verbal??

[dr2be111]

does anyone have any helpful advice as to how to improve on verbal? i know this may sound generic, but at this point, i'll try anything.

on practice tests, my sciences are fine (11-13), but my verbal varies considerably. two weeks ago, i hit an 8, last week i had an 11, and this week i had another 8!

does anyone have any tips as to what i could do to improve? thanks very much in advance.

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[DiverDoc]

I dont have any tips to offer you. However I am in the same boat as you. I have recently completed my EK 101 book, and my scores only improved slightly. I try to do VR twice a week outside of reg. practice full lengths, and I see no improvement. I am hoping for interesting passages on test day to somehow get a reasonable score.

 

[puppies324]

Verbal is a tough subject to improve... First, figure why your scoring low... is it cuz u cna't finish on time, or is it cuz ur not getting the gist of the passage and therefore answering the questions wrong?

These are two very different issues. First figure out which category you fall into then figure out ...

if ur the former, mostly likely your reading outloud in ur head. This takes a lot of practice by try to look at a sentence at a time, instead of one word at a time. Don't read a sentence twice becuase chances are, you won't get it the second time around either (it may not even be important)

If your having problems understand the passage, try writing down key points for each paragraph... do this with everything you read, not just mcat stuff... when we are force to summerize a paragraph down to 3 or 4 words, it forces us to only write the main point, not the details... remember you can always go back for those.

lastly... practice practice practice, i know you already know this, but i can't stress the importance of doing this over and over and over again... I did this, so have my students... most ended up doing well given enough preparation time

good luck

 

[dr2be111]

thanks for your suggestions. my problem is kind of a combination of both, i usually sail through the 'easier' passages. and then when i hit one of those really hard ones, i think my active reading skills just disappear. i spend way too much time on one passage, leaving me with not enough to answer the next passage's questions correctly.

i am going to try and write key points for each paragraph in the future, hopefully that will keep me going at a pace where i don't read over every little detail.

thanks again.

 

[docolive]

A) Check out the Verbal Q & A section written by the experts (teachers at Kaplan, TPR, etc)
B) Practice active reading everyday---from academic journals or anything that is not interesting. This totally helps. You'll be prepared for anything. There was only one TOUGH/DENSE passage on this January MCAT. I had little time, had to guess and still wound up doing well.