What purpose does Verbal serve on MCAT

[Midifelder10]

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If you can perform on physical and biological section why is verbal weighed so heavy. If you are doing fine in other sections you do understand the language, can communicate with the patients. This section has kept some good students who wanted to be in med school from pursuing their dreams. It is so counterproductive and inefficient that people are taking this test multiple times just to get in.

Example A; P 11, V 7, BS 11 29
Example B: P 9, V 13, B 9 31

Who has a better chance of success in Med school? My vote A.

I don't want to start crap but a honest intellectual discussion only.

 

[docmayer]

None. Maybe I am bias because I did poorly, but lets take a look at this....

Someone scores a 30 on MCAT, with a 6 in VR. They are out for MD apps but can get into DO and do the same thing in the long run.

This same person with the 6 in VR can study 2 months to improve their verbal "skills", score a balanced 30, and NOW they are qualified for MD schools and will have a better shot of doing well in medical school?

So really, 2 months of improvement in VR will make someone that much better? Really? How stupid does that sound? You don't think the exhaustive effort medical school requires really depends on how you do in VR do you? If I just study a couple more months and retake and improve, NOW I am more qualified and will have a better chance at successfully completing medical school? BS.

Verbal is also the section that varies/suprises the most people. I talked to a classmate who never got above a 7 on practice, and scored a 10 on test day. Will she be more successful than the person who was averaging 8-9's and got a 6 on test day? I say NO.

 

[Midifelder10]

I heard that VR has a higher correlation with USMLE 1 scores than does PS but is slightly lower than BS. I read a study on it a while ago but usmle world had something to say about it: http://www.usmleworld.com/Step1/step1_facts.aspx

I think of VR as more of a logic and inference test over anything else. I would imagine it would be hard to argue that being able to integrate large amounts of information isn't a useful skill for med school.

Thanks! Now there is something to discuss. As you can see BS has the highest correlation with writing none whatsoever. They talk about some verbal correlation but lot of studies show it is BS,PS and VR. If some subjects are strongly correlated should they not be weighed higher?

"A 2007 meta-analysis evaluated the relationship between the MCAT and medical school performance. There was a small to moderate correlation of MCAT performance with performance during the preclinical years, with the r value equal to roughly 0.39. There was also a correlation of certain subtests with preclinical performance, particularly the biological sciences subtest. The correlation was less strong between MCAT performance and performance during the clinical years. The writing subtest of the MCAT was shown to have no correlation with either performance during the preclinical years or the clinical clerkships.
A small to moderate correlation was also found between MCAT and USMLE scores, with r values ranging from 0.38 to 0.60. This correlation was highest for USMLE Step 1. Among the different MCAT subsets, the highest correlation was found for the biological sciences and verbal sections. There was near zero correlation between the writing subtest and USMLE scores."

 

[7175pank]

None. Maybe I am bias because I did poorly, but lets take a look at this....

Someone scores a 30 on MCAT, with a 6 in VR. They are out for MD apps but can get into DO and do the same thing in the long run.

This same person with the 6 in VR can study 2 months to improve their verbal "skills", score a balanced 30, and NOW they are qualified fr MD schools and will have a better shot of doing well in medical school and thus a physician,

So really, 2 months of improvement in VR will make someone that much better? Really? How stupid does that sound? You don't think the exhausted effort medical school requires really depends on how you do in VR do you? If I just study a couple more months and retake and improve, NOW I am more qualified and will have a better chance at successfully completing medical school? BS.

I'm sure there are people who can improve their VR that quickly but VR isn't like the other parts of the test where there is content to be memorized. It's more like a skill you develop which usually takes time and practice, like running a marathon. As others have said, read some thick material and practice. What's important is that you practice active reading, where you analyze content and the evidence to back it up, as opposed to passive reading where you look at content only.

 

[7175pank]

Thanks! Now there is something to discuss. As you can see BS has the highest correlation with writing none whatsoever. They talk about some verbal correlation but lot of studies show it is BS,PS and VR. If some subjects are strongly correlated should they not be weighed higher?

