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What is the best way for me to prepare for the Writing/ English part of MCAT if English is my second language?
What can I do to prepare for English part of MCAT is English is my second language?
- Thread starter pavuka77
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Do? Do. Do, Do, Do....
I've got it!
1. Practice
2. Kick ass on the rest of the MCAT
3. Practice
4. Read, write, read, write, read, read, read.
5. Take a prep course.
You're not the first, you won't be the last. It's expected and accepted. I met a girl interviewing at Dartmouth who got a 4 on verbal... no kidding.
Don't let this stop you
I've got it!
1. Practice
2. Kick ass on the rest of the MCAT
3. Practice
4. Read, write, read, write, read, read, read.
5. Take a prep course.
You're not the first, you won't be the last. It's expected and accepted. I met a girl interviewing at Dartmouth who got a 4 on verbal... no kidding.
Don't let this stop you
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When will you take the MCAT? This year or in the next few years? How much time do you have to prepare? I don't think there's any magic formula for this section of the MCAT except familiarity with reading and writing.
Breaking down this section, you have the essay portion and the verbal portion. The essay portion is not really a test of your English skills so much as it's a test of your reasoning skills. They'll ask you a question and you're supposed to answer it and give evidence for your answer and evidence against your answer. Even if your grammer is not the best, if the reasoning is sound, then you'll probably do well enough.
The major stumbling block for a lot of people is the Verbal section. I certainly had this problem when I took the MCAT the first time in 93. I didn't do as well as the other sections and then I took the Kaplan course and tried to learn to "actively read" by underlining passages and making notes in the margins. This got my Verbal score up by 2 points. When I took the MCAT for the 3rd time in 99, I did absolutely no preparations for it and I didn't do "active reading" during the exam and my score was actually 3 points higher than my 93 score! What made the difference? Over the years, I have been reading books for fun. I have been reading fiction and literature as well as non-fiction. I read stuff on medicine, UFOs, CIA, art, travels, etc. Basically, if you read a lot, then you'll get the hang of the verbal section easily because you'll get used to pulling information out of the text. If you read a lot, then you'll take in the writing styles of the authors. Also, consider keeping a daily or weekly journal. This gives you the opportunity to practice writing. It will improve your writing skill as well as improve your sentence organization. But above all else, read. Read books instead of watching TV. Read books instead of surfing the internet. Read a book before going to bed. Learn to read quickly and thoroughly. A lot of fiction books are good because they have characters and you have to read between the lines to become familiar with the characters. Non-fiction such as philosophy or criticism are good because they are well constructed machines of logic and they train you to recognize how a thought is put together and how that thought is conveyed on text.
Here's a short list of some of the books that I have read in the last 5 years, it's a mixture of trash novels and non-fiction:
Walking out on the Boys (Frances Conley, MD)
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (Charles Bukowski)
Tales of Ordinary Madness (Charles Bukowski)
Post Office (Charles Bukowski)
Ham on Rye (Charles Bukowski)
Skunk Works(Ben Rich)
Are We Alone? The philosophic implications of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence (Paul Davis)
Is Anyone out there? The scientific search for extraterrestial intelligence (Frank Drake)
About Rothko (Dore Ashton)
Beckett, the complete short prose (Samuel Beckett)
Inferno (Dante)
The Wine of Youth (John Fante)
On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
Inside the CIA (John Kessler)
Submarine (Tom Clancy)
Cardinal of the Kremlin (Tom Clancy)
Patriot Games (Tom Clancy)
Neuromancer (William Gibson)
The Chamber (John Grisham)
A Time to Kill (John Grisham)
The Client (John Grisham)
The Andronmeda Strain (Michael Crichton)
Sphere (Michael Crichton)
Terminal Man (Michael Crichton)
The Wretched of the Earth (Frantz Fanon)
Hope this gives you an idea of how I did so well on the Verbal and Essay portion of the MCAT.
Breaking down this section, you have the essay portion and the verbal portion. The essay portion is not really a test of your English skills so much as it's a test of your reasoning skills. They'll ask you a question and you're supposed to answer it and give evidence for your answer and evidence against your answer. Even if your grammer is not the best, if the reasoning is sound, then you'll probably do well enough.
The major stumbling block for a lot of people is the Verbal section. I certainly had this problem when I took the MCAT the first time in 93. I didn't do as well as the other sections and then I took the Kaplan course and tried to learn to "actively read" by underlining passages and making notes in the margins. This got my Verbal score up by 2 points. When I took the MCAT for the 3rd time in 99, I did absolutely no preparations for it and I didn't do "active reading" during the exam and my score was actually 3 points higher than my 93 score! What made the difference? Over the years, I have been reading books for fun. I have been reading fiction and literature as well as non-fiction. I read stuff on medicine, UFOs, CIA, art, travels, etc. Basically, if you read a lot, then you'll get the hang of the verbal section easily because you'll get used to pulling information out of the text. If you read a lot, then you'll take in the writing styles of the authors. Also, consider keeping a daily or weekly journal. This gives you the opportunity to practice writing. It will improve your writing skill as well as improve your sentence organization. But above all else, read. Read books instead of watching TV. Read books instead of surfing the internet. Read a book before going to bed. Learn to read quickly and thoroughly. A lot of fiction books are good because they have characters and you have to read between the lines to become familiar with the characters. Non-fiction such as philosophy or criticism are good because they are well constructed machines of logic and they train you to recognize how a thought is put together and how that thought is conveyed on text.
Here's a short list of some of the books that I have read in the last 5 years, it's a mixture of trash novels and non-fiction:
Walking out on the Boys (Frances Conley, MD)
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (Charles Bukowski)
Tales of Ordinary Madness (Charles Bukowski)
Post Office (Charles Bukowski)
Ham on Rye (Charles Bukowski)
Skunk Works(Ben Rich)
Are We Alone? The philosophic implications of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence (Paul Davis)
Is Anyone out there? The scientific search for extraterrestial intelligence (Frank Drake)
About Rothko (Dore Ashton)
Beckett, the complete short prose (Samuel Beckett)
Inferno (Dante)
The Wine of Youth (John Fante)
On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
Inside the CIA (John Kessler)
Submarine (Tom Clancy)
Cardinal of the Kremlin (Tom Clancy)
Patriot Games (Tom Clancy)
Neuromancer (William Gibson)
The Chamber (John Grisham)
A Time to Kill (John Grisham)
The Client (John Grisham)
The Andronmeda Strain (Michael Crichton)
Sphere (Michael Crichton)
Terminal Man (Michael Crichton)
The Wretched of the Earth (Frantz Fanon)
Hope this gives you an idea of how I did so well on the Verbal and Essay portion of the MCAT.
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I forgot to add two favorites of mine:
The ****oo's Egg
Silicon Snake Oil
Both are authored by Clifford Stoll, a UC Berkeley computer scientist.
The ****oo's Egg
Silicon Snake Oil
Both are authored by Clifford Stoll, a UC Berkeley computer scientist.
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READ, READ, READ!
Reading is writing in reverse.
Reading is writing in reverse.
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