Reading PS Passages

[mouiw]

How much should you actually read these passages. I followed some peoples advice on not really reading the ps passages unless you need them for one of the questions, and saw a 5 point increase in my practice FL scores. My only thing is im wondering if this will work for the actual mcat. So or those that have or will be taking the mcat, how much do you actually focus on the PS passages?

 

[Seraph 84]

I have AAMC's official guide to the MCAT and it seems that some questions on the PS section you must rely exclusively on passage information, and some not. The passages are not that long; they should take you about 1 minute to read.

I'd say you could probably get away with answering many of the questions on PS without the passage, but this is most certainly not the case with BS or VR.

Good luck.

 

[Mattabet]

If you're hurting for time on PS, I've heard of a bunch of people who either skimmed extremely fast or bypasses passages entirely, only going back if questions necessitated it. But for my part, I found my time to be more effectively used by reading through quickly (but more carefully than just a 'skim'). If I didn't understand something, I usually just moved on. That way, when I got to the questions I knew where to look, without wasting too much time on irrelevant information.

 

[vandyam]

If you're hurting for time on PS, I've heard of a bunch of people who either skimmed extremely fast or bypasses passages entirely, only going back if questions necessitated it. But for my part, I found my time to be more effectively used by reading through quickly (but more carefully than just a 'skim'). If I didn't understand something, I usually just moved on. That way, when I got to the questions I knew where to look, without wasting too much time on irrelevant information.

I second this!

 

[a winner is you]

I'm a fast reader, I read all the passages before ever looking at the questions for all sections.