"A 2007 meta-analysis evaluated the relationship between the MCAT and medical school performance. There was a small to moderate correlation of MCAT performance with performance during the preclinical years, with the r value equal to roughly 0.39. There was also a correlation of certain subtests with preclinical performance, particularly the biological sciences subtest. The correlation was less strong between MCAT performance and performance during the clinical years. The writing subtest of the MCAT was shown to have no correlation with either performance during the preclinical years or the clinical clerkships.
A small to moderate correlation was also found between MCAT and USMLE scores, with r values ranging from 0.38 to 0.60. This correlation was highest for USMLE Step 1. Among the different MCAT subsets, the highest correlation was found for the biological sciences and verbal sections. There was near zero correlation between the writing subtest and USMLE scores."

I don't think admissions decisions are based solely on correlates with USMLE 1 scores but then I'm not an adcomm member. Like I said, considering all of the reading and material that people have to absorb in med school I'm not too surprised that they would want a quantified indicator of how well a candidate would do.

 

[psychgirrrl]

OP, good luck to you. Seems like your plate is full.

 

[docmayer]

I'm sure there are people who can improve their VR that quickly but VR isn't like the other parts of the test where there is content to be memorized. It's more like a skill you develop which usually takes time and practice, like running a marathon. As others have said, read some thick material and practice. What's important is that you practice active reading, where you analyze content and the evidence to back it up, as opposed to passive reading where you look at content only.

Uhh...I know plenty of people who have...

 

[7175pank]

Uhh...I know plenty of people who have...

I don't, but if that's the case then what's the problem? Your logic would seem to suggest that anyone should be able to study hard for two months and do the same.

 

[ToldYouSo]

None. Maybe I am bias because I did poorly, but lets take a look at this....

Someone scores a 30 on MCAT, with a 6 in VR. They are out for MD apps but can get into DO and do the same thing in the long run.

This same person with the 6 in VR can study 2 months to improve their verbal "skills", score a balanced 30, and NOW they are qualified for MD schools and will have a better shot of doing well in medical school?

So really, 2 months of improvement in VR will make someone that much better? Really? How stupid does that sound? You don't think the exhaustive effort medical school requires really depends on how you do in VR do you? If I just study a couple more months and retake and improve, NOW I am more qualified and will have a better chance at successfully completing medical school? BS.

Verbal is also the section that varies/suprises the most people. I talked to a classmate who never got above a 7 on practice, and scored a 10 on test day. Will she be more successful than the person who was averaging 8-9's and got a 6 on test day? I say NO.

Not BS because acceptance is contingent upon getting a decent score, so you could say that for the entire mcat in general. Add in another month and that's enough time for the SN2 schedule.

 

[Midifelder10]

I don't think admissions decisions are based solely on correlates with USMLE 1 scores but then I'm not an adcomm member. Like I said, considering all of the reading and material that people have to absorb in med school I'm not too surprised that they would want a quantified indicator of how well a candidate would do.

If you can do well in BS that means you do absorb the material which in turn implies you just might do well to. Would you not agree with that?

 

[Midifelder10]

OP, good luck to you. Seems like your plate is full.

This is fun and I like when people put nos like the poster above. When it rhetoric then it loses the fun part. It seems like lot of people act surprised when they dont see the purpose but believe that there is a reason. The reaction is akin to someone who for the first time realizes that there is no santa.

 

[psychgirrrl]

This is fun and I like when people put nos like the poster above. When it rhetoric then it loses the fun part. It seems like lot of people act surprised when they dont see the purpose but believe that there is a reason. The reaction is akin to someone who for the first time realizes that there is no santa.

Wait what, Santa isn't real?

BUT I ASKED FOR MED SCHOOL ACCEPTANCE THIS YEAR! Sent my letters in early, my transcripts, a CV and everything!!!!!!

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Bio for sure is difficult too, can't comment on philosphy or psychology as there was no requirement to take that.

It kinda isn't...tbh, biology is purely memorization of principles. You rarely have to consciously process anything or consider why things happen the way they do.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

If you can do well in BS that means you do absorb the material which in turn implies you just might do well to. Would you not agree with that?

Of which you will forget the majority of within 2 months. This is obviously what we want in a doctor right? A memorizing machine.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Thanks! Now there is something to discuss. As you can see BS has the highest correlation with writing none whatsoever. They talk about some verbal correlation but lot of studies show it is BS,PS and VR. If some subjects are strongly correlated should they not be weighed higher?

