reading to improve verbal score

[has]

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what are good books to improve familiarity with art/philosophy passages? Can anyone suggest books on art with similar style as will be on the MCAT verbal passages?

 

[blz]

If you're taking it in august it's probably best to just do practice passages rather than trying to read dense, boring crapola.

 

[bigblackjeeps]

If you're taking it in august it's probably best to just do practice passages rather than trying to read dense, boring crapola.

I agree. You could probably read 150 VR passages in the time that it would take you to read one book on the subject. The passages have the advantage of being in the format that you will see on test day, which is helpful, and they have questions following them that help you gauge if you are improving at all. Also, you will get much more of a variation, which will help keep you from burning out and will give you a more rounded outlook for August. Good luck.

 

[ajnak182]

I agree that you should focus on doing passages. I think EK 101 verbal passages is an essential MCAT prep book. However, I think that leisure reading is important, it allows you to become more comfortable with writing that is difficult to understand and written at a fairly high level. The Economist and The New Yorker are pretty good texts. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged would be an interesting and challenging read, basically any reading that challenges you to really learn to follow difficult writing is beneficial. Do do a lot of passages, that is the most important part of verbal prep. But I wholeheartedly believe that making a point to read difficult material instead of watching TV, for instance, really helps boost MCAT verbal. I had trouble following the passages and thus, the questions seemed to come out of left field for me. I got a 6 in August '03 after not doing much verbal studying. for the April sitting, I really focused on improving verbal, which I did by doing Kaplan passages, a lot of practice tests, the EK 101 verbal passages and a lot of reading. I ended up with an 11. It worked for me, and I had always struggled with verbal, so I have a feeling that it can work for you. Good luck 👍

AJ

 

[ajnak182]

One more thing... these other guys are right, don't read BS that you're not interested in. Find some good books/mags that you enjoy reading. Reading stuff you're not into will put you to sleep, cause you to lose concentration and ultimately not help you too much.