What do people mean when they get a "hard" Verbal section?

[ayocaptain628]

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To people who've taken the actual test:

For me, it makes sense when people talk in their discussion threads about getting a "hard" PS with lots of weird calculations or a "hard" BS with tons of experimental passages with hard discretes.

But I'm curious what constitutes a "hard" Verbal? Is there such thing as a "hard" question for Verbal? It just seems to me that there are only so many different ways verbal questions can be worded but nothing that seems too difficult.

 

[somedudehere]

Some passages are just harder than others to comprehend. At least for me, straight up sciences or general knowledge based passages with facts are much much much easier than passages talking about some artist from the 14th century etc.

 

[texan2414]

My Nov 7th exam was peppered with incorporation of info/application questions. Also, the passages were significantly longer as well as dense compared to practice exams. I remembered reading 4 humanities, 1 social science and 2 nat sci passages. So that breakdown of content as well as the category of questions made it a "hard" VR section for me. Hopefully, I can still score my avg-

 

[ayocaptain628]

My Nov 7th exam was peppered with incorporation of info/application questions. Also, the passages were significantly longer as well as dense compared to practice exams. I remembered reading 4 humanities, 1 social science and 2 nat sci passages. So that breakdown of content as well as the category of questions made it a "hard" VR section for me. Hopefully, I can still score my avg-

4 humanities passages? that sounds vomitrocious. thank you for expounding with examples, it was helpful 🙂
hope you fare well when you get mcat score back soon.

 

[Saxappeal1]

A "hard" verbal? That's redundant... all verbal passages have some degree of difficulty. The "hard" passages are difficult, and the "easy" passages are graded pretty harshly. The verbal I got on my MCAT retake I thought was the easiest verbal that I have ever done, I felt like I rocked it- got a 9. I thought I got like an 11 after that test day. Also, exams with a lot of passages on art and history. Bad times were had by all.

 

[hometownbrewin]

I hope I don't receive anything like Passage 4 from TPRH...that's what I would consider a challenging passage to comprehend. Reading about philosophy is painful

 

[mspeedwagon]

I had essentially the same experience. I was scoring mostly 10s, with an occasional 11 on the AAMC practice tests. I scored a 9 once on my diagnostic (AAMC 3). The verbal section I had on test day seemed easier than any of the AAMCs. All 7 passages were completely understandable and the questions seemed reasonable. I walked out thinking I'd surely scored an 11. Score comes back and I scored an 8 (lower than my diagnostic). My only explanation for this is that the curve was not as favorable as the other AAMC tests so there was less margin of error (otherwise, I can't explain the sudden drop on test day, especially since my other two sections were in line with expectations).

A "hard" verbal? That's redundant... all verbal passages have some degree of difficulty. The "hard" passages are difficult, and the "easy" passages are graded pretty harshly. The verbal I got on my MCAT retake I thought was the easiest verbal that I have ever done, I felt like I rocked it- got a 9. I thought I got like an 11 after that test day. Also, exams with a lot of passages on art and history. Bad times were had by all.

 

[Gauss44]

The most common reasons people have said that to me:

1. They personally found the VR section more difficult than average.
2. Passages or questions fit descriptions of what other people deem to be "difficult."

The most notorious type of "hard passage" that I've heard about are the ones that attempt to teach several new topics. Those new topics can be a theory of some sort (often old school psychology), an ideology*, new vocabulary where new words are defined using new words. You'll find several of these in AAMC practice tests. I've found that these can be fair and unambiguous, or ambiguous in a way that the test maker likely overlooked**.

*Some people describe those as, "philosophical," even though they don't always have anything to do with actual philosophers or something that would be addressed in a college Philosophy department.

**If you notice that a question or entire passage is ambiguous on test day (in a way that can impact your score), you have 5 days to challenge that question or passage online through AAMC's website.

 

[ayocaptain628]

The most common reasons people have said that to me:

1. They personally found the VR section more difficult than average.
2. Passages or questions fit descriptions of what other people deem to be "difficult."

The most notorious type of "hard passage" that I've heard about are the ones that attempt to teach several new topics. Those new topics can be a theory of some sort (often old school psychology), an ideology*, new vocabulary where new words are defined using new words. You'll find several of these in AAMC practice tests. I've found that these can be fair and unambiguous, or ambiguous in a way that the test maker likely overlooked**.

*Some people describe those as, "philosophical," even though they don't always have anything to do with actual philosophers or something that would be addressed in a college Philosophy department.

**If you notice that a question or entire passage is ambiguous on test day (in a way that can impact your score), you have 5 days to challenge that question or passage online through AAMC's website.

great answer, i like how you distinguished personal experience from the actual difficulty of the test. i forgot about that.

fascinating. i did not know you could challenge the question on AAMCs website. do you have the link for that? please and thank you.

 

[frochocinco]

Yeah I agree it's all personal. I found that I did better on the passages with topics I was genuinely interested (makes you comprehend the passage as a whole much better). Thus, when I took the test, I tried tricking myself into being genuinely interested in the topic.

 

[texan2414]

4 humanities passages? that sounds vomitrocious. thank you for expounding with examples, it was helpful 🙂
hope you fare well when you get mcat score back soon.

See AAMC 9 VR section - that definitely qualifies as a "hard" VR section.

 

[somedudehere]

AAMC 8 passage 6. Read it like 4 times and still makes no sense LOL

 

[ayocaptain628]

See AAMC 9 VR section - that definitely qualifies as a "hard" VR section.

AAMC 8 passage 6. Read it like 4 times and still makes no sense LOL

ty both for stating examples. ^o^ those passages were definitely tough, i'm glad i have some sort of image in my head of what to expect if i get a hard verbal section.

 

[Doug Underhill]

1) All MCAT verbal is hard. It's the hardest section on the hardest standardized test for undergrads.

2). For me, it's a post-hoc comparison. If I scored below my average, it's a hard verbal.

 

[KevinGnapoor]

Go take TBR CBT #3 verbal section. Then you'll know what constitutes hard a** passages.

 

[Mad Jack]

They mean they have poor VR skills and the stress of the exam warped their perception of the passage to make it appear even worse than usual.

 

[Mad Jack]

1) All MCAT verbal is hard. It's the hardest section on the hardest standardized test for undergrads.

2). For me, it's a post-hoc comparison. If I scored below my average, it's a hard verbal.

Whether VR is difficult or not depends largely on how much nonfiction you read. It is the easiest section for an avid reader.

VR is, however, the most difficult section to improve, as no tricks or last minute fixes can suddenly give you the reading comprehension and VR skills of a lifetime reader.

 

[deleted388502]

They mean they have poor VR skills and the stress of the exam warped their perception of the passage to make it appear even worse than usual.

My Nov 7th exam was peppered with incorporation of info/application questions. Also, the passages were significantly longer as well as dense compared to practice exams. I remembered reading 4 humanities, 1 social science and 2 nat sci passages. So that breakdown of content as well as the category of questions made it a "hard" VR section for me. Hopefully, I can still score my avg-

While this might be true to some extent, I would disagree by citing @texan2414 and the November 7th VR being very heavy on incorporation of information/application questions. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's the passages, though. It's the type of questions. You could get a crazy hard art history passage with really easy comprehension questions. Or you could get an easy social science passage with 5 incorporation of info questions in a row. I think a hard VR is one that stresses more of these "harder" type of questions.

There is DEFINITELY such a thing as a harder VR.