The MCAT

[jennyomar]

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Hi guys,

i post before r/g the low mcat score. Can the retakers share how they restudy the materials? I took the mcat twice already (both times 20P), i need a big improvement, but I don't know what's the best way to start it again. I'm especially afraid of the verbal section, I just couldn't improve on it even if my life depends on it.

thanks

 

[DrBowtie]

Have you taken a prep course?

 

[bkpa2med]

Princeton Review & Examkracker books.

 

[okayplayer]

Hi guys,

i post before r/g the low mcat score. Can the retakers share how they restudy the materials? I took the mcat twice already (both times 20P), i need a big improvement, but I don't know what's the best way to start it again. I'm especially afraid of the verbal section, I just couldn't improve on it even if my life depends on it.

thanks

I thought Examkrackers' VR book was awesome. Really good strategy for answering the questions. I was more lukewarm on the 1001 Questions VR series but it is okay.

I was getting anywhere from 10-13 on the VR practice tests in Examkrackers and got an 11 on the real thing.

 

[mx_599]

Hi guys,

i post before r/g the low mcat score. Can the retakers share how they restudy the materials? I took the mcat twice already (both times 20P), i need a big improvement, but I don't know what's the best way to start it again. I'm especially afraid of the verbal section, I just couldn't improve on it even if my life depends on it.

thanks

make sure you get a timing strategy down solid if that is an issue for you. make little rules for yourself to follow. like no matter what no more than 3min to read. or at 9min total for a passage move on...even if not done. etc ec.

if you get your own groove down you might be able to get like consistent 8s or something.

usually when i messed up this section it was because i couldn't let a passage go and move on

 

[Miss155]

Work on your time until you are sweating.

 

[DarkWingDuck]

Well, assuming you will be testing in April, you have like 5 months. Instead of just working on techniques, try reading challenging material. Get a newspaper like the NYT, LAT, or WSJ delivered daily and read the whole paper. Do not just read what you're interested in, but also everything you find boring, or even terrible to read: economic, architectural, fashion (wait....you prob. are interested in that), and political articles. By the way, USAToday is not a challenging paper to read. If you haven't already taken one of those Kaplan or Princeton review courses I wouldn't recommend it, but that's me and who knows you may actually benefit from it.

 

[jennyomar]

haha...to the previous recommender, if all the passages were on fashion, I'd get 15. Yea, I am doing a lot of reading and trying to stay focus on the materials, even if it is on Chinese dynasty with names I can't pronounce.

Thanks for all your comments guys, goodluck.

 

[HunterGatherer]

Please tell us what you did last 2 times: material, time spent studying, practice tests taken.

Is your GPA above 3.0?

 

[fitnessexpert]

I used ExamKrackers. They have the BEST verbal section. They break down the questions and the basics and help you with understanding. They tell you EXACTLY what you need for the MCAT, so you aren't stuck reviewing material that will never be on it. I really didn't find reading hard material as a good prep for the MCAT, but this book helped SO much. One of the BEST hints was between passages take a 5s breathe and leave that passage behind. It is kind of hard to do at first but then you focus on the new passage.

 

[iwillbesoon]

I know you're specifically interested in what retakers did....but I thought this was interesting:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=46880

 

[HunterGatherer]

You could package that thread as a book and sell it.

I know you're specifically interested in what retakers did....but I thought this was interesting:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=46880

 

[Darth Asclepius]

I didn't retake the MCAT, but I did raise my verbal score a few points on the practice tests I took by practicing how to read the passages and pick out important information. I am a slow reader and I realized I was losing too much time going back and looking for info when I went to answer the questions. My strategy was to quickly skim the questions to see what info I should be looking for in the passage. Then, as I read the passage, I would underline things I thought were really important, or if it was something that looked like an answer to one of the questions. I think you have to figure out what your weakness is and try to find a way to work around it and practice your strategy a lot.

Also, figure out how much time you can spend on each passage. Some are longer and have more questions. Allow a little more time on those. I actually wrote down the time I was supposed to stop on each passage and I started doing a lot better. I can't remember exactly how much time I gave myself, but it would have been (total time - a few minutes for the extra diffult passages/ number of passages). That helped A LOT. Good luck.

 

[NonTradMed]

Well, the thing that helped my verbal score (got a 12) was to read everything and anything every single day. Since you have until April, why don't you make it a habit to read a book every week? Read newspapers? There's really no easy to way to improve verbal except to read, read, read. Of course, practicing your verbal passages is a must as well, but I think you will find that reading books is a more pleasant way to improve your MCAT score than doing straight verbal passages.

Also, if you are doing DO, I think you just need to aim for a 26 with decent GPA (around 3.4) and you should be fine. And those six points won't be hard to increase given that you still have five more months to prepare.

 

[dr_keki]

I think my verbal score improved through reading op-eds in newspapers. No matter how boring the subject was, I tried to make it fun or interesting. I read wallstreet journal, nytimes, time, and the atlantic times. While reading, you want to grasp the main idea, tone of author, and purpose. I think that was a TPR strategy. TPR has some of the best verbal passages I've seen, much better than Examkrackers. Good luck!