People Using Ek's Verbal Full Lengths...

[phatty925]

for those of you who have been practicing with EK's new 101 verbal passages book, i'm wondering how your scores on those full lengths compare to your scores on the aamc practice tests.
i'm a bit frustrated, getting mostly 9's on Ek's tests and hitting a 10 only once.
however, i have hit 10-11 on two of the aamc tests, but got a 9 on aamc 5, so i have no idea where i stand.
anyone going through something similar or any feedback?
i feel stuck at this horrible 9, which also happens to be 1 question away from a 10 each time. argh..........

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[WonderBoy]

I am sick of those tests. Damn freakin hard, harder than AAMC tests for sure. I have been getting 9-10 on AAMC tests and can't seem to cross 8 on the EK tests.

 

[limit]

How are they harder? Are the passages denser or is there gray area in the answer choices?

 

[Mr. Z]

the tests are difficult, but, i think it has to do with the answer choices to the questions, they are very, very gray. I can almost always narrow down the answer choices to two possibilities, and it always turns out that one of them was the correct answer. The passages themselves seem to be very realistic.

I've done better on the aamc exams than i have on the EK verbal exams by about an average of 1-2 points.

 

[limit]

Care to post maybe 1 example (question + answer choices) and perhaps a phrase from the passage (allowing me to find the original to read). Just out of curiosity...

 

[Focus]

Hi guys,

My brother is currently using the 101 passages. I just tried doing one of the passages. I think the passages itself are some good reading material.

The questions are sometimes ambiguous and the answer has to be very exact and on the dot (with most of the answer choices being very close to one another and sometimes even able to logically deduce a different answer choice listed from the passage.)

however, my brother tells me that it's really helping him because it helps him think much *harder* for the right answer. So if this is EK's intended purpose, I think it's great. If not, it's a fluke that people can benefit from.

- Focus

 

[Lavndrrose]

I also sometimes disagree with some of the answers. Do you guys?

 

[phatty925]

yes, on each full length, there are always a couple of answers that i don't agree with. sometimes i think the explanations in the back are too "picky" for aamc. i too always narrow it down to two answer choices, which are VERY similar. but i def. think these passages are the best (besides ones written by aamc) out there...

 

[Mudd]

Isn't that true of all verbal material? Verbal is subjective, so ambiguity and personal opinion come with the beast. Now I must preface this by pointing out that I am ignorant in the ways of verbal, but AAMC 5 had questions like that too.

It seems like disagreeing with answers comes with the territory, no matter what the source of the passage.

 

[limit]

Originally posted by phatty925
yes, on each full length, there are always a couple of answers that i don't agree with. sometimes i think the explanations in the back are too "picky" for aamc. i too always narrow it down to two answer choices, which are VERY similar. but i def. think these passages are the best (besides ones written by aamc) out there...

That seems to be the easiest way to increase the difficulty of a verbal passage. You can make the passages as incomprehensable as you want, but if the questions are too easy and answer choices show distinct separation people will get it right. Te gray area questions seem to force us make a clear cut distinction between a true (but not implied) statement, and one that is directly implied and consequently the correct answer.

I've personally noticed this on many Kaplan verbal sections in the full-length, on which I've been performing worse by comparison with the aamc. Passages are straightforward, but the answer choices are often very ambiguous. Has anyone else noticed this in the Kaplan tests?

 

[wgu]

Originally posted by WonderBoy
I am sick of those tests. Damn freakin hard, harder than AAMC tests for sure. I have been getting 9-10 on AAMC tests and can't seem to cross 8 on the EK tests.

My thoughts exactly! I've been somewhat discourage to take more tests b/c the q/a's are so dang hard to choose. Also has anyone else noticed the errors on Test2 Q10 and 15 answers at the back of the book or am i just wrong?

The answers seem to be more detailed than other practice tests and it kinda goes against the main idea techniques???