad-cramming mode and relax, then they would get to the ideal non-timed state. But right now the first priority for the non-finishers is, FINISH EVERY SECTION!