Reading Passages

[adoniah]

Could someone PLEASE give me advice on how to read these passages like I'm NOT illiterate?! I took AAMC 3 today, and got a 26...after going through JUST the PS section, I bet I'd have a 30+ if I had simply read the entire question. I think I've gone through maybe 6-7 questions now that I would have gotten right, but that I answered incorrectly simply because I misinterpreted the question...do you know how aggravating that is? And it happened on all the other practice tests I've taken too...the 29 on Kaplan 3 would have been higher had I not misread things. I mean, it's kind of a serious problem...the last thing I want is for a 32 to become a 27 on the real thing simply because I can't read things correctly!!!

After going through BS, there were 8 of the 13 I missed that I simply misread, one of which was IN THE PASSAGE but I didn't see it ; 8 questions...I got a 9 in BS with 13 wrong...had I missed only 5, that mighta been a 12? Hmmm, and suddenly my 26 becomes a 29. I'm so depressed I just wasn't on the ball today...I sorta forced myself into taking the practice exam, wasn't feeling it at all...I kept getting distracted. Yesterday when I got a 29 I was completely in focus; maybe part of the problem?

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[Doc Henry]

I know exactly what you mean, and I think lack of focus etc has something to do with it. I'm not really in a good place to give advice having been scoring lower than I should be lately too, however I am mostly missing things that I genuinely don't know how to figure out. I'm pretty good at reading the passages and questions correctly, with exceptions of course.

My advice would be to just make a conscious effort to slow down. When I dot he best I find myself asking "where has the mcat given me this answer"...because the answers are always lurking in the passage somewhere!

 

[adoniah]

Yeah...I'm not sure what the heck my deal was today?? Yesterday I was totally in tune with the questions, as much as some of them sucked. Sure, I made some dumb mistakes, but largely I did well, considering how little I've studied. Today, though, I would read the question and then a minute later not even remember what I'd read. I think part of the problem was the highlighting feature didn't work on my browser for the AAMC test...and I relied heavily on that for the Kaplan 3 that I got a 29 on. it really seemed to work a lot better than writing notes/mapping as kaplan suggests, so I think that might have contributed to it.

 

[tdjn]

I got similar scores as you for those practice tests... you just need to get the hang of it. After taking 5-10 practice tests or so, you will read faster, more efficiently, and know when to read carefully or when to go straight to the questsions without referring to passages. Your scores will improve; you just have to keep chipping away at it.

 

[adoniah]

Yeah, I hope so! Because this is really frustrating, because I know the material well enough to score a 30+, but its these really dumb mistakes that are holding me back. Like I said, I'm sure I'd have gotten a 30 had I just been more careful. Ironically, I had 20+ minutes left over on both PS and BS when I finished, and scored the lowest in those two sections with a 7 and 9 respectively. VR, which I usually score lowest in I had ten seconds left when i finished, was really rushed, yet scored a 10 in that section!