"A 2007 meta-analysis evaluated the relationship between the MCAT and medical school performance. There was a small to moderate correlation of MCAT performance with performance during the preclinical years, with the r value equal to roughly 0.39. There was also a correlation of certain subtests with preclinical performance, particularly the biological sciences subtest. The correlation was less strong between MCAT performance and performance during the clinical years. The writing subtest of the MCAT was shown to have no correlation with either performance during the preclinical years or the clinical clerkships.
A small to moderate correlation was also found between MCAT and USMLE scores, with r values ranging from 0.38 to 0.60. This correlation was highest for USMLE Step 1. Among the different MCAT subsets, the highest correlation was found for the biological sciences and verbal sections. There was near zero correlation between the writing subtest and USMLE scores."

You're selectively processing crap now. Key words, preclinical performance. I'm seriously under the impression you really are ******ed now because you make arguments worse than a 12 year old. No honestly, we've explained to you why this research doesn't even matter.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

This is fun and I like when people put nos like the poster above. When it rhetoric then it loses the fun part. It seems like lot of people act surprised when they dont see the purpose but believe that there is a reason. The reaction is akin to someone who for the first time realizes that there is no santa.

No, Psychgirl just realized that she could be spending the time she's spending trying to help you doing other things. Honestly she's just tired of your idiotic rantings and whining about how life isn't fair. Honestly stop complaining and go freaking read a book.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

I don't, but if that's the case then what's the problem? Your logic would seem to suggest that anyone should be able to study hard for two months and do the same.

Anyone can study and raise their scores up by a few points. Generally though we do have limits to the range we can accomplish. But generally if you read enough, process the material, try to apply it, rinse latter and repeat that for a few months, and you'll have significantly optimized your cognitive pathways and do better on standardized tests like the MCAT.

The issue is however since you're doing this late in life your results will be significantly less than if you had done it in your early childhood or etc. But either way, you can probably hit a 8-9 easy by training.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

None. Maybe I am bias because I did poorly, but lets take a look at this....

Someone scores a 30 on MCAT, with a 6 in VR. They are out for MD apps but can get into DO and do the same thing in the long run.


This same person with the 6 in VR can study 2 months to improve their verbal "skills", score a balanced 30, and NOW they are qualified for MD schools and will have a better shot of doing well in medical school?

Sure, but at least that verbal reasoning will remain with them as opposed to someone who needs to study PS for 2 months to get a good score and then forgets 80% of it.

So really, 2 months of improvement in VR will make someone that much better? Really? How stupid does that sound? You don't think the exhaustive effort medical school requires really depends on how you do in VR do you? If I just study a couple more months and retake and improve, NOW I am more qualified and will have a better chance at successfully completing medical school? BS.

Because studying snell's law, DC circuits, etc for 2 months of improvement is good too... it's all BS man, but that's life.

Verbal is also the section that varies/suprises the most people. I talked to a classmate who never got above a 7 on practice, and scored a 10 on test day. Will she be more successful than the person who was averaging 8-9's and got a 6 on test day? I say NO.

I could get a whole lot of problems about torque and kinetics on the mcat and bomb it. Likewise is true of someone who is going to do poorly in VR because they can't comprehend a few natural science or humanities passages.

 

[Midifelder10]

You're selectively processing crap now. Key words, preclinical performance. I'm seriously under the impression you really are ******ed now because you make arguments worse than a 12 year old. No honestly, we've explained to you why this research doesn't even matter.

Please be polite and respectful. I did not edit this article, simple cut and paste it. Go argue with the authors of this article not me. It is what it is. You dont like the findings, tough.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Please be polite and respectful. I did not edit this article, simple cut and paste it. Go argue with the authors of this article not me. It is what it is. You dont like the findings, tough.

Again... why am I not surprised that you get 5's and 6's? I didn't accuse you of quote mining, I called your processing of what the information tells you selective. My beef is not with the authors, but rather your desire to take something that shows that the mcat in its entirety is very useless for PRECLINICALs and say that this means that verbal is globally useless in predictive ability for anything. Research articles have a hypothesis to prove or disprove, their research did not focus on half the things we are talking about at this point in time.

 

[MDforMee]

How do you know that and where is the proof. Repeating it over and over again does not make it true. You are an extremely annoying and immature person. You want to repeatedly talk about stuff without proof. Let me repeat it, is there any proof that verbal tests for anything that BS and PS dont reveal? Please spend some time finding a study and we can discuss that.

