SN2'd first day

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EDIT: This was supposed to be a thread about the first day of SN2. However as with all intelligent life, things evolve. This thread has now become a support page for people following the SN2 plan. You can think of it as Alcoholics Anonymous for people studying to take the MCAT using the SN2 plan.

EDIT July 1, 2014:
If you are interested in @mehc012's Anki Deck, DO NOT SEND A PM. Here is the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7if6wgaif98rkoa/mehc012 SN2edCh4s.apkg
**A NOTE: @mehc012 and several others (myself included) want to tell you guys that studying from another person's deck will probably not be as beneficial to you as creating your own cards. Yes you can take advantage of @mehc012's generosity, but you won't get the same advantage. Study the material. Create cards as you go along. You will find it more helpful to your studying. **

EDIT July 22, 2014:
The following is @TBRBiosadist's official MCAT Verbal Reasoning Strategy:
@TBRBiosadist's strategy that got [him] from a 7 average to scoring 13-15 average..

Spend the bulk of your time reading. Up to 3 minutes per passage.
  • Read the first and last paragraph thoroughly to begin with. Understand what the authors main point will be because 90% of questions require nothing more than a general idea.
  • After this, read the entire passage slowly enough where you dont feel like you need to reread sentences for understanding.
Next is just answer questions, there is a few tricks here that work about 90% of the time
  • Unless the passage is asking you about a specific detail, dont look back. READ EVERY ANSWER THOROUGLY AND THEN Answer what makes sense from the general point of the passage. Its very easy to prove a wrong answer to be somewhat correct if you dig hard enough, dont. Answer what your gut says and move onto the next question, dont contemplate to much. With that being said...
  • Answer like you were dropped on the head as a child. Alot of times if Im arguing between two answers, there is the answer that is 100% correct, and one that is 90% correct. Be an idoit and choose the one that seems like it is correct. However.....
  • "Always" is a word to avoid. If an answer uses this word, or definites like it, it is something to avoid. I would say 80% of the time the wishy washy answer is more correct then the highly affirmative one. This leads to my final point....
  • 100% of the time you are not actually looking for the "right" answer in verbal, this isnt PS or BS where 1+1 almost always equals 2 (unless we are talking about the different sedimentation values for Ribosomes). In verbal you are looking for the answer that isnt wrong. Often times an answer will seem very "right" but one aspect of it is clearly wrong, as compared to an answer that isnt wrong, but doesnt seem as right as that answer, these are meant to fool you. Choose the answer that isnt wrong.
I understand that I few of these tips may be at odds with each other. Ultimately you must adjust slightly for each passage, but it comes down to one thing. Read thoroughly. Read every sentence in the passage. Read every question. Read every answer. Then the correct answer will be fairly obvious. This may seem like it takes longer, but it takes much less time than skimming, and then trying to find the correct information later.

Or to summarize in one sentence

Understand what the hell the author is arguing

EDIT July 26, 2014:
@DoctorInASaree uploaded a guide to Verbal Reasoning. If you're interested, it's worth a look. Here is the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2byivymmqwlvjms/MCAT VR Primer DRSAREE.pdf

EDIT 2, July 26, 2014: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/sn2d-first-day.1074344/page-52#post-15510851
________________________________________________
Just finished the first day of SN2...man is it long and exhausting.

The first day is BR physics chapter (translational motion) + 1/3 of the passages. I felt like I wasn't able to apply the stuff I read into the stuff I was tested on.

Has anyone felt this way when following the schedule? It just seems like the contents of the chapter didn't really stick in my head when I took the practice passages. Will this improve over time?

EDIT 3, March 4, 2015:

For verbal, if you are feeling lost and confused, I highly highly recommend you to look into the MCAT Strategy Course by @Jack Westin. I've been working with him, and nothing comes close to his course and teaching. It's a strategy course, so it will cover everything, not just the VR/CARS section.
 
