VR Section

[aspiringdoc09]

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Where do I get additional humanities and social science passages from to practice on VR? I still have ~40 passages in TPRH compendium for my August 4th retake. I noticed that the humanities and a few social science passages kill my score. I voided my July 6th test because of this section only. I just retook AAMC 4 VR section to practice a different technique (reading questions first) and increased my score from 5 to 7. I would like to get it up to an 8/9 minimum. Any suggestions? Is it best to read articles off the economists and come up with MCAT-like questions? I have been studying MCAT for 1 year off and on and no longer have EK passages to use; although, it didn't help much. Would it be okay to reuse EK 101 to practice my new strategy? I fear this is the only section dragging me down at this point.

 

[DrV1984]

I'm doing really well in all of my verbal passages....I do read a lot, but I haven't taken the actual MCAT, so I don't know if I can speak directly to that. You have the advantage though of having just seen the actual test....so if I was you I'd go to the library and read some different things and just see which ones seemed the most helpful for that. I have a couple friends who are in med school now and they all say that the more you read, the better you'll do on the VR section, but to just make sure that you're understanding what you read and not zoning out. The other thing I do when I'm doing all my practice material is make a mental note where in the passage things are going on, so that I have a general idea of where to look back to if I need to, and I watch out for key words that I can easily find scanning a paragraph...I find that when I do this, even on my worst days where I feel pushed for time, I can quickly locate answers almost more quickly than trying to reason through the answers. Good luck on your re-take dude!
I'm just worried about the PS/BS sections! If you've got those down, even if you're not in double digits in VR you should be ok🙂! And remember, almost every single person that posts on here says that they had a bad feeling at the end of the test, so even if you're worried you did badly, you might surprise yourself when you get the score! We will all get neurotic as the score release day gets closer...because we all worry that we didn't do well.

 

[Medical Muse]

My guess is you are struggling with humanities and social science passages because you aren't familiar with the style of writing and therefore, aren't getting the main idea. It would be helpful to read The Economist, The New Yorker, or The Atlantic to get more exposure to those writing style. Keep practicing the reading the questions first technique, and you'll see improvement there as well. Finally, make sure you look for the ideas in the passage, and not the details when you read. Verbal is a main idea test. If they ask you a detail, just got back and find it in the passage.

 

[aspiringdoc09]

Thanks! Maybe I should have spread my humanities and social science courses out duirng college. I actually rocked those classes. I will do what you said. Thank you.

Wait, its The New Yorker not New York Times?

 

[maybemed2013]

If you buy PR verbal book about 50 dollars... you can register the book online and get some more passages.

 

[aspiringdoc09]

If you buy PR verbal book about 50 dollars... you can register the book online and get some more passages.

Really? How do you do that? I got my set from someone off eBay brand new.