Verbal Frustation. Please Help!

[JReiss]

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Hi Ya'll,

I'm getting ready to take the January MCAT and have been studying pretty hard for the last 5-6 months. I'm doing ok in the sciences but I'm getting wrecked by the verbal. When I was initially starting off a few months ago, I seemed to be doing ok on the verbal section but as I get closer to the exam date, my scores on various prep company materials have taken a sharp nosedive. At this point, I'm getting only around 50% of questions right.

I feel like I've tried everything under the sun in terms of strategy, with the exception of Kaplan's mapping which I think for me, is a waste of time. My weekly strategy is the following: I read atlantic/economist articles for about an 30 mins to an hour 4-5 days a week. I try do verbal everday --- usually I do 1 - 2 full 60 minute verbal exams 1-2 days a week. On other days, I read the articles and then try to do about 3-4 passages using TBR, Kaplan, TPRH, EK 1001 and LSAT materials.

I feel that the kinds of mistakes I often make are one of the following: 1) a dumb careless mistake that is probably a result of the stress of the timing, 2) missing a specific detail in the passage and not having time and/or not knowing exactly where in the passage it is 3) misunderstanding a subtlety that is crucial to answering a given question 4) ror more difficult abstruse passages, not following the logic of a detailed passage. But I think most people have difficulty with this. 5) A leap of logic made by the writers that I can't seem to agree with --- this seems to be more and more of an issue I'm having, making me think I should not really focus too much on how I'm scoring on prep company materials.

I'm not really sure how to combat these problems and I'm starting to get very nervous that I won't be able to even hit an 8 on test day. Part of me thinks that maybe I should just focus on doing materials from one prep company --- the problem with that is that since I've been studying for a while now, I don't really have that much material left in order to sustain me for another 2 months.

I'm getting somewhat desperate but I'm not really sure how I can go about fixing the problem. Read more? Read less? Do more passages? Less? Get a tutor? Maybe don't worry about verbal until the AAMC's full lengths which I'm saving for january?

My typical strategy involves glancing at the questions first (10 - 20 seonds), then taking 2 - 3 minutes to read the passage and then doing the questions. I'm thinking that maybe I should try taking longer to read the passage (3 - 4 minutes). But I think this may fly in the face of how most people approach the passages. I also usually finish in time but it's always a struggle. I often have to

I'm really starting to doubt my abilities and my confidence is getting shot. But I KNOW that I have the capability to do well on the verbal since I've done well on isolated practice LSATS, 1001 EK and TPRH in the past. Just not recently. Help! Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated!

 

[theseeker4]

Hi Ya'll,

I'm getting ready to take the January MCAT and have been studying pretty hard for the last 5-6 months. I'm doing ok in the sciences but I'm getting wrecked by the verbal. When I was initially starting off a few months ago, I seemed to be doing ok on the verbal section but as I get closer to the exam date, my scores on various prep company materials have taken a sharp nosedive. At this point, I'm getting only around 50% of questions right.

I feel like I've tried everything under the sun in terms of strategy, with the exception of Kaplan's mapping which I think for me, is a waste of time. My weekly strategy is the following: I read atlantic/economist articles for about an 30 mins to an hour 4-5 days a week. I try do verbal everday --- usually I do 1 - 2 full 60 minute verbal exams 1-2 days a week. On other days, I read the articles and then try to do about 3-4 passages using TBR, Kaplan, TPRH, EK 1001 and LSAT materials.

I feel that the kinds of mistakes I often make are one of the following: 1) a dumb careless mistake that is probably a result of the stress of the timing, 2) missing a specific detail in the passage and not having time and/or not knowing exactly where in the passage it is 3) misunderstanding a subtlety that is crucial to answering a given question 4) ror more difficult abstruse passages, not following the logic of a detailed passage. But I think most people have difficulty with this. 5) A leap of logic made by the writers that I can't seem to agree with --- this seems to be more and more of an issue I'm having, making me think I should not really focus too much on how I'm scoring on prep company materials.

I'm not really sure how to combat these problems and I'm starting to get very nervous that I won't be able to even hit an 8 on test day. Part of me thinks that maybe I should just focus on doing materials from one prep company --- the problem with that is that since I've been studying for a while now, I don't really have that much material left in order to sustain me for another 2 months.

I'm getting somewhat desperate but I'm not really sure how I can go about fixing the problem. Read more? Read less? Do more passages? Less? Get a tutor? Maybe don't worry about verbal until the AAMC's full lengths which I'm saving for january?

My typical strategy involves glancing at the questions first (10 - 20 seonds), then taking 2 - 3 minutes to read the passage and then doing the questions. I'm thinking that maybe I should try taking longer to read the passage (3 - 4 minutes). But I think this may fly in the face of how most people approach the passages. I also usually finish in time but it's always a struggle. I often have to

I'm really starting to doubt my abilities and my confidence is getting shot. But I KNOW that I have the capability to do well on the verbal since I've done well on isolated practice LSATS, 1001 EK and TPRH in the past. Just not recently. Help! Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated!