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MelloTangelo said:
Yeah, I'm probably just freaking out for no reason! I'm just worried it'll end up like my first time trying to study for this test (that sure didn't go too well), hehe. But it's awesome that we're starting at the same time, yeah! I'll be rooting for you too! <3



You're right. I feel like I was already looking at the time too much while reading. I might try to start taking some notes on top of doing the examples so I have something to look over later. I'm hoping I end up in love with this book, too, though! I'd rather love doin' this than...not. But I think I'll go take a look at those scores! Thanks a ton, and good luck yourself...!
Click to expand...
Oh you never love it, you just will get to a stage where you cant imagine life without it.

Like an old married couple who hate each other but have been together so long that they cant actually live without the other.
 
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DoctorInASaree said:
Elementary, my dear Rhino! I'm no psychic, but I deduced that you had t < 30 days because someone with more than one month left before their MCAT would have enough time to go over TBR and commit themselves to a comprehensive content review twice over. Furthermore, the majority of posters remaining in this thread are writing in August - balance of probabilities.

Here's the happy part: you don't need to commit yourself to an exhaustive content review at this point. You scored a 37, 13 and 13 in PS and BS. It seems to me that you are making errors on the margin; which I believe can be corrected for with meticulous post-FL analysis.

Think about this way: If you were scoring say 8s or thereabouts then your situation would be analogous to a boat with so many holes that the boat will be submerged in a matter of minutes. Such a predicament is also correctable, but only through an exhaustive review of BS&PS content. However, you are scoring 13s, which indicates that you don't have many inconsistencies in your knowledge base (or holes in your boat). You are making mistakes on the margin which is easily correctable given your time frame.

That sounds easy but how would you correct those "mistakes on the margin"? First of all, you need to acquire a pink pen..no I'm kidding! Every single question that is answered incorrectly must be marked with an X, and every question that you struggled with (the only way this will work is if you are entirely honest with yourself) must be marked with an ~ (or whichever character you'd prefer - that's just what I use). So, the X part is fairly obvious, but what do I mean about the tilde (~)? If I "outsmarted" the passage using my Sherlock Holmesian technique of PoE I consider that to be a ~. Why? I'm not answering based off of content knowledge; rather through intuition. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but if since you are claiming a lack of content knowledge then you want to first attempt to answer the question based off of what you know rather than what you think you know about the topic.

For example - what's better?
(1) I assume my husband wants pizza for supper.
OR (2) My husband told me he wants pizza for supper.

If we accept the two premises that (a) I'm married (b) my husband has an affinity for pizza then surely it is reasonable for me to intuit answer (1). However, I think everyone would agree that (2) is the answer that is undoubtedly correct.

As for the rest of the tilde (~) questions - that should be fairly obvious. You felt you picked the right one (got lucky), or you simply were unsure of yourself. What I mean is: if you answer correctly based off of ignorance - that's just not good enough!

Alright - so, now we've highlighted incorrect answers and uncertain answers with a ~. How does one go about not making those mistakes ever again? It's difficult to answer such a question in an abstract form. One must examine the underlying thinking that was present at the time of the exam - i.e.: what made you choose B instead of C? Why did you think that B was the correct answer? OKAY. Now you know why you were wrong, and you have pinpointed the error in your thought process(es). Now comes the hard part - how could you have answered the question correctly? I can only provide an abstract answer (unless provided with a question/answer); you already know this. Why? You just have just corrected your erroneous reasoning leaving the correct reasoning that will now lead you to the right answer! Victory!!!! :soexcited::soexcited:

Next? Sleep. Wake up and do it all over again - total review this time: even of the correct answers.


I apologize profusely, but I have to go! I will update this post / post again this evening with a more detailed response.
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So what I've been doing so far is marking every question that I am not confident about (whether another answer seems more or less plausible or the answer I am choosing isn't making a lot of sense to me), and reviewing these and any incorrect answers. But you also (verify if my interpretation is correct) - or at least are recommending to also - mark questions that reveal a content gap, or a lack of "positive knowledge" of the correct answer choice.

