Verbal~~ killing me!!

[adillon]

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I really need your advice!
I started EK's 101 passage practice, and i keep doing only 2 questions right out of 7, 5 wrong!! 😡 What on hell is going on. How do i improve my verbal section????!!!!!!!!!!!😕

 

[hp540]

practice

 

[mshollywoodmd]

Although I agree with the above poster about practicing, I will expound upon it a little more🙂 The first time I took the MCAT I received a 4 in verbal 🙁
but I think it was my strategy more than anything...I tried that longest passage thing first but then I realized that was kinda stupid, I mean isn't the objective to do all the passages anyway so does it really matter where you start? but that is just an individual preference. As for the individual passages I literally began doing 3 to 4 passages a day and questions that I got wrong, I made sure I read through why my choices was wrong and why the right answer was right. Once I understood why I was choosing the wrong answer choices it became clearer how to ensure I made the right ones but that came with practice, eventually I began enjoying the passages and once I started to enjoy them they became easier to understand ,even the more convoluted passages. Once I began to enjoy them, I also began to read passages faster and didn't have to go back to the passage to answer the majority of the questions but speed should be your secondary goal to accuracy. By the time I took the MCAT again, I realized that if I missed an average of 2/passage(this came from the PR scoring sheet), I would make at least a 9 on verbal and if I had at least started on passage 5 by the time the proctor had called 45 min. I would definetly be able to finish all my passages within the allotted time frame. Well my assessment was right because I went up 5 points on verbal and actually got a 9 and I finished at the 5 min mark. Some people may think that a 9 is a paltry score but I am very proud of it and it is an significant jump from a 4. So yes you should practice and don't get discouraged and eventually (hopefully) you will began to enjoy doing the passages which will give you more confidence in doing them. Good Luck and I hope I've helped and with practice you'll do fine👍

 

[adillon]

That's definitly very helpful. I will try to analysize what i did wrong on those passages i've done. I also found TPR have a good amount of pages talking about the verbal strategy, and seems very good. I tried and didn't seem to help much, but i think, as you guys said, i need more and more practice... But do a lot of people start like this, or most of you started at least ~8/15?
i really suck on reading!!!!

Although I agree with the above poster about practicing, I will expound upon it a little more🙂 The first time I took the MCAT I received a 4 in verbal 🙁
but I think it was my strategy more than anything...I tried that longest passage thing first but then I realized that was kinda stupid, I mean isn't the objective to do all the passages anyway so does it really matter where you start? but that is just an individual preference. As for the individual passages I literally began doing 3 to 4 passages a day and questions that I got wrong, I made sure I read through why my choices was wrong and why the right answer was right. Once I understood why I was choosing the wrong answer choices it became clearer how to ensure I made the right ones but that came with practice, eventually I began enjoying the passages and once I started to enjoy them they became easier to understand ,even the more convoluted passages. Once I began to enjoy them, I also began to read passages faster and didn't have to go back to the passage to answer the majority of the questions but speed should be your secondary goal to accuracy. By the time I took the MCAT again, I realized that if I missed an average of 2/passage(this came from the PR scoring sheet), I would make at least a 9 on verbal and if I had at least started on passage 5 by the time the proctor had called 45 min. I would definetly be able to finish all my passages within the allotted time frame. Well my assessment was right because I went up 5 points on verbal and actually got a 9 and I finished at the 5 min mark. Some people may think that a 9 is a paltry score but I am very proud of it and it is an significant jump from a 4. So yes you should practice and don't get discouraged and eventually (hopefully) you will began to enjoy doing the passages which will give you more confidence in doing them. Good Luck and I hope I've helped and with practice you'll do fine👍

 

[smuwillobrien]

I started off getting around 3 or 4 questions right for every 7 on the EK passages. I didn't work through the whole book, but after a while something clicked, and I would only get one or two wrong for every couple of passages. There is definately room for improvement - big improvements, provided you're willing to work for it. My AAMC range for verbal was 8 - 11, with most of the scores as 8 and 9s. I got an 11 on the real thing, which I am really happy about.

