Verbal for ESL

[member10101010]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hello everyone,

I am having huge difficulties with the verbal reasoning portion on the MCAT. I cannot achieve a score beyond a 6. I have tried several methods and the score of 6 is from reading six passages in 10 minutes and skipping the last(guessing all questions). Before that my score was a 4-5. To be quite honest, if I could achieve a score if 8, I'll be happy. English is my second language, so vocabulary does come hard for me. In addition, I am a slow reader and have problems with concentration and comprehension when I read. The methods I have used are:

1. Read 6, guessed on 7th passage
2. Read each passage and grasped the main idea and tried to formulate a final main idea.
3. Read questions first and then went back

Never tried:

1. Highlighting
2. Writing main idea on paper
3. Any others?

If anyone could chime in and give me some help on this that would be great. Someone with experience I suppose and someone in the same situation, but successfully achieved their desired score. Has anyone heard of any verbal tutors maybe?

 

[siffster]

Hey there!

English is my third language, so I understand your frustration. Luckily, the verbal on the real thing was way easier to comprehend compared to the practice tests; however, the passages were longer. For my test, the passages were easy to read, but the questions were somewhat difficult. I decided not to study too much for verbal since I never saw any improvement, but I wish you the best for this section.

On the real thing, I ended up guessing on the last passage because I was short on time. Hopefully someone else can provide you with their method of tackling this section.

 

[maybeoneday]

My score (11,8,11)

My practice tests had very low verbal scores for the first two months of study (like 6-8). My best advice is keep at it.

Other tips

-Read "The Guns of August" before you go to bed
-when answering questions, use confidence and don't doubt yourself
-I'm a slow reader too, time each practice test and make sure you're not lagging going into the last passage
-I have a friend who didn't read the last section, she just guessed, she did well but this never worked for me