Timing on PS section

[speranza]

I have a lot of trouble finishing the PS section on Kaplan's practice tests. In fact, of the five I've taken, I have never been able to finish the PS section on any of them. I've been scoring 9s or 10s, so I think that if I actually finish (instead of just bubbling in answers on the last 2+ or so passages) I could make a 11/12.

Those of you who rocked the PS section, any tips on finishing? I find that often it's the math (which I suck at) or simply thinking too much about a problem that gets me. Anyway, any tips on finishing or just how to approach this section in general would be appreciated.

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[speranza]

*bump*

anyone?

 

[Pontifex Maximus]

Don't think too hard, get a quick relationship, make simple math work for you. If you can't get anything in a certain amount of time, skip it and come back, or make an educated guess. Don't ever get stuck on math, cause there just ain't that much of it that you need to be stuck on. For what its worth, I always finished or came real close to time on my practices, but I had 5+ minutes left on the real deal.

The real key is knowing the physics and chem like the back of your hand so you instantly recognize what to do with your variables and relationships.

 

[WayChanger]

Do the three sets of free standing questions first; there's one set at the very end, and if you do all the problems in order and run out of time, you will have missed out on 5+ of the easier problems in the PS portion. For all the rest, don't spend too much time on any one problem or section; skip the hard stuff and come back at the end.

 

[Turkeyman]

It may be the math that's slowing you down...since there's like 1 or 2 in every passage just about. Anyways...I always save the math ones till the end of the passage, and grab the open ended/conceptual questions first. In addition, I turn all decimals into fractions since it makes the computation easier for me to see(I suck at math). Like 0.01 x 2.3 = 1/100 * 2.3 --> looks a lot easier to me at least :O

Aaaand lastly, I give myself 9 minutes and no more on each passage, I write the time at the top of the page right as I begin to read the passage. Actually, I use that for the entire test -- never more than 9 minutes per passage on verbal, physical, or bio.

 

[speranza]

It may be the math that's slowing you down...since there's like 1 or 2 in every passage just about. Anyways...I always save the math ones till the end of the passage, and grab the open ended/conceptual questions first. In addition, I turn all decimals into fractions since it makes the computation easier for me to see(I suck at math). Like 0.01 x 2.3 = 1/100 * 2.3 --> looks a lot easier to me at least :O

Aaaand lastly, I give myself 9 minutes and no more on each passage, I write the time at the top of the page right as I begin to read the passage. Actually, I use that for the entire test -- never more than 9 minutes per passage on verbal, physical, or bio.

That's interesting. So after the 9 minutes, you just go on? And if you have time at the end, you come back and finish those problems that you skipped? I might try that...

 

[freesolo]

if your doing kaplan's tests than they're really long, and there calculations kill me timewise, i also do what turkey does 9 min tops always with me too. Im a little more lenient when it comes to verbal, because i usually get stuck on 1 or 2 and the rest are easy, and i never go back on verbal.
you know aamc tests have some small passages in there can really save you time, i always finish PS and BS on aamc tests.

 

[wetlightning]

if you catch yourself lingering on anything (as per turkeyman's earlier timing suggestion), FORCE yourself to move on....one, two, or even three questions are not worth agonizing over.

make yourself go to the next passage, but also remember that you've left something blank...worst case scenario, you bubble in randomness...but NEVER LEAVE ANYTHING BLANK!!! no penalty for guessing on the mcat, unlike the crappy SAT

also, doing discretes first is an excellent idea...gives you a little morale boost when you already have stuff bubbled in all over the test, and often gives you a good amt of extra time

good luck!!!

 

[wetlightning]

if your doing kaplan's tests than they're really long, and there calculations kill me timewise, i also do what turkey does 9 min tops always with me too. Im a little more lenient when it comes to verbal, because i usually get stuck on 1 or 2 and the rest are easy, and i never go back on verbal.
you know aamc tests have some small passages in there can really save you time, i always finish PS and BS on aamc tests.

abe, have you taken the mcat?

b/c this april's mcat had a PS section much more like kaplan's....long passages, esoteric diagrams, etc. don't rely on the aamc's, in my opinion. they WERE reflective for verbal and BS...kaplan's verbal was slightly easier.

basically, get used to working w/ kaplan...either it'll be easier or just about the same on test day, so you can't be worse off!!!

 

[freesolo]

nope havent was going to take in april but things happened.
so your saying passage lengths were as long as kaplan's now?
I was really saving time on aamc tests cuz of there short PS passages

 

[DHMO]

I took the MCAT a few years ago, so it might have changed since I took it, but I noticed that a lot of the time, you don't even need to read the passages on the PS section. So, I would read a question, then scan the passage for the info that I needed to answer it. I always had about 20-30 of time left at the end of the section on all the practice tests (and I am a SLOW reader), and ended up with a 13 on the PS section. Try this strategy out on a few practice tests and see how it works out for you.