So given an arbitrary question:
qwertyqwertyqwertyqwertyqwerty, qwerty qwerty. The best explanation is:
a) Contains premise that seems unlikely, yet the answer as a whole can not be refuted as impossible with knowledge.
b) Contains premise that seems unlikely, yet the answer as a whole can not be refuted as impossible with knowledge.
(c) Contains premises that seems likely/plausible, yet the answer as a whole can not be verified as true with knowledge.
d) Contains premise that seems unlikely, yet the answer as a whole can not be refuted as impossible with knowledge.

This question should be marked for review, even though you're almost positive that c is the correct answer. This seems to be more rigorous than the method that I am using right now. But if such rigor has in your opinion, helped you, then I will surely apply this soon.

And I see that you are saying that if you can identify where you went wrong, and why the answer is correct, then that is actually the victory or the step toward eliminating that kind of error in the future. I believe this is consistent with what I have been doing, although sometimes it's tough to apply for VR, because sometimes VR, to me, seems like the answer is arguable (I've seen this more in the TBR practice tests and other practice material than the AAMC tests, which seem usually pretty solidly based in reason or the passage), or less obvious how to pinpoint why your answer is incorrect. It seems that to solidly change your VR scores, you kind of have to change your way of thinking/mindset when reading passages/answer choices. It's actually daunting, to me, to think about finding my error in VR, and what I can do to change it, compared to the sciences. Did you do anything to improve your verbal or did you go through any process when reviewing for VR (or maybe if you studied for the SAT/ACT you picked up some valuable advice there)? What are your tips for VR?
 
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Rhino1000 said:
So what I've been doing so far is marking every question that I am not confident about (whether another answer seems more or less plausible or the answer I am choosing isn't making a lot of sense to me), and reviewing these and any incorrect answers. But you also (verify if my interpretation is correct) - or at least are recommending to also - mark questions that reveal a content gap, or a lack of "positive knowledge" of the correct answer choice.

So given an arbitrary question:
qwertyqwertyqwertyqwertyqwerty, qwerty qwerty. The best explanation is:
a) Contains premise that seems unlikely, yet the answer as a whole can not be refuted as impossible with knowledge.
b) Contains premise that seems unlikely, yet the answer as a whole can not be refuted as impossible with knowledge.
(c) Contains premises that seems likely/plausible, yet the answer as a whole can not be verified as true with knowledge.
d) Contains premise that seems unlikely, yet the answer as a whole can not be refuted as impossible with knowledge.

This question should be marked for review, even though you're almost positive that c is the correct answer. This seems to be more rigorous than the method that I am using right now. But if such rigor has in your opinion, helped you, then I will surely apply this soon.

And I see that you are saying that if you can identify where you went wrong, and why the answer is correct, then that is actually the victory or the step toward eliminating that kind of error in the future. I believe this is consistent with what I have been doing, although sometimes it's tough to apply for VR, because sometimes VR, to me, seems like the answer is arguable (I've seen this more in the TBR practice tests and other practice material than the AAMC tests, which seem usually pretty solidly based in reason or the passage), or less obvious how to pinpoint why your answer is incorrect. It seems that to solidly change your VR scores, you kind of have to change your way of thinking/mindset when reading passages/answer choices. It's actually daunting, to me, to think about finding my error in VR, and what I can do to change it, compared to the sciences. Did you do anything to improve your verbal or did you go through any process when reviewing for VR (or maybe if you studied for the SAT/ACT you picked up some valuable advice there)? What are your tips for VR?
Click to expand...

I'll address your post point by point, so this may appear disorganized to people who are unfamiliar with our conversation:

Your interpretation is correct - that's precisely what I do as well.🙂

Okay, so first of all, the following must be said: I, nor anyone else, can help if you don't understand the meaning of qwertyness. The best explanation to the question is actually: qwertyqwertyqerty. You must be able to grasp the nuances of qwertyness (note the 'qerty' at the end). Get it together Rhino! 😀😀

Alright, I'll be serious now, I promise! 😛. Yes, that question should be marked for review, because the only reason why you think (c) is correct is because you are employing the balance of probabilities method from Sherlock Holmes (that's what I call it in my bag of tactics). It's good, but not good enough for someone who is seeking mastery of the MCAT.

