Reading Comprehension

[LoveLee]

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What is the best why to prepare for the reading comprehension portion of the PCAT? It appears to be the section most people are scoring the lowest. Reading scientific journals, Cliffs notes, Kaplan, Dr Collins? What method worked best for those who were able to get at least a 80 percentile in the reading comprehension portion?

 

[Bigj5768]

What is the best why to prepare for the reading comprehension portion of the PCAT? It appears to be the section most people are scoring the lowest. Reading scientific journals, Cliffs notes, Kaplan, Dr Collins? What method worked best for those who were able to get at least a 80 percentile in the reading comprehension portion?

Well what I did was in terms of speed reading, I did Dr. Collins reading comprehension 3 times and for getting a feel for the types of questions they ask I used Pearson and SAT Reading Comprehension. I got an 82 Reading Comprehension.

 

[kmk137]

Being able to quickly scan a passage is a must. Many of the questions you can get away with going to the specific paragraph and finding the answer, but you will have to read the entire passage at least once. I agree with Bigj5768 in that you should purchase the Pearson practice tests, those will be the closest in format to what you will see on the exam. I did two of those tests a week before the exam and got a 90 on RC.

Personally, I didn't study for this section. After extensive SAT prep from high school as well as taking two AP English classes/exams, I felt well prepared. I'm not sure how useful this would be, but looking into AP English Language and SAT study guides might help. They should help with vocabulary, picking out the author's tone, and how to recognize opinions from facts.

 

[harmonidrum]

My "strategy" is to read through the sections one paragraph at a time, making mental notes of the important points of each section. Then for each individual question I don't look back at the passage immediately but look at the choices and see if I already would have a good idea of which one is right. Finally, I look at the paragraph # that is given in the question to confirm whether my preliminary "estimated answer" is correct. This method is good for combating the trick questions that sometimes pop up.

 

[ah123]

i just re-read harry potter. i got a 76 on the preliminary part. didn't use any prep materials for that section at all

 

[LoveLee]

It seems that the Pearson practice tests are a great way to prepare for the RC. I will also check out Dr Collins for speed reading and some SAT study guides. Thanks for the feedback and tips!

 

[LoveLee]

i just re-read harry potter. i got a 76 on the preliminary part. didn't use any prep materials for that section at all

A 76 is not bad for just re-reading harry potter! 🙂

 

[xNeenax]

i just re-read harry potter. i got a 76 on the preliminary part. didn't use any prep materials for that section at all

I only read 4 harry potter books and I'm getting less than 50% of the question right and I'm not able to get to the last 2 passages. 🙁

I'm a lost cause

 

[lbqjenny]

Could anyone tell me if the words are in Times New Roman? I find it could affect the reading speed.

 

[JonPrePharmD]

Could anyone tell me if the words are in Times New Roman? I find it could affect the reading speed.

Maybe, but I recall something about the way the passage looked, maybe text size, was a little off for me.

RC is difficult on the PCAT based on other RC study materials, I think that's well known by now. Some scores (70+) I believe these people knew what they were doing on the RC section of the PCAT. <70, not a chance. It's a very time consuming section that requires quick reading and attention to detail, and analyzing each and every multiple choice answer. IMO it's a little too difficult for what it really should be testing. They basically test you on verbal ability as well as RC in this section, because some of the vocabulary is so dense it doesn't even flow with the paragraphs, so my head goes spinning...

There is a method to the madness, but I certainly didn't find it. My advice would be to not switch back and forth through technique.

Example...
Technique 1: Read the question first, then look in the passage for the answer.
Technique 2: Read the passage through once completely, then read the questions, then look through the passage.

I feel technique 2 would be more efficient than technique 1, however, I switched between the two and guessed a lot due to fear of running out of time. Pick one technique/method and stick with it!!!

Also, do not practice on paper. Underlining things, circling main points, etc will not help you (obviously) because it's on a computer screen. I thought there would be at least a highlighting tool...nope!

 

[krishna1990]

does anyone remember if rc had each question on a separate page? or was it similar to the paper..ie. first passage and then all the qs are listed together on the screen?

d

Maybe, but I recall something about the way the passage looked, maybe text size, was a little off for me.