 

[wetlightning]

nope havent was going to take in april but things happened.
so your saying passage lengths were as long as kaplan's now?
I was really saving time on aamc tests cuz of there short PS passages

precisely. me too, but this past april's PS was definitely more kaplan-esque...

so definitely keep focusing on the kaplan PS..it helps a lot. i went from 7 on my diag to an 11 on the real thing, so it is certainly useful

 

[MoosePilot]

if you catch yourself lingering on anything (as per turkeyman's earlier timing suggestion), FORCE yourself to move on....one, two, or even three questions are not worth agonizing over.

make yourself go to the next passage, but also remember that you've left something blank...worst case scenario, you bubble in randomness...but NEVER LEAVE ANYTHING BLANK!!! no penalty for guessing on the mcat, unlike the crappy SAT

also, doing discretes first is an excellent idea...gives you a little morale boost when you already have stuff bubbled in all over the test, and often gives you a good amt of extra time

good luck!!!

I had this same problem and used this exact strategy. I didn't do anything cosmic, but I did notice that what was eating my time were a very few problems that I gave a *lot* of time to. So if I took more than a couple of minutes (whatever felt about average) I skipped the time-wasting question and came back to it at the end. That completely fixed the problem and I didn't have to skip that many.

Be careful bubbling. This increases the chance of misbubbling, but I generally don't have a problem with that (because it's one of my greatest fears).

 

[Turkeyman]

That's interesting. So after the 9 minutes, you just go on? And if you have time at the end, you come back and finish those problems that you skipped? I might try that...

Yeaap as MoosePilot and wetlightning also mentioned...after 9 minutes I'll end up bubbling in the rest of the answers to the passage and moving on. The reason it's good to move on is because you can get through the most topics and concepts(aka the entire exam), and find the ones you are actually good at. Completion of the section is key, so suck it up and move on . Plus, as your PS studying gets better, you'll find you rarely even have to bubble randomly because you ran out of time. Why? I was always racing against the clock...checking the time that I wrote at the top of the page...constantly. It's just a psychological thing that makes me work faster through the whole section. Good luck!

 

[kgboy]

I felt that this april's MCAT PS section was just as difficult as Kaplan's PS section. But the difficulty came from the "WTF?? I've never even studied this before" element than difficult calculations. I remember Kaplan would have ridiculous calculations like (0.002/0.234 +1.23 /4.567) *5.675....like 10 of these in PS section. But in real MCAT, there were only like 2 or 3 such complicated calculations. If you have the time, get used to it. I practiced getting used to calculating approximated values by rounding off and this helped me zip through any complicated calculations during the real MCAT, boosting my confidence. But if there are more important things to study before that, its not worth your time since only few of these questions are there in the real MCAT. Just my $0.02.

 

[hillbelly]

I did 8 full lengths before the real thing and never once completed the PS section. I did start coming within about five questions from finishing on the last three tests, however (one exception: aamc 3r which i finished 10 min early.) The real thing seemed way harder and I spent alot of time on obsure passages and very little on familiar (but time consuming) passages such as acids/bases. On the real thing i had to bubble in 2 straight passages (about 12 questions) without ever looking at the content and felt utterly demoralised.

My last few practice tests I was scoring 9s and 10s (12 on 3r). Somehow, though, I got an 11 on the real thing. From my experience, it seems there are a lot of tricky questions and you must be careful. Timing is important, but the more you get correct the less you have to get through, I guess. Either that, or they scored my test wrong.

 

[aye]

It may be the math that's slowing you down...since there's like 1 or 2 in every passage just about. Anyways...I always save the math ones till the end of the passage, and grab the open ended/conceptual questions first. In addition, I turn all decimals into fractions since it makes the computation easier for me to see(I suck at math). Like 0.01 x 2.3 = 1/100 * 2.3 --> looks a lot easier to me at least :O

Aaaand lastly, I give myself 9 minutes and no more on each passage, I write the time at the top of the page right as I begin to read the passage. Actually, I use that for the entire test -- never more than 9 minutes per passage on verbal, physical, or bio.

i've heard that suggestion about the 9min/passage. but how do the discretes (non passage-based ?'s) account for the 9 minutes?? do you spend like 3 minutes on those??

 

[dipak_ramkumar]

Hey,

For the discretes I say about 1 min 20s max per question.

 

[Overeducated]

I said this before in another thread but I'll say it again... On the April test I completely mismanaged my time on the PS section (had to guess on three full passages) and still got a 10 on that section... so DO NOT FREAK OUT during the test if things seem harder than you anticipated. Towards the end I totally lost my composure and wanted to bite my hand off I felt so dumb. If I hadn't panicked I might have had an 11... who knows. So just keep an eye on your watch and make sure you don't overthink things. I think there's a temptation to waste additional time on easy questions because you know you can't afford to miss them... avoid this at all costs.

 

[Kazema]

I had trouble finishing PS at first too, had to just guess at the end on like the last passage or sometimes more. Changing the way you do the math is a good first step, change all the calculations to fit the way you think best about math. For me it's scientific notation and fractions.

For example:

((0.388244 * 2358000 * 3.5)/0.0038)*0.738

So basically
((4*10^-1 * 2*10^6 * 4*10^0)/4*10^-3) * 3/4
= ((4*2*4)/4)*10^8 * 3/4
= 8*10^8 * 3/4
= 6*10^8

Which is not quite 622285043.74105 but it's close enough.