I'm glad that you're already employing that method of post-game analysis. Yes, I too have found it difficult to apply to VR especially with respect to EK101. However, at the end of the day, our answer is either wrong or right. There is no middle or gray area. As a corollary, one can and will find an error in their reasoning. There has to be a reason why one chose the incorrect answer choice.

Verbal Improvement ( Saree's perspective)

(Step 1): Change the name the Verbal Reasoning section (VR) to Verbsies. Notice instant three point gain.😀

(Step 2): Don't let your EK101 scores get you down😉. If you are consistently scoring well on the EK101 passages; do let them motivate you.

(Step 3): My father told me that I needed to solve verbal passages while using a framework. What is the foundation of my framework? Why, logical reasoning of course! Inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning.

(Step 4): Have you ever been fooled by a Verbsies passage? Have you ever looked at the answer and thought to yourself: the MCAT is engaging in prevarication? KNOW YOUR LOGICAL FALLACIES.

(Step 5a): Verbsies check. Framework check. Now, begin to work on your time management while you solve verbal passages.
(Step 5b): Meticulously immerse yourself in post-game analysis under the guidance of your framework.

I would also like to add two things:

(1) I have a decent outline, or primer if you will permit me, of my framework and I believe it's posted in my signature down below and also on the 1st page of this thread.

(2) This is important and will be bolded and underlined.

Know the difference between deductive and abductive reasoning. In short, deductive reasoning is A therefore B. We can prove B because of premise A; which we can also prove. Yay, logical consistency.

What about abduction? Abduction is B therefore A. Why is this distinction CRITICAL? Deductions are never wrong, yet abductions can be. You want to be making deductions on all of your BS PS VR, and minimize your abductions (of course you should also minimize your guesses).

Example:
Deduction: It rained last night. Therefore, the grass is wet. A therefore B.
Abduction: The grass is wet. Therefore, it rained last night. B therefore A. However, the sprinklers could have been turned on, and so on and so forth. One must now determine the balance of probabilities - which of the two events is most likely to occur? Now you get into the game of likely/plausible which you stated in the example you provided us with.

Hopefully you can see that deductive reasoning is the way to go!:flame:
 
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Answer the question orange
tumblr_inline_mtbz2h3oG71rocwym.gif
 
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Nah cali yo, we're the worlds 8th largest gdp. Agriculture for entire country, most military basis, can go to the beach and go skiing in the same day, legal ganja, we have it all
 
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TBRBiosadist said:
Nah cali yo, we're the worlds 8th largest gdp. Agriculture for entire country, most military basis, can go to the beach and go skiing in the same day, legal ganja, we have it all
Click to expand...
Oh and we produce 80% of the worlds professional porn
 
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TBRBiosadist said:
Nah cali yo, we're the worlds 8th largest gdp. Agriculture for entire country, most military basis, can go to the beach and go skiing in the same day, legal ganja, we have it all
Click to expand...
Yeah but you guys dont have NYC.. Cali is like the okish cousin that shows up every now and then... But NYC is the best man
 
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meh Cali is ok but it isnt New York ... You know what cali doesn't have.. It doesn't have New York !! I know its a strange argument but we New Yorkers know what i mean lol
 
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poop420 said:
meh Cali is ok but it isnt New York ... You know what cali doesn't have.. It doesn't have New York !! I know its a strange argument but we New Yorkers know what i mean lol
Click to expand...
meh NYC is ok but it isnt Cali ... You know what NYC doesn't have.. It doesn't have California!! I know its a strange argument but we Californians know what i mean lol
 
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poop420 said:
meh Cali is ok but it isnt New York ... You know what cali doesn't have.. It doesn't have New York !! I know its a strange argument but we New Yorkers know what i mean lol
Click to expand...

