To read the passage or not to read the passage, that is the question.

[BobbyKoch]

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I’ve been doing the aamc question packs for bio, chem and physics. I find the passages almost unnecessary most of the time. In the past, I have always read the entire passage on FLs. This has pushed me close to the time limit and caused me to miss some low hanging fruit for lack of time at the end. Should I consider foregoing a complete read through before hitting the questions?

Any thoughts @Altius MCAT Practice Test @BerkReviewTeach ?

 

[Jyggaswoop]

Didn't do the Qpacks yet, but for section banks/ FLs passages are definetly key... Some questions don't require passage knowledge, but these are the gimmies in B/B and can be harder on the P/C.

 

[capriccio]

Qpacks are not very representative of the MCAT anymore— Section banks should be what you base your judgements off of. Personally, reading the full passage was absolutely necessary for myself when I studied and took the MCAT. I realized I kept getting questions wrong when I would try to do the questions first because I would read a sentence in the passage that required context from a different paragraph, or I didn't understand how it fit into the bigger picture. It doesn't have to be a close reading the first time through, but you should definitely briefly read over it and have a basic understanding of the general ideas, experiment set up and data before moving on to the questions.

 

[Examkrackers]

With practice, you'll realize that there are certainly some clear cut questions that don't require you to fully read the passage. Many questions, however, are tricky and appear extremely difficult yet ostensibly clear cut, but would actually be fairly easy to answer once you read the passage. Everyone's personal preferences and strategy will be different, but I was personally able to find a strategy where I'd hunt for those clear cut answerable questions first, then hunt through the passage looking for the answers or hints to any unanswerable ones.

 

[Blanky]

yea the question packs are good to start as practice and to make sure you have some content down. During the section banks you will quickly realize you need to read the passage at least enough to get a general idea. And section banks are close to the real MCAT no doubt.

 

[Wahkoon]

yea the question packs are good to start as practice and to make sure you have some content down. During the section banks you will quickly realize you need to read the passage at least enough to get a general idea. And section banks are close to the real MCAT no doubt.

Second this. Q banks are great for content check, but not so much for representing the actual test. I will say for C/P & B/B you don't have to know every little detail in the passage (e.g, every single transcription factor). Do understand the general idea and the point of the figures, then return for the small details.