Time issues - read questions first, then passage or vice versa?

[tf2medic]

what's your advice on what one should do first....should you read the passage first, then answer the questions...or read the questions real fast first so you get a feel for what you're looking for and then read the passage?

i took my first CBT last night and I had time constraint issues, so i'm looking for ways to go faster. I had like 10 questions left on the PS ehh...an entire passage left on VR...but for some reason i finished BS on time with no problem. i haven't even went over any of the BS material yet and i finished it the fastest haha...i mainly just plan to review ochem for BS. i'm okay on bio and will just review the things i miss on the practice tests. so what do you guys suggest? or if you have any other timelimit strategies? thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[RSAgator]

you should read the passage well the first time. If you want, try doing it by reading the questions first. You'll likely find that you don't remember too much from them. If you're running into time trouble then reading the questions first will cost you 3.5-4 minutes (assuming you spend 30 seconds reading the questions) and it's unlikely you'll remember much of them/they'll be meaningless without a frame of reference. The main reason it's not a great strategy is because you have no way of predicting which questions will give you trouble and which won't. I don't know if it's an effective way to help your time troubles.

 

[TheBoondocks]

what's your advice on what one should do first....should you read the passage first, then answer the questions...or read the questions real fast first so you get a feel for what you're looking for and then read the passage?

i took my first CBT last night and I had time constraint issues, so i'm looking for ways to go faster. I had like 10 questions left on the PS ehh...an entire passage left on VR...but for some reason i finished BS on time with no problem. i haven't even went over any of the BS material yet and i finished it the fastest haha...i mainly just plan to review ochem for BS. i'm okay on bio and will just review the things i miss on the practice tests. so what do you guys suggest? or if you have any other timelimit strategies? thanks

on ps, you skim. you don't read in the same manner as you do BS. go to the subforum. Shrike has tips on how to attack it. on ps, less time on passages, more time on questions.

 

[bodonid]

For PS and BS, everyone has their own opinion. For VR, the people that consistently finish and do well read the passage before reading the question. But unless you are having serious difficulties (i.e. not just with time management) you shouldn't make any drastic changes if you are taking the april mcat.

Edit- many people say that it is easier to finish BS. On the actual MCAT, I finished BS with over 10 minutes left.

 

[J ROD]

Skim the PS for understanding and come back.

Verbal and BS read the passage and then answer the questions.

Also, do them in order unless you get stuck or need to cut and run before time runs out.

Just practice and get your timing down. I was really nervous about timing on the real deal and rushed and had plenty of time.

I try to do verbal passages in under eight minutes.

I have never had time issues on the others.

 

[tf2medic]

thanks! all of the above is real good advice. i'm gonna take AAMC7 tomorrow and see how I do. i'll definitely try the less than 8 min per passage constraint for the VR and only skim/barely read the PS passages all the way through and see how I do. any other advice? ill let ya know how these strategies work tomorrow

 

[HopefulDoc1984]

unless you can speed-read while understanding the passage you shouldn't waste time reading the questions. maybe give then a very quick glance. its best to paraphrase each paragraph in the passage to make sure you know what its about. dont bother with the details because 1.) the majority of questions are not detail-oriented and 2.) the passage will be there for reference. also, dont do the passages in order. find one that is a topic that is interesting and save the boring ones for last. that way you dont get distracted at the beginning.

 

[tf2medic]

also, dont do the passages in order. find one that is a topic that is interesting and save the boring ones for last. that way you dont get distracted at the beginning.

the thing i find annoying about the CBT is flipping through the passages is harder than on paper. it's a lot easier to work your way around a paper test than the stupid CBT one that makes you hit the next/previous buttons. i guess you can use that "review" button or whatever to get to questions faster but still...ehh

 

[bozz]

read the passages first... if it looks intimidating.. try and skim

 

[fenguin]

Reading the questions has never helped for me, since I forget most of them by the time I'm halfway through the passage anyways.