They are different worlds. I love the fast pace nature of New York. Cali is more chill and I love visiting family there to chill with.
 
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LOL i find it strange i'm defending NY because I consider myself Jamaican over everything else .. So Jamaica.>>>>>>New York >>> Cali
But each have its own good and bad
 
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HA HA Knew someone would say this ... Thats why I love Americans !! You guys are aware that most of the countries in the world have freedom as well ... 🙂
giphy.gif
 
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DoctorInASaree said:
I'll address your post point by point, so this may appear disorganized to people who are unfamiliar with our conversation:

Your interpretation is correct - that's precisely what I do as well.🙂

Okay, so first of all, the following must be said: I, nor anyone else, can help if you don't understand the meaning of qwertyness. The best explanation to the question is actually: qwertyqwertyqerty. You must be able to grasp the nuances of qwertyness (note the 'qerty' at the end). Get it together Rhino! 😀😀

Alright, I'll be serious now, I promise! 😛. Yes, that question should be marked for review, because the only reason why you think (c) is correct is because you are employing the balance of probabilities method from Sherlock Holmes (that's what I call it in my bag of tactics). It's good, but not good enough for someone who is seeking mastery of the MCAT.

I'm glad that you're already employing that method of post-game analysis. Yes, I too have found it difficult to apply to VR especially with respect to EK101. However, at the end of the day, our answer is either wrong or right. There is no middle or gray area. As a corollary, one can and will find an error in their reasoning. There has to be a reason why one chose the incorrect answer choice.

Verbal Improvement ( Saree's perspective)

(Step 1): Change the name the Verbal Reasoning section (VR) to Verbsies. Notice instant three point gain.😀

(Step 2): Don't let your EK101 scores get you down😉. If you are consistently scoring well on the EK101 passages; do let them motivate you.

(Step 3): My father told me that I needed to solve verbal passages while using a framework. What is the foundation of my framework? Why, logical reasoning of course! Inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning.

(Step 4): Have you ever been fooled by a Verbsies passage? Have you ever looked at the answer and thought to yourself: the MCAT is engaging in prevarication? KNOW YOUR LOGICAL FALLACIES.

(Step 5a): Verbsies check. Framework check. Now, begin to work on your time management while you solve verbal passages.
(Step 5b): Meticulously immerse yourself in post-game analysis under the guidance of your framework.

I would also like to add two things:

(1) I have a decent outline, or primer if you will permit me, of my framework and I believe it's posted in my signature down below and also on the 1st page of this thread.

(2) This is important and will be bolded and underlined.

Know the difference between deductive and abductive reasoning. In short, deductive reasoning is A therefore B. We can prove B because of premise A; which we can also prove. Yay, logical consistency.

What about abduction? Abduction is B therefore A. Why is this distinction CRITICAL? Deductions are never wrong, yet abductions can be. You want to be making deductions on all of your BS PS VR, and minimize your abductions (of course you should also minimize your guesses).

Example:
Deduction: It rained last night. Therefore, the grass is wet. A therefore B.
Abduction: The grass is wet. Therefore, it rained last night. B therefore A. However, the sprinklers could have been turned on, and so on and so forth. One must now determine the balance of probabilities - which of the two events is most likely to occur? Now you get into the game of likely/plausible which you stated in the example you provided us with.

Hopefully you can see that deductive reasoning is the way to go!:flame:
Click to expand...
I very much enjoy your replies. BTW, one of your earlier posts had me thinking I was Watson for a sec, haha. I've never heard of abduction before, but I somehow came across something similar, (I actually think it was a verbsies practice passage from a TBR exam #5), but they called it "the fallacy of affirming the antecedent." Perhaps I ought to consciously stress the distinction more, and actually look for deductive-level rigor of choosing answers, which would possibly shift the first instincts away from using intuition. Looking at the size of that VR primer, I can assure you that I am impressed. I will read it over the next few days.