Sounds like the thing you need the most right now is a break. Take a week off of MCAT prep, do some things for fun when you would normally be studying. In a week, take one full-length practice test (or just verbal full-length, if you are not at all worried about the science sections) and see how you did. If you seem to have improved, the stress and constant studying is probably the issue, so start spacing out your studying more.

 

[JReiss]

I hear what you're saying Seeker, but I'm just not ready to take a break if there is something I can be doing. Sure I'm stressed out a bit, but I'll be even more stressed in January regardless of how I'm scoring...

 

[Swagster]

Verbal is by nature an up and down experience. Like you, I did everything available to me under the sun. I had a streak of really bad scores on some practice materials that totally undermined my confidence. It was right before I started taking FLs which screwed with my head pretty harshly. I bombed my first AAMC verbal purely from my lack of confidence. However, I noticed that it wasn't that bad and part of my problem had been trying too many different techniques and working through too many different materials. None of the practice materials, including the more popular ones, had quite the same feel as the AAMC passages and questions. Their tricks worked on their materials, but not anyone elses. You know what I mean?

Somehow knowing that put my mind at ease and I started improving once I got into my FLs. The techniques that I had been questioning a week earlier were perfect. The stupid mistakes I had been making were obvious as I took the test. I felt like I knew what they were going to ask as I read the passage. The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes you have to weather the slump. Don't put too much stock in how you're doing on any practice materials, because no matter what you do the MCAT will feel a little different. Just keep grinding through your slump.

 

[superman3]

"My typical strategy involves glancing at the questions first (10 - 20 seonds), then taking 2 - 3 minutes to read the passage and then doing the questions. I'm thinking that maybe I should try taking longer to read the passage (3 - 4 minutes). But I think this may fly in the face of how most people approach the passages. I also usually finish in time but it's always a struggle."

1. Why do you read the questions prior to reading the passage? The average individual has a digit span of 7 (which is basically an avg. measure of the number of items you can hold in your short term memory buffer). And surprise surprise, the avg. verbal passage has 6-8 questions. I don't think that's a coincidence. Unless, you're effectively chunking the questions, you will continue to drop questions you read from your memory buffer as you are reading the passage. I would advise letting go of this strategy. If you feel you must read the questions beforehand, maybe read 1 or 2, then go on to the passage.

2. I would strongly advise taking longer to read the passage (3-4 min) is perfectly fine. Ever since, I slowed down my reading pace, I have found that my verbal performance has improved drastically. Remember, as EK says, most of the time used up on verbal is spent answering questions, not reading the passage. Gains in reading speed are marginally helpful, at best. I would slow down your reading pace slightly and you may find (as I did) that this drastically improves the speed at which you are able to answer the questions and so you are able to finish in the same amount of time, and in most cases much more quickly. I also found that I had to refer to the passage less frequently as a result of slowing down my reading speed, which is usually a big time sink.

3. Don't focus too much on your practice scores on non-aamc materials. Use those scores only as a guideline. Rather you should be focusing on the skills you can acquire from the different materials. For instance, Ek verbal is heavy in inference type questions, so you should be refining your inference making skills with EK materials. In contrast, TPR verbal is heavier in long, complex question stems, so you should be refining your skills in being able to attack those kinds of questions. Kaplan, is filled with detail questions, so you should refine your detail question answering ability with Kaplan. Each of the test prep verbal materials has something to offer to your arsenal, but in the end the only score that matters is the aamc verbal score. So, just utilize the practice material to identify skills you may be weak in. In that vein, I would recommend focusing on verbal from one test prep company at a time, that way your brain is able to effectively digest and refine the particular skill that verbal test prep from that company is good at refining.

4. Also, pick one strategy and use it across all the test prep materials. For instance, I use the EK strategy of reading and answering questions (on TPR verbal) and perform just fine. In other words don't passage map on kaplan material and then not passage map on EK material (if that's your strategy). Your strategy should be consistent across whatever material you use, because presumably whatever strategy you have chosen to use, should be meant to yield success for you regardless of the passage and/or question style (at least that should be the goal). There's no way of knowing the exact style and question type distribution you will get on test day, but you can at least save yourself 1 headache by having a consistent tactical strategy in place. Pick 1 strategy to use and always use it.

 

[blazinfury]

@superman3

You give some very sound advice as I am in a similar slump as the OP. I am having trouble with is knowing if I am improving as a whole. I say this because as I switch between the various test companies' practice tests, my scores go down. I tried focusing on one company and then moving to another company on several occasions, but applying the strategies from practice company 1 to the material from practice company 2 yielded more quest wrong than I usually get. As this began to occur more frequently, I tried to refine my strategy but when I did that and went back to the materials from company 1, I got more wrong than usual.

Basically, I feel that I am in a never-ending loop every time I switch as I seem to get more quest wrong and that discourages me. I know that AAMCs are the best indicator, but taking 1 AAMC will not define how good or bad I am in verbal. At the same time I do not want to waste the exams as well.