Okay, that's it. I've been sticking up for you this entire thread, and now you're attacking me. I'm done. Your attitude sucks, and you're digging yourself a hole. Bye.

 

[7175pank]

If you can do well in BS that means you do absorb the material which in turn implies you just might do well to. Would you not agree with that?

In a sense I do but I still think you're confusing the purpose of the VR section. I agree in that the content of what you read in the VR is effectively bull**** and irrelevant to anything. But I don't agree with the implication that simply because the content is irrelevant the section is also irrelevant. It's not a measure of how well you *know* the dry, boring and irrelevant content you're reading, for instance no one is going to give a **** about how well you understand British positivist legal history in a passage, but rather how *well* you read that dry, boring and irrelevant content.

As others have mentioned med school is full of countless hours of studying copious amounts of dry and painfully boring material that a person may never use again in practice. But being able to chug through it and retain all of that information, no matter how dull, is quite necessary to pass the boards.

 

[ash286]

I think they want to see if you can do well on test sections that don't emphasize mostly memorization.... passages in PS and BS are mostly based on knowledge you have before you begin the test. The level of reading comprehension on those is pretty low.

Tests like this rarely have lots of data backing up why they are the way they are, same goes for the SAT, LSAT, etc.

 

[7175pank]

Anyone can study and raise their scores up by a few points. Generally though we do have limits to the range we can accomplish. But generally if you read enough, process the material, try to apply it, rinse latter and repeat that for a few months, and you'll have significantly optimized your cognitive pathways and do better on standardized tests like the MCAT.

The issue is however since you're doing this late in life your results will be significantly less than if you had done it in your early childhood or etc. But either way, you can probably hit a 8-9 easy by training.

I agree that is enough to go from, say, a 7 to an 8 or 9 in two months. But I don't agree that enhancing your cognition, alone, is enough to increase your score to a 10+. I think the key lies more in learning the difference between active vs. passive reading. Simply 'reading' passages over and over again to try and retain more information and not learning the active reading skills necessary to understand an author's writing style, progression and presentation of evidence isn't going to yield significant results.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

I agree that is enough to go from, say, a 7 to an 8 or 9 in two months. But I don't agree that enhancing your cognition, alone, is enough to increase your score to a 10+. I think the key lies more in learning the difference between active vs. passive reading. Simply 'reading' passages over and over again to try and retain more information and not learning the active reading skills necessary to understand an author's writing style, progression and presentation of evidence isn't going to yield significant results.

I agree. a 5 to a 9 is well within possibility of purely modifying cognitive pathways. Above that you'll need a combination of test taking strategy, adrenaline, and luck.

 

[gtbROX]

No, Psychgirl just realized that she could be spending the time she's spending trying to help you doing other things. Honestly she's just tired of your idiotic rantings and whining about how life isn't fair. Honestly stop complaining and go freaking read a book.

Same conclusion I've made. Lol.

Please be polite and respectful. I did not edit this article, simple cut and paste it. Go argue with the authors of this article not me. It is what it is. You dont like the findings, tough.

How do you know that and where is the proof. Repeating it over and over again does not make it true. You are an extremely annoying and immature person. You want to repeatedly talk about stuff without proof. Let me repeat it, is there any proof that verbal tests for anything that BS and PS dont reveal? Please spend some time finding a study and we can discuss that.

The pot is calling the kettle black.

 

[Midifelder10]

Same conclusion I've made. Lol.




The pot is calling the kettle black.

You have no data lot of I told you stuff. Put some nos down and then talk.

 

[gtbROX]

You have no data lot of I told you stuff. Put some nos down and then talk.

You have no logic; get some and then talk.

 

[Midifelder10]

You have no logic; get some and then talk.

My data shows you are reaching wrong conclusions every time, hence your logic is false. Can we politely disagree instead of calling me names. We are at a student forum please let us set a good e.g. Have a nice day.

 

[Renaissance Man]

You have no data lot of I told you stuff. Put some nos down and then talk.

OP, one of the key components of being a doctor (in the US) is expressing yourself clearly in English so that your patients understand what is going on. Read through your responses in this thread, including the one above. Now I don't really care about grammar and spelling, but it is slightly obvious that your mistakes aren't the product of fast key strokes.

