Reading PubMed journals to improve reading comprehension?

[mr chievous]

I know the Biology on the MCAT inside and out. However, it's often the convoluted passages that confuse me and I therefore have been stuck at a 9 on the BS section (there have been times where I won't understand a passage at all, and will therefore miss 6 out of the 7 questions on it). Someone recommended that I go on PubMed and read articles daily (along with doing practice problems, of course).

What part of the journal am I supposed to read - is it the abstract?

Thanks for the help!

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[Nuel]

Journals are too complicated and will take too much time. Just do practice problems. But if you are feeling ambitious I can recommend three articles. Read mainly the abstract, intro, results and discussion. Don't worry about methods.

The third article will probably take you a while to get through. All three are good and well-done experiments.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11100152

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15302926 (This is a follow up study of the first. )

(And if you are feeling really ambitious):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21816277

Again you are better off just doing practice problems. But if you insist, make sure you understand why each figure is in the paper and how it contributes to the overall argument.

 

[mr chievous]

Journals are too complicated and will take too much time. Just do practice problems. But if you are feeling ambitious I can recommend three articles. Read mainly the abstract, intro, results and discussion. Don't worry about methods.

The third article will probably take you a while to get through. All three are good and well-done experiments.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11100152

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15302926 (This is a follow up study of the first. )

(And if you are feeling really ambitious):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21816277

Again you are better off just doing practice problems. But if you insist, make sure you understand why each figure is in the paper and how it contributes to the overall argument.

Thanks for the advice bro. I'm not looking into reading these articles for 3 hours a day, but I figured 15 minutes a day wouldn't hurt (especially since I don't do biology passages on a daily basis).

Anyone else have any advice?

 

[sodarayg]

i'd say read articles in major newspapers and magazines (NY Times / economist) as fast as you can. then summarize it really quickly in your head and figure out what the author's opinion of the subject is

 

[deleted303591]

i'd say read articles in major newspapers and magazines (NY Times / economist) as fast as you can. then summarize it really quickly in your head and figure out what the author's opinion of the subject is

^
You are better off reading The Economist, The New Yorker, The New York Times, etc.

 

[mr chievous]

^
You are better off reading The Economist, The New Yorker, The New York Times, etc.

I agree, but that's for Verbal. I was talking about the Biological Sciences...

 

[YouNeverKnow22]

I agree, but that's for Verbal. I was talking about the Biological Sciences...

Hey I think it's a good idea (maybe 1 article a day), that's what I'm doing, in an area where I'm interested (JNS is a journal I read). It helps keep up with current literature while developing skills to read hard experiments.

 

[Tayne]

I know the Biology on the MCAT inside and out. However, it's often the convoluted passages that confuse me and I therefore have been stuck at a 9 on the BS section (there have been times where I won't understand a passage at all, and will therefore miss 6 out of the 7 questions on it). Someone recommended that I go on PubMed and read articles daily (along with doing practice problems, of course).

What part of the journal am I supposed to read - is it the abstract?

Thanks for the help!

I don't think you need to read articles every day. The abstract is probably a good place to start, and maybe a small chunk of the results/discussion section (which is where you'll likely find a lot of charts and graphs.) You likely don't need to read entire papers every time, though, because that will be time consuming for someone who isn't used to reading journal articles.

Read the graphs, and always ask yourself: "Why did they choose that experiment to be the control? How does that control let you interpret their main result?" I think that mode of thinking will help you on the MCAT. But don't go overboard, maybe a paper every week or two.

 

[YouNeverKnow22]

I don't think you need to read articles every day. The abstract is probably a good place to start, and maybe a small chunk of the results/discussion section (which is where you'll likely find a lot of charts and graphs.) You likely don't need to read entire papers every time, though, because that will be time consuming for someone who isn't used to reading journal articles.