RC is difficult on the PCAT based on other RC study materials, I think that's well known by now. Some scores (70+) I believe these people knew what they were doing on the RC section of the PCAT. <70, not a chance. It's a very time consuming section that requires quick reading and attention to detail, and analyzing each and every multiple choice answer. IMO it's a little too difficult for what it really should be testing. They basically test you on verbal ability as well as RC in this section, because some of the vocabulary is so dense it doesn't even flow with the paragraphs, so my head goes spinning...

There is a method to the madness, but I certainly didn't find it. My advice would be to not switch back and forth through technique.

Example...
Technique 1: Read the question first, then look in the passage for the answer.
Technique 2: Read the passage through once completely, then read the questions, then look through the passage.

I feel technique 2 would be more efficient than technique 1, however, I switched between the two and guessed a lot due to fear of running out of time. Pick one technique/method and stick with it!!!

Also, do not practice on paper. Underlining things, circling main points, etc will not help you (obviously) because it's on a computer screen. I thought there would be at least a highlighting tool...nope!

 

[thesituation559]

what I'm planning on doing is reading the 7-8 questions for the passage and then reading the passage and answering the questions. That has been my strategy on the pearson practice exam. It takes about 40-50 seconds to read the questions quickly and then you have about 7 minutes to read the passage and answer the questions. By reading the questions first it helps me recognize those topics in the reading.

 

[frankdahtank]

what I'm planning on doing is reading the 7-8 questions for the passage and then reading the passage and answering the questions. That has been my strategy on the pearson practice exam. It takes about 40-50 seconds to read the questions quickly and then you have about 7 minutes to read the passage and answer the questions. By reading the questions first it helps me recognize those topics in the reading.

This seems like a good strategy. Whatever you do, make sure it works for YOU. Everyone is a little different so there really isn't a "best way" to approach the reading comp section. If anyone is still interested in studying for the reading comp I would really suggest getting the Exam Krackers 101 MCAT Verbal test prep book. I've been using it now for a few weeks and boy has it helped! The passages are going to be very difficult at first but once you get used to reading passages that long and paying attention to the subtle details that you think will be questions, it really gets much easier. I was fairly worried about the reading comp section at first, since I've always been a math/science kind of guy and have always hated being tested on anything pertaining to the English language, but after a few weeks of studying I feel quite confident in my abilities and I don't believe I should score anything lower than an 80 (seeing the low scores on this section makes an 80 pretty good in my book). After you get used to reading MCAT passages and answering slightly more difficult questions, the PCAT reading comp should seem very doable. As nerdy as this might sounds I actually had fun studying for the reading comp section. For reference, these are my Pearson practice test scores for the reading comp section
Test 1 - 40-60 percentile
Test 2 - 70-90 percentile
Test 3 - 80-99 percentile

The first score is sort of my baseline score without practicing anything at all. The second score was taken after reviewing the first test and barely touching the EK101. The last score was taken yesterday after a few weeks using EK101 and reviewing the previous pearson tests. I really couldn't stress enough how helpful the book really is. I think they should sponsor me or something 😛 Anyway, good luck with studying for the test and I can't wait, hopefully 😛, to post my scores on the 19th! 🙂

 

[LoveLee]

This seems like a good strategy. Whatever you do, make sure it works for YOU. Everyone is a little different so there really isn't a "best way" to approach the reading comp section. If anyone is still interested in studying for the reading comp I would really suggest getting the Exam Krackers 101 MCAT Verbal test prep book. I've been using it now for a few weeks and boy has it helped! The passages are going to be very difficult at first but once you get used to reading passages that long and paying attention to the subtle details that you think will be questions, it really gets much easier. I was fairly worried about the reading comp section at first, since I've always been a math/science kind of guy and have always hated being tested on anything pertaining to the English language, but after a few weeks of studying I feel quite confident in my abilities and I don't believe I should score anything lower than an 80 (seeing the low scores on this section makes an 80 pretty good in my book). After you get used to reading MCAT passages and answering slightly more difficult questions, the PCAT reading comp should seem very doable. As nerdy as this might sounds I actually had fun studying for the reading comp section. For reference, these are my Pearson practice test scores for the reading comp section
Test 1 - 40-60 percentile
Test 2 - 70-90 percentile
Test 3 - 80-99 percentile

The first score is sort of my baseline score without practicing anything at all. The second score was taken after reviewing the first test and barely touching the EK101. The last score was taken yesterday after a few weeks using EK101 and reviewing the previous pearson tests. I really couldn't stress enough how helpful the book really is. I think they should sponsor me or something 😛 Anyway, good luck with studying for the test and I can't wait, hopefully 😛, to post my scores on the 19th! 🙂

Thanks for the suggestion. I heard about the ExamKrackers and I have been practicing with it. It seems to be an effective way to increase RC scores. The more I practice, the better I get. I recommend it to anyone looking to practice and improve for RC.

