Struggling with Verbal - EK Verbal & 101

[dmission]

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I'm been doing a lot of the EK 30-minute lecture reviews, as well as some passages from their 101 book, and can't seem to break a 10 average. I was wondering if anyone has actually had some success following their method. One of their suggestions is to gain as much information as possible from looking at the various questions and choices. However, I feel like to do this, I have to skip around some and I just feel like this wastes time. Thoughts?

Some of their suggestions, such as focusing mainly on the main idea, do make sense to me, but I find that sometimes I really have to reread the passage before I get it. Even with that, there are a lot of questions where I'm completely torn between 2 choices.

Anyone have any random tips that helped them improve a couple points? I know that skipping questions is generally frowned upon, so I try to go in order and guess when necessary, but it doesn't seem to work out well for me.

Would appreciate any feedback, thank you

 

[PingPongPro]

I always thought the EK strategy was to not skip around and not pre-read questions. I thought they suggested for you to just read fast and effectively and plow through the questions.

People have various strategies for verbal, and its definitely not a one size fits all. I suppose trying out other people's tips won't hurt, but you have to do a ton of passages under time constraints and find out what works best for you.

Personally I don't read the questions beforehand because I find that it wastes a lot of time sometimes and also might make you prone to misinterpret the passage. Also, I feel like after I read a passage I could make a guess about what questions (roughly) they will ask me, and be surprisingly accurate.

 

[KindofBlue]

You've checked out the VR tip stickied in this forum right?
Well pretty much any tip you could think of is there, but to recap, I think trying to get the main idea of the passage without reading it multiple times works best for me.

That means you have to really pay attention when you're reading the first time and not let your mind wander. And pretty much every passage has some questions relating to the author's viewpoint, and some that relate directly to the content of the passage itself, so there you have 50% of the questions already by just reading the passage carefully.

Like PingPongPro said, you can anticipate what the questions will be like from the passage too: that confusing sentence in the middle of paragraph 3, don't just skim through it thinking you'll understand it by the time you finish reading the passage, because those sentences are what the problems will be based on.

 

[redcabinet]

I'd be so satisfied with a VR score of 10. 🙁

 

[PamEganNP]

@dmission

One piece of advice that I have that is somewhat nontraditional is to identify keywords, terms and phrases from study guides and other resources that are likely to come up during the exam, then Google each of these words/terms/phrases one-by-one, printing out the information that you find in the search results and reading over it to supplement your normal study routine.

One of the problems with traditional study materials is that they are not necessarily written by writers, and as a result there seems to be a lot of useless information interwoven with the stuff you need to know. On the internet (when discussing credible sources), writing tends to be thorough yet concise and much easier to read. I'm not saying to abandon the texts and MCAT study guides entirely, just that you may want to consider supplementing it with something that may be a bit easier to retain.

 

[fallingwater]

I've been getting kind of frustrated with EK 101 too! After taking four or five tests, I was hoping to see improvement, but none so far. On the last three I did, I got the exact same number of questions right (33/40). It's almost incredibly consistent.

Do you all use EK's verbal strategy that involves going back to passages a few days later, writing out the main idea, and then seeing what insights it yields into the questions? I've been doing that, but it takes up a lot of time, and I don't feel like I'm getting much insight out of it.

 

[leafs2012]

Man, I was struggling so hard with verbal, like it was really bad. Coudln't get anything over a 6 lol I never read, and feel like that was a huge problem for me, but honestly, for the past week Im starting to feel confident and have hit a couple of 10's on EK verbal and a 9 on one of the AAMC tests.

I followed EK's strategy about trying to get as much info from the question stems as much as possible to the point where you may not even need the passage, and then reviewing the question stems, making a main idea out of it, and then also making a main idea another day. All this would take up major time and it really wasn't working for me.

What I do now is that I quickly skim through the questions, and then read the passage and answer the questions. I take about 30-50 seconds to read all the questions but feel like when I read the passage I already know a bit about it, which helps me stay focused while reading, and then when I go to answer the questions, I have a good main idea already and if its a detail oriented question, then I can quickly go back and retrieve the answers.

What I do to review the passages is to make a main idea and write it out the way EK says. Then I try to re-answer any questions I got wrong and also figure out why the questions I got right make sense. Then I review the answers for all the questions, and then repeat this for each passage.

I try to do a test every 2-3 days so that I can review passages in between (about 2-3), BUT! you need to be able to do passages every single day. At a point, even if you dont fully understand some passages, you just get a feel for the right answer.

I still do struggle with time though and have only been finishing about 6/7 passages, and guess all C on the last one lol, but its because im anal with the questions, so I need to change this.

