TBR information in Passages vs actual MCAT

[PocketJacks]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hi,

I've been doing some TBR passages for PS/Orgo and for a lot of them (mostly Chem/Orgo), I noticed that they gave a lot of "background" information in the passages. Not all, obviously, but a lot of the given information was material covered in the lectures and often that info was enough to answer ~6/7 (if not 7/7) questions.

1. The question I had was whether the MCAT passages were as "direct".

Idk why it's a concern. Probably because throughout high school/college, most of the questions asked were more like discretes where you basically knew the material or not.

In the TBR passages, it felt like I didn't even need to have that much in depth knowledge of the material to be able to answer the questions because I could just read/understand the information/equations and logically deduce the answer.

2. So I guess what I'm really asking is if just knowing the basics (+obviously some random small facts that just come with practice/re-reading) was enough to complete the passages on the MCAT?

Sorry for the long post, it's due to the fact that the question is kind of vague. I'm not saying that I should just know the bare minimum about each subject. I'm just saying that it seems like the basics(+ relevant facts) are given in the passages.

Thank You!

 

[BB8730]

It depends on the passage. Some passages will provide seemingly all of the necessary information while others appear to not provide any relevant information. Knowing the "basics" may or may not suffice. It's impossible to know what you'll get on your test, so my advice is to not rely on the passages to feed you the correct answers.

 

[Paratodoc]

Hi,

I've been doing some TBR passages for PS/Orgo and for a lot of them (mostly Chem/Orgo), I noticed that they gave a lot of "background" information in the passages. Not all, obviously, but a lot of the given information was material covered in the lectures and often that info was enough to answer ~6/7 (if not 7/7) questions.

1. The question I had was whether the MCAT passages were as "direct".

Idk why it's a concern. Probably because throughout high school/college, most of the questions asked were more like discretes where you basically knew the material or not.

In the TBR passages, it felt like I didn't even need to have that much in depth knowledge of the material to be able to answer the questions because I could just read/understand the information/equations and logically deduce the answer.

2. So I guess what I'm really asking is if just knowing the basics (+obviously some random small facts that just come with practice/re-reading) was enough to complete the passages on the MCAT?

Sorry for the long post, it's due to the fact that the question is kind of vague. I'm not saying that I should just know the bare minimum about each subject. I'm just saying that it seems like the basics(+ relevant facts) are given in the passages.

Thank You!

The TBR passages can be disorienting compared to the practice test. I know exactly what you're referring to. Now, I've only taken AAMC # 3, but I wouldn't consider it anything alike.

As I recently wrote in another thread, the TBR passages are, and are not, similar to the practice exams. First, the testing methods of the MCAT seem to include multiple scientific concepts into a single passage. You may be asked to discern information from a graph where 3/4 questions are chemistry based and the last questions has more to do with the kinetic energy of two atomic particles. Generally, it was my impression that very little background information was included. Certainly not equations like on the TBR questions.

Where TBR really shines is in emphasizing an understanding of broad scientific concepts to answer questions on the exam. When I took my first practice exam I was pleasantly surprised. I felt like the exam went horrible, but my native intuition served me better than I would have guessed. TBR's question types reinforce test-taking skills while instilling the types of information you will see on the exam. For instance, I find TBR general chemistry problems to, in some ways, be more of a teaching tool. They may elaborate on something that was in the written section and demonstrate how it may be asked on an exam.

Definitely a good tool, but I think the practice exams are probably good for getting a feel for the real thing. My understanding from people who have taken the real exam is that TBR questions tend to be harder than the real exam. From a discrete knowledge standpoint, I'd say this is true of the practice exams. Just be prepared to look at a question and go, "what the..." Go back to what you know and try and formulate an answer in a relatively quick fashion.