 

[drycek]

does anyone remember if rc had each question on a separate page? or was it similar to the paper..ie. first passage and then all the qs are listed together on the screen?

d

It was a split screen with the passage on the left half of the screen and the questions on the right half, one at a time.

 

[thesituation559]

It was a split screen with the passage on the left half of the screen and the questions on the right half, one at a time.

so we see one question at a time?

 

[DH1987]

According to the PCAT practice tests, my Reading Comprehension skills are my weak spot. My percentile ranking on Test 1 was around 57-77, Test 3 was even lower, 44-64. I took Test 3 before Test 1, and haven't done Test 2 yet. My other sections are looking pretty strong, especially Chemistry, where I consistently score 80-99th percentile.

Honestly, I find many of the questions weird and ambiguous as to what information it wants from me. On many of the questions on Pearson's PCAT Practice Tests, I can narrow it down to one of two possible choices, but both answers seem correct because I find there is often more than one way to interpret them, and I don't know HOW it wants me to interpret them. Some seem to emphasize "big-picture" thinking while others want me to break down an entire sentence into each little word and analyze it.

Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the tests?

 

[futurpharmacis]

According to the PCAT practice tests, my Reading Comprehension skills are my weak spot. My percentile ranking on Test 1 was around 57-77, Test 3 was even lower, 44-64. I took Test 3 before Test 1, and haven't done Test 2 yet. My other sections are looking pretty strong, especially Chemistry, where I consistently score 80-99th percentile.

Honestly, I find many of the questions weird and ambiguous as to what information it wants from me. On many of the questions on Pearson's PCAT Practice Tests, I can narrow it down to one of two possible choices, but both answers seem correct because I find there is often more than one way to interpret them, and I don't know HOW it wants me to interpret them. Some seem to emphasize "big-picture" thinking while others want me to break down an entire sentence into each little word and analyze it.

Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the tests?

I feel the same way as you. It's so frustrating preparing for this portion. I spent nearly 30 days and I don't know if I am ready for the real test on the 28th.

 

[DH1987]

Well, I just ran through the first Verbal test in the EK 101 book...and holy sh**, it is hard. I only got a 6 on it (scale of 1-15), and I was actually surprised to see that I got so many questions wrong. I thought I would get more than 22 of the 40 questions correct, lol...

 

[dreamerforever]

The reading comprehension was the only section I did somewhat well in. I got an 81. I bombed the rest of the pcat. I would suggest not reading the whole passage before you start answering the questions, especially if you are a slow reader. The questions asked will eventually lead you to reading the whole passage, because they are usually paragraph specific. Save questions that ask about the main point or overall theme for last. Using this method I was able to recheck and reread about half of the reading comprehension before I ran out of time. If you are stuck between two answers, go with your gut. I'm pretty sure the ones I over analyzed were the ones I got wrong.

 

[DH1987]

The reading comprehension was the only section I did somewhat well in. I got an 81. I bombed the rest of the pcat. I would suggest not reading the whole passage before you start answering the questions, especially if you are a slow reader. The questions asked will eventually lead you to reading the whole passage, because they are usually paragraph specific. Save questions that ask about the main point or overall theme for last. Using this method I was able to recheck and reread about half of the reading comprehension before I ran out of time. If you are stuck between two answers, go with your gut. I'm pretty sure the ones I over analyzed were the ones I got wrong.

Hmm. The ExamKrackers MCAT method seems to stress the exact opposite of this, which is to read for the main idea and then answer the questions, keeping the main idea of the passage in mind. There are, however, still a lot of questions regarding specifics in the passages that I looked at.

I'm not a slow reader. I'm actually quite fast. However, I have difficulty retaining the information that I read, and often I will actually "space out" to a certain degree - I will be reading the words, but not processing the message given by them.

