Verbal and the 50:50 guess

[Gust]

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I just finished from taking one of those verbal tests from EK 101. There were about 9 questions I had broken down to two possible answers and for all 9 questions I got them wrong. Instead of potentially getting a 10 for this test, I got a 6. Any ideas or tips? If this is in the wrong section, plz move. Thanks.

 

[Cerena]

I just finished from taking one of those verbal tests from EK 101. There were about 9 questions I had broken down to two possible answers and for all 9 questions I got them wrong. Instead of potentially getting a 10 for this test, I got a 6. Any ideas or tips? If this is in the wrong section, plz move. Thanks.

Do you also have the examkrackers strategy guide? It gives some great advice on strategies to use:

http://www.amazon.com/ExamKrackers-Verbal-Reasoning-Mathematical-Techniques/dp/1893858480

 

[gatorman23]

I just finished from taking one of those verbal tests from EK 101. There were about 9 questions I had broken down to two possible answers and for all 9 questions I got them wrong. Instead of potentially getting a 10 for this test, I got a 6. Any ideas or tips? If this is in the wrong section, plz move. Thanks.

I second the strategy section from EK -- this will help you approach reading and question types more effectively. There is a reason that this happened to you so often... it is by design! Practice the techniques in the front of the EK book. Read with a purpose, and you will feel more confident with two similar answers.

 

[CougarMD]

Moving to MCAT Forum.

Also, I suggest going over your wrong answers and figuring out what type of wrong answers they are. If you are falling into the same trap over and over again, this is helpful information. See if you notice a trend for the types of things you fall for and you will be one step closer to fixing it.

 

[Monocles]

One piece of advice off the top of my head: avoid extreme answer choices like "always" or "never".

 

[PingPongPro]

You do realize there is a bias here right?

Try going through your tests and also determining how many you got RIGHT when you guessed 50/50.

Generally its not gonna be an exact 50-50 guess either. Usually you will have some reason to think one answer is SLIGHTLY better or worse, making it 55:45 or something like that. Its better to choose the one you think is most right, but the one you assign a 45% chance of being right, will be the right answer some % of the time. This isnt a big deal when you are literally torn between two answer choices, but often you eliminate two choices, and then choose the best answer between 2 choices. When you get the answer right, you attribute it to your knowledge of knowing that the right answer was the best answer, but when you get it wrong, most people have a tendency to look at it as choosing the wrong choice out of the 2 remaining.

There is no real point of what i said, but stresses the importance of being honest with yourself in order to obtain the best improvement as well as the importance of reviewing wrong and right answers.

Of course you can also be correct in saying you are missing a lot more 50/50 questions than expected. This could be a sign that you are good at eliminating wrong answers, but highly susceptible to the ear pleasing trap answers.
(this reminds me of a mcat type question "Assuming the following are true, which statement best explains X according to the passage?")