 

[DrKendrickLamar]

Reading the questions has never helped for me, since I forget most of them by the time I'm halfway through the passage anyways.

I agree. For PS, definitely skim through the passages. Most PS questions that refer to the passage material are pretty obvious. For the sciences, mapping out the passage can be useful. Sometimes, a flowchart can be developed to simplify the wordiness of the text.

 

[RSAgator]

find one that is a topic that is interesting and save the boring ones for last. that way you dont get distracted at the beginning.

I think this is horrible advice. There is no way you can know which passage is going to be interesting and which is going to be boring, just like you don't know which passage will be difficult and which passage will be easy. I've been distracted on passages that interest me and interested in passages that didn't. More than anything else you need to be able to read all passages regardless of where you start and be focused from start to finish. Moving around is a colossal waste of time, and for someone whose running into time trouble it's just bad advice.

 

[dreams]

on ps, you skim. you don't read in the same manner as you do BS. go to the subforum. Shrike has tips on how to attack it. on ps, less time on passages, more time on questions.

Could you put a link to this, i looked but there are many posts by shrike, thanks.

 

[bozz]

on ps, you skim. you don't read in the same manner as you do BS. go to the subforum. Shrike has tips on how to attack it. on ps, less time on passages, more time on questions.

true... but he took it a long time ago.. the PS is more passage based now

be flexible.. be ready to do both IMO

 

[Vihsadas]

You should read well enough until you think you have the most important parts of the passage. For some passages this could be 'skimming' and for others this might be a more thorough read. For PS, it's true you don't need to read and understand every detail of the passages, but rather, just enough to be able to answer the questions. Often, the questions will be pseudo-discretes anyway so reading the passage meticulously may not be ideal.

For verbal, always, always, always read every passage the same way. I really believe that. I don't think that you should ever read the questions first. Think of it this way, the questions themselves are a lot of text! If you read them once without any real context you won't know what exactly the question is talking about. This makes it harder to commit anything to memory for later usage. Then, if you read the passage after the questions, you'll find yourself reading all of the questions again anyway! I think it's really not worth it. Learn to read verbal passages properly and you won't feel the need to read the questions first.

 

[tf2medic]

maan wtf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! freakin AAMC7 owned me. i did use the improving time/speed advice and they worked. i was still a bit slow on PS but i got the VR all the way done. except wtf man...i went down 5 pts from AAMC3 to AAMC7?? how does that happen?? i stayed about the same on VR too...it was just the science sections. there was way more **** on bio that i just didn't know much about...grrrrrr!!! I thought i did fine on the PS and I went down 2 pts...sooo pissed. freakin wasted $35!!!

 

[Vihsadas]

maan wtf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! freakin AAMC7 owned me. i did use the improving time/speed advice and they worked. i was still a bit slow on PS but i got the VR all the way done. except wtf man...i went down 5 pts from AAMC3 to AAMC7?? how does that happen?? i stayed about the same on VR too...it was just the science sections. there was way more **** on bio that i just didn't know much about...grrrrrr!!! I thought i did fine on the PS and I went down 2 pts...sooo pissed. freakin wasted $35!!!

Nah. You didn't waste 35$. Those exams that kick your butt are the ones that you can learn the most from. That exam was hard if I remember correctly. Just don't get to emotional about your practice exam results and just be methodical about reviewing the exam and the concepts like you're used to. You can probably learn a great deal from reviewing that one. GL.

 

[tf2medic]

argggh, i jus looked over my mistakes. nearly all of them are not lack of studying...nearly all of them are being tricked by the freakin test!!!! the answer is right in front of me in the passage and i miss it. it was usually me misreading the question. i took this test late evening and after class all day. blaaah...we'll see if i can get it up to go up on test. ill keep ya posted. i'll probably try AAMC8 next.