So, does anyone else wanna vouch for dreamerforever's post? Not that I don't think your method should have worked, dreamerforever, but it seems possible that some methods might work for one person but not work for another. I would like to find a method that most people can agree on, if such a method exists.

I would use the Pearson exams to test this, but I've already been through them all and I will undoubtedly be biased because somewhere deep in my head lingers a pre-conceived notion of the correct answer. I don't really have anything to test this on except the MCAT passages, which seem to emphasize both main ideas and specifics.

 

[frankdahtank]

Well, I just ran through the first Verbal test in the EK 101 book...and holy sh**, it is hard. I only got a 6 on it (scale of 1-15), and I was actually surprised to see that I got so many questions wrong. I thought I would get more than 22 of the 40 questions correct, lol...

Well I got like a 9 on the second one and I did better than that on the third one and still got a 50 on the reading comp, though I attribute that more to a fluke than anything. Anyway, good luck sir 😛

 

[phonealert]

According to the PCAT practice tests, my Reading Comprehension skills are my weak spot. My percentile ranking on Test 1 was around 57-77, Test 3 was even lower, 44-64. I took Test 3 before Test 1, and haven't done Test 2 yet. My other sections are looking pretty strong, especially Chemistry, where I consistently score 80-99th percentile.

Honestly, I find many of the questions weird and ambiguous as to what information it wants from me. On many of the questions on Pearson's PCAT Practice Tests, I can narrow it down to one of two possible choices, but both answers seem correct because I find there is often more than one way to interpret them, and I don't know HOW it wants me to interpret them. Some seem to emphasize "big-picture" thinking while others want me to break down an entire sentence into each little word and analyze it.

Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the tests?

Eh I like to go through the questions before I even start on the passage. If there are questions that are specific to passages, I do those first and skim through them looking for the answers and save the tone/summary questions for last when I skim through the passage again.

 

[DH1987]

Well I got like a 9 on the second one and I did better than that on the third one and still got a 50 on the reading comp, though I attribute that more to a fluke than anything. Anyway, good luck sir 😛

Yeah, I think I am starting to improve. Just went through the 3rd verbal test, got an 8 on it (26/40 correct). But I ended up with only 3 minutes left on the final passage, so I had to skim through it and make a bunch of guesses, got 3 out of 4 wrong on the count of that. Just gotta answer some of the questions a little faster...

Maybe I'll try to limit each passage to 8 minutes for reading and answering the questions, and mark the ones I'm not sure of. Theoretically, that will take up 56 minutes of my time, then I will have 4 minutes to go back to questions that I wasn't sure of.

Hopefully I can get up to 10 in the next few days. 🙂

 

[DH1987]

Another update...

Just went through the 4th practice test. Either I am very rapidly improving, or I got incredibly lucky on this test. I now scored a 10/15 with 32/40 questions correct. If I got one more correct, I would have scored 11. 😱

So I went from a 6 to nearly an 11 in 2-3 days of practice??? I find it hard to believe that I've really improved that much in so little time. Unless my skill level was so low that improving didn't require much refinement...

 

[frankdahtank]

Another update...

Just went through the 4th practice test. Either I am very rapidly improving, or I got incredibly lucky on this test. I now scored a 10/15 with 32/40 questions correct. If I got one more correct, I would have scored 11. 😱

So I went from a 6 to nearly an 11 in 2-3 days of practice??? I find it hard to believe that I've really improved that much in so little time. Unless my skill level was so low that improving didn't require much refinement...

Nah, that's totally possible! I improved dramatically with little testing time and I also know a friend who did poorly on the reading comp who also improved dramatically in such little time. Keep up the good work, you'll be okay 🙂

 

[thesituation559]

This book has helped me. My first two pearson exams i got 5-25 smh then with reviewing those and doing around 8-9 passages from MCAT book i got 35-55. I did expect higher but still is a big boost. I'm going to keep studying for my exam and hope to get around 70. Frank was the pearson reading comp comparable to the real deal?

 

[rjosh33]

Another update...

Just went through the 4th practice test. Either I am very rapidly improving, or I got incredibly lucky on this test. I now scored a 10/15 with 32/40 questions correct. If I got one more correct, I would have scored 11. 😱

So I went from a 6 to nearly an 11 in 2-3 days of practice??? I find it hard to believe that I've really improved that much in so little time. Unless my skill level was so low that improving didn't require much refinement...