Imagine writing notes in a chart for another doctor who then doesn't understand what you were trying to say. Numbers and science can't replace crystal clear communication.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

My data shows you are reaching wrong conclusions every time, hence your logic is false. Can we politely disagree instead of calling me names. We are at a student forum please let us set a good e.g. Have a nice day.

Except your data doesn't. You're drawing conclusions from data that does not seek to answer your questions. Learn how hypothesis based research works...

 

[Midifelder10]

OP, one of the key components of being a doctor (in the US) is expressing yourself clearly in English so that your patients understand what is going on. Read through your responses in this thread, including the one above. Now I don't really care about grammar and spelling, but it is slightly obvious that your mistakes aren't the product of fast key strokes.

Imagine writing notes in a chart for another doctor who then doesn't understand what you were trying to say. Numbers and science can't replace crystal clear communication.

I refuse to spend time writing this.

 

[gtbROX]

My data shows you are reaching wrong conclusions every time, hence your logic is false. Can we politely disagree instead of calling me names. We are at a student forum please let us set a good e.g. Have a nice day.

None of your data shows that having good verbal actually hurts med students in the future. And we've gone over why your research actually proves my point already...

As for name calling, I've yet to call you a single name. The only one resorting to insults because of lacking good arguments or support is you.

 

[Midifelder10]

None of your data shows that having good verbal actually hurts med students in the future. And we've gone over why your research actually proves my point already...

As for name calling, I've yet to call you a single name. The only one resorting to insults because of lacking good arguments or support is you.

never said it hurts, have been trying to say it does not help that much. Sort of law of diminishing returns. please go thru the thread and see where personal insults started. That is easy to track.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

never said it hurts, have been trying to say it does not help that much. Sort of law of diminishing returns. please go thru the thread and see where personal insults started. That is easy to track.

Alright, let me break it down as you've evidently been slacking in your research methods class and related skills.

Lets say that you've got a medication, that functions to affect a multitude of receptors that do different things. This drug has been used for lets say seizures originally and has been correlated to be very effective for that particular disorder, however we have seen that it also has some success in treating a completely different disorder, i.e Bi-Polar, so we use it along with 2 other drugs in an analysis of effectiveness. This drug proves to be work, but along with the other two is only partially effective, but is the least correlated with effectiveness.

Does this mean that this drug should be forgotten and thrown away for all uses? The gist of this story is that you're trying to make a conclusion about the VR section primarily based on the fact that it is R= .4, ( BS= .6, PS =.5) with USMLE performance. You're completely neglecting the fact that 1) it may not be meant to correlate with USMLE 1 performance and in fact aims to explore a relationship that we have not yet probed complete. This on top of the fact that these numbers while statistically may seem useful, when graphed it becomes evident that they are not all that important, i.e your sample contains a more conservative range of scores or likewise the fact that the score relationship may be very strong on the pre-27 range, but is significantly weaker on the over-27 point.

The point being is that you're extrapolating conclusions where the research simply does not substantiate. You're making poorly structured arguments and conclusions that simply are neither supported by your limited research, nor significant as a whole.

The point is, maybe if you'd spend some more time facilitating the expansion of your critical thinking skills, researching skills, and formal analytical abilities instead of whining and screaming about how **** stinks then you'd be scoring higher and in medical school.

 

[gtbROX]

never said it hurts, have been trying to say it does not help that much. Sort of law of diminishing returns. please go thru the thread and see where personal insults started. That is easy to track.

This is where the personal insults started:

Verbal = logic is most illogical stuff I have ever heard. Keep on believing that and in toothfairy. Who has been feeding you this crap.

Anyways, it's ironic you called someone else immature when you're getting all upset that people are disagreeing with you.

 

[Temperature101]

OP, one of the key components of being a doctor (in the US) is expressing yourself clearly in English so that your patients understand what is going on. Read through your responses in this thread, including the one above. Now I don't really care about grammar and spelling, but it is slightly obvious that your mistakes aren't the product of fast key strokes.

Imagine writing notes in a chart for another doctor who then doesn't understand what you were trying to say. Numbers and science can't replace crystal clear communication.

In case they should get rid of VR and keep the writing prompts...

 

[LuciusVorenus]

Alright, let me break it down as you've evidently been slacking in your research methods class and related skills.