 

[Vihsadas]

argggh, i jus looked over my mistakes. nearly all of them are not lack of studying...nearly all of them are being tricked by the freakin test!!!! the answer is right in front of me in the passage and i miss it. it was usually me misreading the question. i took this test late evening and after class all day. blaaah...we'll see if i can get it up to go up on test. ill keep ya posted. i'll probably try AAMC8 next.

That's even better! That means that there will be a lot of thought process post-game analysis that you can do with AAMC7. You can probably develop a few new tricks or become aware of a common mistake that you are making in your approach to the question types.

 

[tf2medic]

hmm...i just took the BS section from one of kaplan's practice tests and got a 12.

so for my BS scores I've gotten:
AAMC3 3 days ago: 10
AAMC7 last night: 7 (ehh wtf this is why i was pissed off last night...stupid mistakes)
Kaplan CBT just now: 12

there is no consistency in those scores whatsover. uhhh?

i feel kaplan's bio was a lot harder too. kaplan's bio was very heavily passage based.

 

[bozz]

argggh, i jus looked over my mistakes. nearly all of them are not lack of studying...nearly all of them are being tricked by the freakin test!!!! the answer is right in front of me in the passage and i miss it. it was usually me misreading the question. i took this test late evening and after class all day. blaaah...we'll see if i can get it up to go up on test. ill keep ya posted. i'll probably try AAMC8 next.

!!!!!!!!!!!!! take it a step further.. do not, do not just assume it's a stupid mistake and leave it at that... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The worst attitude is:

"What's the point of going over the question.... I know the answer anyways... it won't help"... never, EVER do this.

 

[tf2medic]

!!!!!!!!!!!!! take it a step further.. do not, do not just assume it's a stupid mistake and leave it at that... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The worst attitude is:

"What's the point of going over the question.... I know the answer anyways... it won't help"... never, EVER do this.

oooh, i did go over all my mistakes! i'm just saying after analyzing my errors, most of them were caused by misreading the question! there were very few that i didn't flatout know. the ones i had no idea on i looked up in kaplan book and everything. most of these were ochem stuff...still havent reviewed ochem maaan. falling behind in my freakin classes now...so mcat prep needs to go on hold for a few days

 

[Vihsadas]

oooh, i did go over all my mistakes! i'm just saying after analyzing my errors, most of them were caused by misreading the question! there were very few that i didn't flatout know. the ones i had no idea on i looked up in kaplan book and everything. most of these were ochem stuff...still havent reviewed ochem maaan. falling behind in my freakin classes now...so mcat prep needs to go on hold for a few days

That's good, but you can take bozz's (great) advice one step further. WHY was it that you mis-read the question? Do you remember what you were doing when you answered the question the first time? Did you think that you knew what the question was going to ask and then answered incorrectly? Really dig deep and try to find the actual reason that you answered it wrong. Even if it was a 'stupid' mistake, it was still a mistake...and all mistakes are correctable even if correcting that error has more to do with adjusting how you are thinking, rather than anything to do with MCAT concepts, knowledge, or test taking mechanics.
You're almost there man! Don't get angry. Stay non-emotional and dissect your study time like a robot (an extremely overly determined robot, nonetheless).
GL!

 

[matches]

I was extremely lucky to get a 15 on the verbal. My strategy was to read and remember the first two questions for each passage, then begin reading the passage. Once I hit upon the answers to those first two questions, I'd answer them. Then, I'd glance to the next question then keep reading, etc. I found that often (but not always) the questions were in the order that their answers appeared in the passage. I usually finished reading the passage before all the questions were answered.

I found it ESPECIALLY helpful to glance at whether there were any "According to the passage, which of the following is NOT a blah blah blah". It's good to keep the category of blah blah in mind while reading the passage.

I never mapped a passage.

 

[matches]

Also, I hardly ever read the physical science passages (though these were generally my best sections in the practice AAMCs). If you know the PS material, you can answer most of the questions with only briefly glancing back at the passage. Try it some time in a practice test. You'll probably surprise yourself by how well you'll do when only going back to the passages when you need to. And it saves loads of time to check answers.