Nice job! FYI, a double digit score on VR (verbal reasoning) on the MCAT is what gets the attention of med school adcoms, so a 10 (nearly an 11) is an excellent score. Mind if I ask what strategies you're using when you read the passages?

 

[DH1987]

Nice job! FYI, a double digit score on VR (verbal reasoning) on the MCAT is what gets the attention of med school adcoms, so a 10 (nearly an 11) is an excellent score. Mind if I ask what strategies you're using when you read the passages?

My strategy is actually to read *slowly* through the passages. I take in every word and I don't move onto the next sentence until I have an idea of what the author is trying to say. The idea behind reading slowly and carefully is to be able to answer the questions that much more quickly, because I know what was said in the passage.

Previously, I would just read it semi-fast, but I actually missed out on a lot of details doing that. I would then spend too much time trying to figure out the answers to the questions by reading through the passages again. Before I knew it, I was reading some paragraphs up to 3 or 4 times, and spent way too much time on that section. So I found that the solution was to actually read a lot more carefully and more deliberately.

Also, I do not allow myself more than 8 minutes per passage the first time through. If I don't know the answer to a question by the end of the 8 minutes, I will mark it and move on to the next passage. By the end of the 7 passages, I will have spent 56-57 minutes, then I will use the other 3-4 minutes to go back to the questions I marked and make the best guess I can.

When it comes to answering the questions, being nitpicky is actually a very good quality here. I have gotten some questions wrong because there was a very specific detail that I missed or just flat-out ignored.

So, that's my strategy. I'm gonna go work on some more verbal passages now and see if I can get even higher. 🙂

 

[rjosh33]

Good stuff. Sounds like you figured out what works for you, and I especially like the part about reading thoroughly. I forgot to mention this in my other posts, but I found that while doing some of these practice passages, thoroughly grasping the passage made the right answer jump out at times. It makes sense intuitively too; it's called Reading Comprehension after all. 🙂

Of course, having said that, it's also wise to continue to not allow yourself to get too bogged down in understanding every detail. Getting behind is a big mistake, and one that you simply cannot allow yourself to make. It can cause you to panic and start rushing through the section, which will completely throw you off the task of understanding the passage and making the necessary logical connections the questions require. Work quick but not hurried. Stick to your 8 minute limit, and you should be good for the MCAT passages. On the PCAT though, since it's 6 passages in 50 minutes, I'd try to make the cutoff around 7.5 minutes, giving you enough time to comfortably review all your answers.

When it comes to answering the questions, being nitpicky is actually a very good quality here. I have gotten some questions wrong because there was a very specific detail that I missed or just flat-out ignored.

Easy to do. The MCAT writers do this intentionally. They're worse than PCAT test-writers in that regard.

 

[DH1987]

Good stuff. Sounds like you figured out what works for you, and I especially like the part about reading thoroughly. I forgot to mention this in my other posts, but I found that while doing some of these practice passages, thoroughly grasping the passage made the right answer jump out at times. It makes sense intuitively too; it's called Reading Comprehension after all. 🙂

Of course, having said that, it's also wise to continue to not allow yourself to get too bogged down in understanding every detail. Getting behind is a big mistake, and one that you simply cannot allow yourself to make. It can cause you to panic and start rushing through the section, which will completely throw you off the task of understanding the passage and making the necessary logical connections the questions require. Work quick but not hurried. Stick to your 8 minute limit, and you should be good for the MCAT passages. On the PCAT though, since it's 6 passages in 50 minutes, I'd try to make the cutoff around 7.5 minutes, giving you enough time to comfortably review all your answers.

Yeah, it usually takes me about 4-5 minutes to read an entire passage with my method, leaving me only 3-4 minutes to answer the questions. It doesn't sound like a lot of time to answer the questions, but when you know the passage well enough, it's actually a decent amount of time. Even if you don't know the exact answer to a question about a specific idea in the passage, you'll likely know where to find it. And if it's a question about the main idea, you're more likely to understand exactly what the author is trying to get across, and you won't have to read any part of the passage again.

I also went back to the Pearson PCAT Practice exams and looked at my answers at the first test I took. If I knew then what I know now, I most certainly would have answered more questions correctly. So maybe I really have improved already. 🙂