 

[smuwillobrien]

Oh, and for actually doing the practice tests - go through it as it is presented. Don't shift around looking for easy passages - there really aren't any. Try hard to focus on what you're reading and develop a running story in your mind - how do the details contribute to the point? What is the point? Who is the author?

 

[Kaifung]

I didn't do this, but I know a few of my friends said that they bought various scientific journals and natural history books and spent at least 1 to 2 hours or so a day for about a month before the exam just reading and getting used to the writing style. They said it helped them a lot since most people don't read that kind of analytical writing style normally so it was useful just to become familiar with that kind of article.

 

[killinsound]

I have been doing those EK passages. What you need to realize for EK and on AAMC practice MCATS is that, a huge huge huge huge part of the questions come from the main idea. You need to be able to read the passage and construct the main idea.

- what are they talking about?
- what are they saying about it?
- what is their opinion?

try reading the passages and constructing an overall main idea. don't worry about time for now, and just concentrate on absorbing what is said between the lines. don't concentrate on details. save that for the bio section. if they do mention a detail it will only take a couple seconds to find it, and even then, you can deduce that much by the main idea.

 

[hp540]

As someone who struggled with the VR - I'll add to my comment about more practice:

- Don't take notes while doing a VR passage
- Maybe underline relevant bits, if even
- Don't hesitate going re-reading a sentence if it went over your head

Always read for the MAIN idea. Read and always ask yourself: "what does this mean? What am I reading?"

That's all the VR is about - reading and *getting* it.

 

[vimkgt]

I just took my first EK101 Verbal test under a timed condition and only got a 9 on it, missed 16 out of 60 🙁 Probably going to be the hardest section to improve too since there really isn't much extra knowledge I can learn to do better

 

[killinsound]

there isnt extra knowledge, but you can focus on different things. really try to focus on the main idea. go over that passage and make sure you understand what the main point was, and why you got the questions wrong. the best way to learn is to make mistakes

 

[vimkgt]

Just took another one w/o timing myself and tried to keep some pointers I've read in my mind... Improved from missing 16 to missing 9 for a score of 11 according to the EK 101 book... From this one it seems like I'm missing 1/3 of missing subtle details, 1/3 of not understanding or misreading vocab, and 1/3 misunderstanding the passage or answer choices well enough.

 

[killinsound]

that's good! you're making progress. seems like the rest just comes with a lot of practice! you're on your way.

 

[Cirrus83]

Read the strategy in the regular examkracker's verbal book (just go to the bookstore and look at it, it's pretty short) and it'll give you somewhat of an idea of what to do. I always thought the Kaplan verbal strategy was somewhat *****ic (no offense to anybody who used it though-it just wasn't for me), and the ExamKracker's book actually spends some time mocking it 😀

More or less I used the ExamKracker's strategy plus my own verbal abilities to get through it. And as you can tell from my subtitle, I did pretty dang good on the verbal 😉

 

[gotmeds?]

Just took another one w/o timing myself and tried to keep some pointers I've read in my mind... Improved from missing 16 to missing 9 for a score of 11 according to the EK 101 book... From this one it seems like I'm missing 1/3 of missing subtle details, 1/3 of not understanding or misreading vocab, and 1/3 misunderstanding the passage or answer choices well enough.

You're doing fine. Just keep practicing and find as many different VR materials as you can. I only scored an 11 on EK 101 once (usually I scored 9 or sometimes 10) and I got a 12 on the real thing.

 

[adillon]

Thanks all you guys for kind advice!
I did ~15 passages in the past week, and it seems that i'm getting a little bit better, but really not stable, cause some passages i can hit 6/8 (6 right out of 8) but some 1/7 (1 right only!) I guess i still need lots of practise to do