Philosophy Made Simple?

[dmplz]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Does anyone recommend reading books such as Philosophy Made Simple or Philosophy for dummies in preparation for the verbal reasoning section? If so, how effective and useful were they? Thanks a bunch.

 

[spicedmanna]

Does anyone recommend reading books such as Philosophy Made Simple or Philosophy for dummies in preparation for the verbal reasoning section? If so, how effective and useful were they? Thanks a bunch.

Unlikely to be of benefit. The VR section on the MCAT isn't actually a test of your "reasoning" ability as such and it has little to do with logic as you might see with the LSAT. Really, the VR section is a test of your ability to sift through a lot of hard to understand BS so that you can get the important main points and summarize effectively what you've read. You do have to have the ability to make accurate inferences, though, but it's not a logical puzzle or a test of your reasoning, and you don't need any special knowledge of philosophy (or any other subject for that matter). It's not even about comprehension...you are not reading to learn something or to understand something... In essense, you are reading critically so that you can answer the annoying questions at the end of the passage.

I'd recommend reading challenging passages and essays and then reading them critically under time pressure. Literary, social science, and scientific journal sources are good. I haven't tried it myself, but I heard EK (or whatever exam prep company you prefer) has a good resource for this as well. You should do as many practice passages as reasonable. Get a hold of some of the old passages. This should help, too. Bottom line: practice, practice, practice!

 

[dedicate]

I can't imagine it would be helpful UNLESS it is helping your critical reading skills. But really, I don't see why a philosophy book would help more than say, some random journal article.

It's better than reading nothing though I would say.