Read the graphs, and always ask yourself: "Why did they choose that experiment to be the control? How does that control let you interpret their main result?" I think that mode of thinking will help you on the MCAT. But don't go overboard, maybe a paper every week or two.

I guess this part is right, if you're not used to reading articles you should take it slow, but it's not a bad idea by any means.

 

[sodarayg]

I agree, but that's for Verbal. I was talking about the Biological Sciences...

My fault haha. I assumed reading things was for only for verbal.

for biological sciences i guess you can just open up random publications and look at the tables/figures and analyze them. figure out what the controls are, what the different treatments are, and the different effects of each treatment.

and i guess read the abstract too.

 

[QuantumFlame]

My opinion is that the benefit of reading journal articles is a long term one. You don't learn how to analyze and interpret data over the course of a few months. I've been reading Nature Medicine for about a year prior to taking the MCAT, and I personally felt that it made the BS section a breeze (got a 14 in that section). How much of that score was due to SN2ed's schedule, strong pre-reqs and just luck is up for debate, but I did find myself feeling more comfortable with the weirder passages as a result.

Best of luck.

 

[Bomikepa]

Do you recommend reading the into too? I feel like this will help me but I'm not sure how to approach these articles for one they ate vey long and often when I read them I have no idea what they are talking about

Should I just look at the abstract and that's it? And tips on how to get the most out of these because I am overwhelmed trying to understand the whole thing lol

 

[QuantumFlame]

Well first of all, what got me started reading papers in the first place was a research methods course and lab. After taking that course, I felt like I could partially understand the methods and the terminology. So if I was dead set on reading journal articles, I would do the following: read up on the following techniques: cloning, PCR, gene knock out and knock down (siRNA, shRNA, mutations etc.). Then take a fairly straightforward article very slowly. Look at the pictures. Learn to look at trends instead of absolute values (for instance...look at control, then look at experiment, did anything go up? did anything go down?). That should be a good start.

Also, don't feel like you have to read journal articles to do well. Plenty of people don't and they do fine. It is by no means a requirement to get a great score. Hope that helps!

 

[Bomikepa]

I see. I guess it helps a lot to take a class in order to understand these things. I know I don't have to read them but I feel as it may help be because the bio section now has passages that feel like they come from these sources all though they are modified of course.

The language and such on the bs section especially from these experiment type passages are somewhat daunting for people who are not really familiar with them. No prep book I know even covers things like knock out experiments and so forth and I feel as if maybe understanding it would be tremendously helpful. Or maybe I was freaking out on the bs section beacause of the complex appearance of the passages but in reality maybe they were not as bad....

I have looked online and found lots of info but much of it is over my head lol I can't understand it and it seems like its geared more towards people doing the actual experiments rather than studying for mcat. I'm in desperate needed of reviewing experiment protocols and such lol it's been a while since I have looked at it !

 

[La Presse]

Well first of all, what got me started reading papers in the first place was a research methods course and lab. After taking that course, I felt like I could partially understand the methods and the terminology. So if I was dead set on reading journal articles, I would do the following: read up on the following techniques: cloning, PCR, gene knock out and knock down (siRNA, shRNA, mutations etc.). Then take a fairly straightforward article very slowly. Look at the pictures. Learn to look at trends instead of absolute values (for instance...look at control, then look at experiment, did anything go up? did anything go down?). That should be a good start.

Also, don't feel like you have to read journal articles to do well. Plenty of people don't and they do fine. It is by no means a requirement to get a great score. Hope that helps!

Although, I can wholeheartedly agree that reading articles are not mandatory, one often gets a sense of familiarity with the content and can train themselves to quickly dissect information presented in graphs.

I often take a look at a few major journals like Cell for science articles and look at Time or the Economist for humanities topics.


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[QuantumFlame]

I see. I guess it helps a lot to take a class in order to understand these things. I know I don't have to read them but I feel as it may help be because the bio section now has passages that feel like they come from these sources all though they are modified of course.

