Verbal Main Idea

[PreMed4Dummies]

Hey everyone,

So I am signed up for the April 5 exam and I have bought all of the EK 1001's. As I am working on the Verbal 101 I find that the greatest difficulty I am facing is deciding what the main idea is. I feel like once you get to that point its much easier to answer the questions but sometimes I find that I think that the main idea is one thing but instead I had made an incorrect interpretation and hence I've messed up all of the questions.

Any suggestions on how I can better evaluate the main idea? Thanks!

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[mterp45]

Hey everyone,

So I am signed up for the April 5 exam and I have bought all of the EK 1001's. As I am working on the Verbal 101 I find that the greatest difficulty I am facing is deciding what the main idea is. I feel like once you get to that point its much easier to answer the questions but sometimes I find that I think that the main idea is one thing but instead I had made an incorrect interpretation and hence I've messed up all of the questions.

Any suggestions on how I can better evaluate the main idea? Thanks!

well the first thing that you must realize is that each paragraph may have a main idea which is sometimes independent of the overall main idea. It basically comes down to practice. You should get to a point where you can understand the main idea of the passage which will most likely be portrayed by the author, decipher the main idea within each paragraph, be able to understand how the author relates and utilizes these ideas, and last but not least understand what the author's opinion is. This has to be done in no more than 3 minutes to allow time to be able to revert back to the passage for some of those more detail oriented questions. I got a 6 on my kaplan verbal diagnostic and I have managed to increase it to a consistent 9 and 10 but thats after doing all the TPR, KAPLAN, and EK verbal passages and now am using some random MCAT book I bought off of amazon from 1998. Many people will tell you to read to increase your score but I just chose to do practice passages instead and I think its workng so far. I guess i'll find out for sure in April.

 

[gbennett]

i agree that practice is extremely important. resist the urge to take notes on the passage as youre reading--it helped me to wait to get to the end of each paragraph to sum up the main idea.

also, i know a lot of people like the EK 101 verbal passages, but i didnt find them very useful. i thought that kaplan and the aamc exams were much better.

 

[runner898]

Exam Krackers teaches you how to read the questions without reading the answers and then to summarize what the passage is all about before you even read it. It takes time management though, and I definitely would practice this and make sure that you have enough time to do so. I have been doing that lately and it seems to be helping, but it is different from person to person, so just test a few theories out and see what works best for you.

If you do read the questions first, you are not supposed to search for the answers in the passage as you read it. That is just to develop the main idea, what type of person the author is, and his/her view on the subject before you even begin reading the passage.