I guess that I am trying to apply the logic from when I feel ready about the sciences to verbal, but it sadly does not hold. I do not know when I can or will be ready as there seems to be no realistic indicator to gauge that.

 

[notbobtrustme]

Reading the questions first is a terrible idea because the questions are designed to be tricky. Often times, it's exactly the opposite of what you find in the verbal passage due to the tricky wording of the question. Read the passage entirely and closely. Then answer the questions. Only go back to verify an answer or to re-read the passage part highlighted (eg question asks you "In line 45 the author ....".

 

[superman3]

@superman3

You give some very sound advice as I am in a similar slump as the OP. I am having trouble with is knowing if I am improving as a whole. I say this because as I switch between the various test companies' practice tests, my scores go down. I tried focusing on one company and then moving to another company on several occasions, but applying the strategies from practice company 1 to the material from practice company 2 yielded more quest wrong than I usually get. As this began to occur more frequently, I tried to refine my strategy but when I did that and went back to the materials from company 1, I got more wrong than usual.

Basically, I feel that I am in a never-ending loop every time I switch as I seem to get more quest wrong and that discourages me. I know that AAMCs are the best indicator, but taking 1 AAMC will not define how good or bad I am in verbal. At the same time I do not want to waste the exams as well.

I guess that I am trying to apply the logic from when I feel ready about the sciences to verbal, but it sadly does not hold. I do not know when I can or will be ready as there seems to be no realistic indicator to gauge that.

blazinfury,
I think you should expect a drop in scores after switching from one test prep company to another, at least initially, just because some test prep companies can be so different in question and passage style. However, your scores should steadily return to your normal level of performance after some time, but it might take a few days. I don't think adapting your strategy for each individual test prep company is the best idea because none of the verbal material out there, to date, perfectly replicates the aamc verbal section. However, you should work on finding the strategy that is best and most comfortable for you. The two main strategies out there are the kaplan/tpr mapping strategies (main idea for each paragraph, then overall main idea at end) or the ek-like strategy (just read the passage, briefly summarize main idea at the end) and maybe some hybrid of the two. I've seen individuals score highly on the verbal section using both strategies: qofquimica (used the mapping strategy and scored a 15 V)....coleontheroll used the ek strategy (and also scored a 15 V). This of course, should be no surprise, as the strategies were developed, with strategies that had been utilized by high scorers, in mind. What you have to do is find which of those strategies seems to work best for your reading/comprehension style and stick with it. From my personal experience, the EK strategy has worked fine for me. I've used it on the more detail heavy and difficult TPR passages and my performance has remained consistent, but maybe mapping will work better for you, only you can determine that.

2. The other thing is to post-game verbal. Alot of people on here seem to think you can't or that it's a waste of time (particularly for non-aamc verbal). I thought the same thing early on in my prep when I was really frustrated with the verbal section. However, I believe this is wrong. I think you can post-game verbal, but you have to do it CORRECTLY. Taking a verbal test, reading the answer choices, and then going oh, I just missed the detail in line x,, in the passage, so that's why I missed the question.... is not post-gaming.....it's just reading and understanding the answer choices....lol. Effective post-gaming means you need to truly understand why you missed the question. I'll admit that there are some questions out there with 2 very arguably correct answer choices, but this is in the very small minority, and you can post-game the other questions just fine. When you miss a verbal question it's usually some combination of 1. using outside information (this is a big no no and the hardest part to train yourself on. I guarantee you're making this error the most) 2. falling for an extreme answer choice (things with ALL, EVERY, etc. in the answer. Vague answers usually fall into this category as well. Ek does a good job of making disguised extreme answer choices) 3. going beyond what is presented in the passage (your job is to use ONLY the information in the passage, so you shouldn't go beyond the information in the passage to make another inference unless the question tells you to do so i.e. application type questions. For instance, if a passage is about the color red, that's basically all you know. You shouldn't be extrapolating anything from the color red to the color blue or even worse, to all color properties in general. Stick to the passage).

3. Lastly, make sure you are reading the question stems, really reading them. Usually, when I struggle with 2 verbal answers, referring back to the question stem helps alot. There's usually a clue in the question stem, that will help you resolve the difference between answer choices.

All of the above tips/advice is presented, with the caveat, that I'm in no way a verbal expert, but I do think, I have gained at least some insight into how this section works.

 

[kehlsh]

I would suggest to change the mindset going into the verbal.
It probably is overstated but becoming a curious reader is really helpful. That's why you should start practicing without timers and then use timer just to keep track of how you are spending your time.
Once you start practicing with that positive attitude in consistent basis, I think you will soon quickly realize verbal is not so bad. I think with this kind of practice, I subconsciously learned how the MCAT verbal is asked and did Ok in it.

 

[Chrome19]

Verbal was my weak point. The best way to get about an 8 or higher in verbal is to try to get an overall understanding of the passage.

I recommend trying to concretize material as you read. Create a movie in your head of what you are reading, no matter how abstract. When you can do this, you are understanding and the main idea will come easier. I averaged 10s on practices with this strategy. I got a 9 on the real deal and I was happy with that.