It was designed for no other purpose than to put people through hell, mental torture, to the point where you might prefer death over an hour of verbal . Although this being just a hypothesis I developed while studying for the verbal section, I have no means of proving it correct. And I am highly doubtful we will ever find out what goes through the minds of a mcat test writer.
(I also have a hypothesis about what goes through a mcat test writers mind as well, "lets see how I can **** with peoples mind..."
Yeah, about practical things that can be studied systematically. Being able to analyze a critical subtext to a work of Emmanuel Kant is not at comparable to the "quick read, derive info, short time" that will need to be done in medical school.