The language and such on the bs section especially from these experiment type passages are somewhat daunting for people who are not really familiar with them. No prep book I know even covers things like knock out experiments and so forth and I feel as if maybe understanding it would be tremendously helpful. Or maybe I was freaking out on the bs section beacause of the complex appearance of the passages but in reality maybe they were not as bad....

I have looked online and found lots of info but much of it is over my head lol I can't understand it and it seems like its geared more towards people doing the actual experiments rather than studying for mcat. I'm in desperate needed of reviewing experiment protocols and such lol it's been a while since I have looked at it !

Yes, I feel like the class really helped. So a few points:

1) TBR Bio covers the basics of molecular biology research techniques, you might want to check that out.

2) The biggest obstacle to overcome is the intimidation factor. Realize that most studies are basically trying to answer a very narrow set of questions. If you can identify the questions being asked, then you can start to figure out how the researchers went about answering them. Also, the majority of the intimidation comes from weird sounding gene/protein names. Once you realize they are just names for proteins or genes that are either structural or enzymes etc. which have a specific function, it starts making more sense.

3) If you really want to learn some basic molecular biology techniques before diving into the literature, check this out, it gives a good overview:

http://openwetware.org/images/d/d9/IT-5B_%28Basic%29_Laboratory_Techniques_%28in_Molecular_Biology%29.pdf

 

[geh926]

Any ideas on how to find some articles? I'd like to read TheEconomist, New Yorker, Times, Cell, etc. but I really don't want to subscribe to all of those!

 

[QuantumFlame]

As far as science articles, PLoS is open access:
http://www.plos.org/publications/journals/

 

[Happy_Puppy5000]

You can access several online Journals such as The Economist, Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker and many others by using your library card. Each States I believe has a different access site, but for Connecticut it is IConn.org, then enter your library card number, then click online journal on your left, then type in the journal that you want to read, (then for some they may ask you to retype your library card number again.) So just go to your local library and ask them what is the site that you go to for access in your State. Hope that helps.

 

[asecondtolife]

Any ideas on how to find some articles? I'd like to read TheEconomist, New Yorker, Times, Cell, etc. but I really don't want to subscribe to all of those!

If you are currently enrolled in a university or live nearby one, you can check out their campus library. I know UC Berkeley and UCSD have shelves of the latest magazine issues available for everyone to read

 

[Renaissance Man]

Just do tons of practice passages and tests to get used to the "feel" or BS questions. No need to waste time and energy on journal articles. How would you even know if you understood the content or not? Take a look at the 30+ MCAT Score thread on here, I doubt you will find very many people who prepped via PubMed journal articles.

 

[pasiley]

Unless there are practice questions at the end, don't bother.
The bio and verbal are very similar.

Pick up practice bio passages, SAT, LSAT, whatever reading practice tests.

The MCAT tests 4 things

1) Reading Speed
2) Vocabulary (comprehension)
3) Reasoning ability
4) Ability to stay focused while reading the most boring **** ever

Just with a good grasp of 1,2, and 4 I was able to get in the 90+ percentile.

Start off easy with SAT verbal practice and MCAT Bio pratice. There is more of it and once you start doing well on those, move onto LSAT, save the MCAT verbal stuff for last. Also I never got above a 10 on the exam crackers verbal practice tests but on the real thing and ever practice test I took I always got above 10.

 

[QuantumFlame]

Just do tons of practice passages and tests to get used to the "feel" or BS questions. No need to waste time and energy on journal articles. How would you even know if you understood the content or not? Take a look at the 30+ MCAT Score thread on here, I doubt you will find very many people who prepped via PubMed journal articles.

I completely agree, PubMed articles are not a substitute for content review, practice passages and full lengths. That being said, the point of reading journal articles is not for content...it is to become more comfortable with analyzing data. As a supplement though, I think it is a great idea, especially if you already enjoy keeping up with the latest science