Also, read the New Yorker online, you can read random things that dont require subscription, its written in a very similar manner to the passages. Check out the economist too!

O and another thing, start to picture the author, and pretend your the author when your answering the questions lol. It sounds wack, but it kinda helps me.

So really, just try w.e method works best for you and just hustle hard everyday! hope this helps!

 

[dmission]

Thanks, everyone -- I appreciate all the replies. To me, EK's idea of taking time to try to answer the questions without even reading the passage seems a bit ridiculous to me. Wouldn't a better strategy be to read the passage once through first, thoroughly, and then use the information in each question in addition to what you read?

Does going back to each passage and writing out the main idea and try to solve without reading actually help?

I'm starting to run out of ideas what to try, really. I've been doing a few practice tests and on all of them I get between 8 and 10. Is there much more you can do then do your best to gain the main idea out of the passage, and going back to read a certain part if you're looking for help on a question?

 

[Melomare17]

Thanks, everyone -- I appreciate all the replies. To me, EK's idea of taking time to try to answer the questions without even reading the passage seems a bit ridiculous to me. Wouldn't a better strategy be to read the passage once through first, thoroughly, and then use the information in each question in addition to what you read?

Does going back to each passage and writing out the main idea and try to solve without reading actually help?

I'm starting to run out of ideas what to try, really. I've been doing a few practice tests and on all of them I get between 8 and 10. Is there much more you can do then do your best to gain the main idea out of the passage, and going back to read a certain part if you're looking for help on a question?

if you take time to actually write stuff down for the VR, then you will for sure run out of time on the actual test, i guarantee it.

 

[fallingwater]

Melomare, EK recommends not writing out the main idea while you're actually taking the section/test (just spending a few seconds formulating the main idea in your head), but then later, a few days after doing a passage, going back and actually writing out the main idea and comparing it to the answer choices. I can't decide if it's worth taking the time to go back to all those passages and do that, though.

 

[dmission]

Yeah, I've got the same question. Is it better to just do practice after practice and hope for improvement, or what? I'm not even sure if I'm getting the main idea of each passage, but I am trying to focus on each my hardest...

 

[paul411]

My EK 101 VR scores were remarkably consistent (10s, 11s, and one 12) - the AAMC VR sections were the same way. On the real thing, I got a 13.

So if you're consistent with your scores and you perform confidently on the test, I think you'll do well.

 

[Melomare17]

Melomare, EK recommends not writing out the main idea while you're actually taking the section/test (just spending a few seconds formulating the main idea in your head), but then later, a few days after doing a passage, going back and actually writing out the main idea and comparing it to the answer choices. I can't decide if it's worth taking the time to go back to all those passages and do that, though.

hm i dont think it is worth it to go back to the passages and do all that. though if you have time before your exam then do it, if not then i wouldn't bother.

Yeah, I've got the same question. Is it better to just do practice after practice and hope for improvement, or what? I'm not even sure if I'm getting the main idea of each passage, but I am trying to focus on each my hardest...

if you do a practice set, then go over and see what you did right/wrong/look at approach the explanation gives, and then do another few practice sets and still see no improvement, then i think you should change up your method. for me, i started off at 11 and ended up at 11 even after changing my methods/approach, and once i realized it wasnt going to be going up anymore i stopped spending time on it.

 

[dmission]

hm i dont think it is worth it to go back to the passages and do all that. though if you have time before your exam then do it, if not then i wouldn't bother.



if you do a practice set, then go over and see what you did right/wrong/look at approach the explanation gives, and then do another few practice sets and still see no improvement, then i think you should change up your method. for me, i started off at 11 and ended up at 11 even after changing my methods/approach, and once i realized it wasnt going to be going up anymore i stopped spending time on it.

That's the thing, I'm not really sure what to change about my method... I'm already trying to get the main idea, and reading the passage pretty carefully the first time around

 

[vin5cent0]

My scores in VR started improving tremendously when I decided to stop trying to pick out the right answer and started picking out the 3 wrong answers. For me, I find it easier to propose why something is wrong. Maybe give that a shot.

 

[Melomare17]

That's the thing, I'm not really sure what to change about my method... I'm already trying to get the main idea, and reading the passage pretty carefully the first time around

if you do want to try changing your method, change the way you answer each passage.

for example, do u read the whole thing first then go to the questions after? do you read one paragraph and answer whatever questions you can after reading then move onto next paragraph and repeat? do you read the questions first then go to the passage? do you skim the passage then answer? do you read a question then skim the passage til you find the answer and repeat?

these are just a few methods you can try if you haven't already. of course some may be more time consuming than others, depending on what works for you, but just try them out, like do 1 passage of each method listed above and see if any gives you larger gains in improvements.