TPR - How good is the Verbal?

[Vipro58]

Hey guys,

I was just wondering how good the Princeton Verbal passages are because I kind find them pretty difficult. The only reason i ask if there good measure of what I'm going to see on the MCAT.

I know that Kaplan VR passages are considered easy and Exam Krackers are considered by far the closest to the MCAT.

Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks

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[bluesTank]

On my first TPR diag I came out with TEN straight wrong answers (they werent guesses either!) and ended up with a 5 overall on the verbal. So yes, either I am very ******ed, or they are hard. I think it's a combination of those two.

 

[moto_za]

what?? I got like 20-25 wrong and ended up with a 4....

 

[KeyLime]

Almost everybody does bad does on the first TPR diagnostic. Don't freak out just yet.

 

[GoldenSword]

I kind of have the same question, I've finished the TPR verbal workbook, and the passages seem to me pretty close to the AAMC practice ones as far as difficulty.
My question is about the Verbal strategies in the TPR verbal review, did those work for anyone? better than EK/Kaplan ?

 

[GT2]

As someone who teaches for TPR I do not like their verbal tactics. However, some people do. Combine various technique and see what works best for you.

 

[Shrike]

There is a big difference between TPR verbal technique as taught by a skilled instructor and TPR verbal technique as taught by the book, or by an instructor who follows the book. I have only met one person who considers the book techniques effective as written -- and she's the one who wrote it.

The verbal on the first three TPR diagnostic exams is somewhat more difficult than the actual MCAT, so freaking out early is inappropriate. We call them diagnostic exams, but that's a misnomer, as they really don't tell you how well you're doing or are likely to do; really, they're just practice.

By contrast, the Workbook passages are, for the most part, comparable to or easier than MCAT passages. In-Class Compendium passages vary from Cat-in-the-Hat easy to You've-Got-To-Be-$^%&ing-Kidding hard.

It may be generally accepted (and even correct, I suppose) that ExamKrackers is closest to the MCAT in difficulty, but there are substantial qualitative differences between EK and AAMC questions. (The passages themselves are similar.) For some students (those with difficulty finding main points and understanding authors' points of view in dense material), EK material is quite appropriate; for others, especially those whose primary difficulty is at the question level, ours is probably better practice. (Note: my opinion only, obviously, but that opinion is built on having worked with over a thousand students, with everybody's materials.)

 

[Monarch Kong]

The level of difficulty of the verbal on TPR is definitely tougher. The only way to get a real feel for the verbal section is to take the AAMC practice tests. If you do really well in TPR, you're more likely to do well on the actual test...but there are some lapses in logic when TPR explains their answers.

 

[gridiron]

There is a big difference between TPR verbal technique as taught by a skilled instructor and TPR verbal technique as taught by the book, or by an instructor who follows the book. I have only met one person who considers the book techniques effective as written -- and she's the one who wrote it.

The verbal on the first three TPR diagnostic exams is somewhat more difficult than the actual MCAT, so freaking out early is inappropriate. We call them diagnostic exams, but that's a misnomer, as they really don't tell you how well you're doing or are likely to do; really, they're just practice.

By contrast, the Workbook passages are, for the most part, comparable to or easier than MCAT passages. In-Class Compendium passages vary from Cat-in-the-Hat easy to You've-Got-To-Be-$^%&ing-Kidding hard.

It may be generally accepted (and even correct, I suppose) that ExamKrackers is closest to the MCAT in difficulty, but there are substantial qualitative differences between EK and AAMC questions. (The passages themselves are similar.) For some students (those with difficulty finding main points and understanding authors' points of view in dense material), EK material is quite appropriate; for others, especially those whose primary difficulty is at the question level, ours is probably better practice. (Note: my opinion only, obviously, but that opinion is built on having worked with over a thousand students, with everybody's materials.)

Another thing you have to consider is that no teacher can really teach you the right test taking technique--you have to develop your own through practice. TPR is only there to help "prep" you for the test--it will suggest certain strategies but it is your job to find those that work best for you.

 

[Shrike]

Another thing you have to consider is that no teacher can really teach you the right test taking technique--you have to develop your own through practice. TPR is only there to help "prep" you for the test--it will suggest certain strategies but it is your job to find those that work best for you.

We don't "suggest" -- we teach. At least, that's what we're supposed to do, and what all skilled TPR verbal instructors do. It's true, of course, that there a variety of approaches from which to choose, but it most certainly is not the student's job to find the right one -- in my class, anyway, and I hope in the classes of instructors whom I've trained, that job is shared by the teacher and the student.

Except in the case of tutoring, the instructor is not actually present while the student does his homework, so we rely on students' reporting accurately the results of their efforts so that we can then make the proper adjustments, but the notion that someone would have to "develop [his] own [technique] through practice" is anathema to the model as we train our teachers to teach it.

