Verbal Highscorers: Highlighting/Notetaking?

[0938h4gt983]

For people who have already taken the MCAT and scored high on verbal, did you highlight or no?
I think highlighting is useful, but I also find it very time consuming.. Additionally, did you take notes?

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[justapremed]

I highlighted, and they didnt take up time, but they weren't useful after all. None of my answers really came from anything I highlighted. I didn't take notes. I'd think notes are much more time consuming than highlighting?

 

[Marcus Brody]

You should learn to mentally highlight. That's really the key to a lot of things on the MCAT- learn to do all the logistical stuff in your head so you can focus on answering questions.

 

[LikeClockWork]

(Grain-of-salt note: Got a 10 in verbal on my 5/2007 test and my 5/23/08 scores aren't out yet)

So, not sure if you'd call me a high scorer in verbal, but I did do the highlighting. Just key words though like names, dates, transition words and the like. If you go overboard and highlight every other sentence it doesn't do much good, but if you highlight names it helps find the paragraph a question is referencing faster, IMO.

 

[DaiCa86]

(Grain-of-salt note: Got a 10 in verbal on my 5/2007 test and my 5/23/08 scores aren't out yet)

So, not sure if you'd call me a high scorer in verbal, but I did do the highlighting. Just key words though like names, dates, transition words and the like. If you go overboard and highlight every other sentence it doesn't do much good, but if you highlight names it helps find the paragraph a question is referencing faster, IMO.

Yea i did the same and took notes. Got a 10 btw too. W/e works for you. Just gotta practice and do a lot.

 

[bigman225]

Resounding no
EK strategy for the win.. no gimmicks, just domination
it is seriously insanely difficult to improve in VR, just keep working on practice exams and try not to change too much (think about it, if you are constantly changing your routine how will you ever get good at it)

use search function, there have been 10000 threads regarding VR

 

[nVictus]

i made a 10 on verbal so consider that when listening to me but highlighting/notetaking did no good on mcat day. i had no time.

i did it for some of my practice tests and i didnt score any better vs when i didnt highlight/take notes.

 

[J ROD]

Just actively read the passage and remember where things are in the passage. Then, answer the questions.

The biggest problem I have is just reading to be reading it and then saying, "What the hell did I just read?". Stay alert and try to read it like you actually care what the passage has to say.

Lastly, it usually comes down to 2 choices. With enough practice, you can begin to see the logic behind the questions and see the right answer.

Practice, practice, practice...

 

[vapremed]

I highlighted during my actual MCAT but i didn't on my practices... No idea why i did it. But I'm glad i did, mostly because I knew what was important and what wasn't. I think it's a good idea to learn to read the passages first, and start getting accustomed to what's important, then start highlighting if your going to do it.... if you teach yourself to highlight first you may highlight the wrong things..

 

[nVictus]

the possible problem with highlighting is that youll focus on what you highlighted and ignore what you didnt. that's bad, haha.

imagine that the passage is a picture and, as you read, each individual piece of information is added to complete that picture. if something is missing, the picture won't look right in your head. makes things easier for me at least.