Timing on the REAL MCAT

[ilovemedi]

My friend did horribly first time she took it because she messed up on the timing and I don't want it to happen to me...

Right when the exam starts, and since the timer runs backwards (decreasing), do you guys literally subtract how much time for each passage? i.e. for PS section, first passage you say (70 minus 8 minutes).. then 62 - 8 minutes for next passage? Or do you just "go with the flow"? Thing is, I want to have a sense of time when I'm takign the test incase time runs out and I'm still on passage X... So how do you get your sense of time?

BTW I'm keeping to TBR's advice: for sciences "~2 minutes per passage and ~1 minute per question, which will leave you with a 4-minute cushion in case your test is calculation heavy. For verbal reasoning, 2 minutes 30 seconds per passage and 1 minute per question, which will leave you with a 2 and a half minute cushion" - though Ill try cutting it to just a total of 7 min per passage *gulp(*.

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[BABSstudent]

My friend did horribly first time she took it because she messed up on the timing and I don't want it to happen to me...

Right when the exam starts, and since the timer runs backwards (decreasing), do you guys literally subtract how much time for each passage? i.e. for PS section, first passage you say (70 minus 8 minutes).. then 62 - 8 minutes for next passage? Or do you just "go with the flow"? Thing is, I want to have a sense of time when I'm takign the test incase time runs out and I'm still on passage X... So how do you get your sense of time?

BTW I'm keeping to TBR's advice: for sciences "~2 minutes per passage and ~1 minute per question, which will leave you with a 4-minute cushion in case your test is calculation heavy. For verbal reasoning, 2 minutes 30 seconds per passage and 1 minute per question, which will leave you with a 2 and a half minute cushion" - though Ill try cutting it to just a total of 7 min per passage *gulp(*.

Practice, practice and more practice.

The only thing I kept time for was the VR. I subtracted 16 (time for two passages) until I got to 12 minutes and then subtracted 8 (44, 28, 12, 4). That means that I should be done with two passages by 44, four by 28, six by 12 and the last one with 4 minutes left. Of course timing doesn't work exactly like that, but that gave me some estimate of time to spend on each passage.