 

[gridiron]

We don't "suggest" -- we teach. At least, that's what we're supposed to do, and what all skilled TPR verbal instructors do. It's true, of course, that there a variety of approaches from which to choose, but it most certainly is not the student's job to find the right one -- in my class, anyway, and I hope in the classes of instructors whom I've trained, that job is shared by the teacher and the student.

Except in the case of tutoring, the instructor is not actually present while the student does his homework, so we rely on students' reporting accurately the results of their efforts so that we can then make the proper adjustments, but the notion that someone would have to "develop [his] own [technique] through practice" is anathema to the model as we train our teachers to teach it.

I don't disagree with you. However, what I actually meant is that many people who take the class rely solely on the techniques presented by the teachers and the TPR materials. When I teach my students, I try to incorporate techniques that I find useful for the MCAT. Ultimately, I feel that the students through practice learn what techniques are right for them--at least that is the feedback students have given me to date. I didn't imply the burden is only on the student.

 

[Vipro58]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the replies. So it does seem that Princeton's Verbal is a fair measure of what you will see on the exam. The reason I was asking is that recently I got hold of the TPR verbal book and instead of running out of ExamKrackers before my exam I thought i would do some Princeton Verbal exams. So i guess ill finish up the TPR book then have few more tests left from ExamKrackers that I can do. Thanks again!

 

[midn]

I don't want to start a new thread so I'm going to hijack this old one.

I'm really conflicted as to what strategies to use. My instructor, who is pretty good/decent, is really pushing for us to do the whole annotate each paragraph with a few words. This is slowing me down immensely to the point that I go six minutes over my time goals sometimes. It seems to improve my accuracy somewhat, but it's an aggravating strategy especially in detailed passages. TPR advocates "skimming" and annotating while EK says DO NOT skim and DO NOT annotate. Since I've read EK and am taking TPR, I am really confused. Both TPR and EK makes their tests such that their strategies are self-fulfilling. I don't have the money to buy AAMC tests right now and want to exhaust my supply of TPR diags first.

I get really bogged down in heavily-detailed passages that are super abstract (which TPR seems to have a LOT of). I just can't pick out the main idea to write and I get confused.

What do you guys suggest?

 

[League54]

I don't want to start a new thread so I'm going to hijack this old one.

I'm really conflicted as to what strategies to use. My instructor, who is pretty good/decent, is really pushing for us to do the whole annotate each paragraph with a few words. This is slowing me down immensely to the point that I go six minutes over my time goals sometimes. It seems to improve my accuracy somewhat, but it's an aggravating strategy especially in detailed passages. TPR advocates "skimming" and annotating while EK says DO NOT skim and DO NOT annotate. Since I've read EK and am taking TPR, I am really confused. Both TPR and EK makes their tests such that their strategies are self-fulfilling. I don't have the money to buy AAMC tests right now and want to exhaust my supply of TPR diags first.

I get really bogged down in heavily-detailed passages that are super abstract (which TPR seems to have a LOT of). I just can't pick out the main idea to write and I get confused.

What do you guys suggest?

Ignore TPR verbal, stick solely to EK verbal, thats my advice. Listen to the beginning of EK verbal lecture on audio osmosis, particularly to the part where they talk about how skimming and skipping wastes valuble time, and that some passages are easy with hard questions and others are hard with easy questions. Also, TPR passages are more confusing than the actual test, and you want to read passages that are as close to the real thing as possible. EK 101 and AAMC for verbal, all the way.

 

[Shrike]

I'm really conflicted as to what strategies to use. My instructor, who is pretty good/decent, is really pushing for us to do the whole annotate each paragraph with a few words. This is slowing me down immensely to the point that I go six minutes over my time goals sometimes. It seems to improve my accuracy somewhat, but it's an aggravating strategy especially in detailed passages... I don't have the money to buy AAMC tests right now and want to exhaust my supply of TPR diags first.

I get really bogged down in heavily-detailed passages that are super abstract (which TPR seems to have a LOT of). I just can't pick out the main idea to write and I get confused.

I'd suggest doing what your instructor said, which is not what you think he said.

You are writing a few points about each paragraph not because you will do that on the test (for the most part you won't), but because it will help you learn, now, to focus on the right things. Many paragraphs don't need any annotation at all, provided you're using your highlighter correctly, but it helps to do that early on. Assuming you're taking an April or May test, it should be time around now to start making the transition to making a few paragraph-level notes only for paragraphs whose highlighting doesn't really capture what's there.

If you're spending much time finding the main point, then you've missed the point -- the reason we do things paragraph-by-paragraph is so you don't have to find any obscure main point; the main point, as far as you're concerned, is just the conflation (into a a couple of sentences) of the annotation and/or highlighting you have for each paragraph.

Alternatively, you could move to my city and get me to tutor you. You actually would not be the first.

Oh, almost forgot: you do not need money to get the AAMC tests; those are now included with your TPR class. Tow of them are your fourth and fifth practice test (it should be numbers 9 and 10, but might not be). In addition to those, 7 and 8 are useful; the earlier ones (3 through 6) much less so, but there all free to you.

Good luck.