I have a couple questions for you:
- where did all of the material in this primer come from? You didn't write this all did you? Or I suppose that I have vague memories of you calling it a compendium or something similar. So maybe it's a collection of excerpts?
- Do you happen to go to or, geez, even teach at a university whose acronym's second and fourth letter are J and U?
- your dad said that you had to approach VR with a frameword; how did he come to give you this advice? Is he a physician or does he have relevant experience in such things? I'm just curious

Also, excellent reply, thanks 🙂! I think something that I can take away from this as is, is simply to consciously make an effort to notice deductive logic.

Edited: Gosh, I accidentally forgot to call it verbsies. That's my greatest downfall, I think.
 
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giphy.gif
Fastest human beings to ever been recorded , Best weed , Bob marly,beautiful beaches and Freedom too!!
images

But at the end of the day we all homies !
tumblr_msrwhjwZMx1s37tx6o1_500.gif
 
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because Of this thread today and my own laziness I have 3 hours to do all my passage for 4 chapters and review my FL. So tata, just going to be screaming now
 
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I've completely lost the mood to do the 3rd 1/3 of passages. I feel like at this point I'm just going to go through and do them for my weak points but seriously, I just want to take FL's, review them, and do nothing else..... The only portion of the schedule I've been following besides the FLs is the verbal passages
 
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Rhino1000 said:
I very much enjoy your replies. BTW, one of your earlier posts had me thinking I was Watson for a sec, haha. I've never heard of abduction before, but I somehow came across something similar, (I actually think it was a verbsies practice passage from a TBR exam #5), but they called it "the fallacy of affirming the antecedent." Perhaps I ought to consciously stress the distinction more, and actually look for deductive-level rigor of choosing answers, which would possibly shift the first instincts away from using intuition. Looking at the size of that VR primer, I can assure you that I am impressed. I will read it over the next few days.

I have a couple questions for you:
- where did all of the material in this primer come from? You didn't write this all did you? Or I suppose that I have vague memories of you calling it a compendium or something similar. So maybe it's a collection of excerpts?
- Do you happen to go to or, geez, even teach at a university whose acronym's second and fourth letter are J and U?
- your dad said that you had to approach VR with a frameword; how did he come to give you this advice? Is he a physician or does he have relevant experience in such things? I'm just curious

Also, excellent reply, thanks 🙂! I think something that I can take away from this as is, is simply to consciously make an effort to notice deductive logic.

Edited: Gosh, I accidentally forgot to call it verbsies. That's my greatest downfall, I think.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the compliments they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! 😀 😀

- I love writing stuff. I write essays for each Disney princess movie I watch. I've been compiling those notes for a few years now!
- No 😛
- Life advice I believe. An inevitable (and rather fun) part of life are the unexpected/unforeseen experiences, and his idea is that a framework allows one to easily adjust and adapt to that new experience without losing perspective of who we are. Logical reasoning is an important part of my framework, and one that I emphasize while studying for the MCAT.

You're right...I mean...abductive reasoning has its place in real world scenarios: i.e. - If I see a friend of mine with tear marks streaming down their eyes I deduce that they have recently been crying. Reasonable right? Now I abduce that those were tears of sorrow, and I proceed to console my friend. I employed abductive reasoning, so I could be wrong...but in a real world scenario acting on probabilities is important. If I know...say her boyfriend (soon to be ex) is a louche character then MY balance of probabilities states that she is most likely crying because of him. Sometimes we just don't know all the facts. In an MCAT passage, we KNOW all that we need to know to answer the question. That's not life.

Sherlock Holmes uses inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning, and he's stated himself that he is not always right. Although, he ALWAYS deduces at the end; which is why he catches the perpetrator. Anyways, getting back on track, a valid deduction guarantees the correct answer on an MCAT passage. So, evaluate the validity of your premise(s), and your reasoning as to how you go from A to B.
- sleepy saree
 
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