Timing doing Passages

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DieselD

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When you do practice passages (such as some from EK 1001 Bio Passages), do you do these timed? If so, how should they be used (sets of 3, 5, 7, 9?). Also, how much time should you give yourself for the passages? I also have the AAMC practice items, s I was wondering how I should work through these. Thanks.

One final question, let's say you run out of time and haven't finished the passage. Do you a) go through it w/ the explanations or b) should you try to work it out w/ "extra" time or c) work on it without timed conditions.

Thanks. I keep running out of time on PS and sometimes on Verbal.
 
When you do practice passages (such as some from EK 1001 Bio Passages), do you do these timed? If so, how should they be used (sets of 3, 5, 7, 9?). Also, how much time should you give yourself for the passages? I also have the AAMC practice items, s I was wondering how I should work through these. Thanks.

One final question, let's say you run out of time and haven't finished the passage. Do you a) go through it w/ the explanations or b) should you try to work it out w/ "extra" time or c) work on it without timed conditions.

Thanks. I keep running out of time on PS and sometimes on Verbal.


For the EK 1001 Bio passages, you probably shouldn't do them timed. They're not really representative of the difficulty of MCAT biology questions. These are more of the learn-from-practice variety type questions.

For verbal in general, though, you time yourself like on the real test. So that's 60 minutes, 7 passages, which is about 40 questions, give or take one or two. On the real test, you'll get 60 minutes, 7 passages and 40 questions. So keep it around there.

For your last question, I think it's best to continue working on it as if time hadn't expired. But you should do your best to decrease the time you spend working on questions. That's the best way to ensure you complete the entire section before the time is up. The tough part is doing so in an accurate manner.
 
I time by question, 90 seconds per verbal question, 80 seconds per physical or biological question. That way I can time whatever I want, a batch of free response questions or a couple of passages in the same way.
 
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