Lets say that you've got a medication, that functions to affect a multitude of receptors that do different things. This drug has been used for lets say seizures originally and has been correlated to be very effective for that particular disorder, however we have seen that it also has some success in treating a completely different disorder, i.e Bi-Polar, so we use it along with 2 other drugs in an analysis of effectiveness. This drug proves to be work, but along with the other two is only partially effective, but is the least correlated with effectiveness.

Does this mean that this drug should be forgotten and thrown away for all uses? The gist of this story is that you're trying to make a conclusion about the VR section primarily based on the fact that it is R= .4, ( BS= .6, PS =.5) with USMLE performance. You're completely neglecting the fact that 1) it may not be meant to correlate with USMLE 1 performance and in fact aims to explore a relationship that we have not yet probed complete. This on top of the fact that these numbers while statistically may seem useful, when graphed it becomes evident that they are not all that important, i.e your sample contains a more conservative range of scores or likewise the fact that the score relationship may be very strong on the pre-27 range, but is significantly weaker on the over-27 point.

The point being is that you're extrapolating conclusions where the research simply does not substantiate. You're making poorly structured arguments and conclusions that simply are neither supported by your limited research, nor significant as a whole.

The point is, maybe if you'd spend some more time facilitating the expansion of your critical thinking skills, researching skills, and formal analytical abilities instead of whining and screaming about how **** stinks then you'd be scoring higher and in medical school.

This is never going to get anywhere because he is just going to tl;dr your post :/. We've gone through why the research doesn't back up the "VR is useless" hypothesis several times, to no avail.

OP, you might disagree with the need for a VR section but it's not going away anytime soon, especially just because of ONE meta analysis with pretty weak results.

However, I hope you do take some of the advice in this thread regarding how to raise your score (even if you disagree with the people giving you the advice). Nobody is happy that 5-10 questions on the VR section is keeping you out of medical school, and some people on this thread have tried to offer advice. I know watching someone else go through how they got to their answers (other students, not prep instructors as they're usually just reading off a solution manual and often miss the point) has worked for a lot of my friends. I hope you put your pride aside (I know it's hard to ask a fellow pre-med for advice) and try it!

 

[Renaissance Man]

In case they should get rid of VR and keep the writing prompts...

In "that" case you mean? You kind of proved my point for me...Thought it was pretty obviously that communication is a two way street. Getting your point across clearly and also understanding precisely what is being said.

 

[Midifelder10]

This is where the personal insults started:



Anyways, it's ironic you called someone else immature when you're getting all upset that people are disagreeing with you.

Please see the page before and also the posts by the man from 1500's.

 

[Midifelder10]

Alright, let me break it down as you've evidently been slacking in your research methods class and related skills.

Lets say that you've got a medication, that functions to affect a multitude of receptors that do different things. This drug has been used for lets say seizures originally and has been correlated to be very effective for that particular disorder, however we have seen that it also has some success in treating a completely different disorder, i.e Bi-Polar, so we use it along with 2 other drugs in an analysis of effectiveness. This drug proves to be work, but along with the other two is only partially effective, but is the least correlated with effectiveness.

Does this mean that this drug should be forgotten and thrown away for all uses? The gist of this story is that you're trying to make a conclusion about the VR section primarily based on the fact that it is R= .4, ( BS= .6, PS =.5) with USMLE performance. You're completely neglecting the fact that 1) it may not be meant to correlate with USMLE 1 performance and in fact aims to explore a relationship that we have not yet probed complete. This on top of the fact that these numbers while statistically may seem useful, when graphed it becomes evident that they are not all that important, i.e your sample contains a more conservative range of scores or likewise the fact that the score relationship may be very strong on the pre-27 range, but is significantly weaker on the over-27 point.

The point being is that you're extrapolating conclusions where the research simply does not substantiate. You're making poorly structured arguments and conclusions that simply are neither supported by your limited research, nor significant as a whole.

The point is, maybe if you'd spend some more time facilitating the expansion of your critical thinking skills, researching skills, and formal analytical abilities instead of whining and screaming about how **** stinks then you'd be scoring higher and in medical school.

No that drug should not be thrown away but it should not be considered at par with drugs that have greater efficacy. If you agree with the premise it is .6,5,.4 should the test not reflect that?

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

No that drug should not be thrown away but it should not be considered at par with drugs that have greater efficacy. If you agree with the premise it is .6,5,.4 should the test not reflect that?

You neglected the fact that the drug works amazingly for other things and every other bit of information that did not weakly aid your argument.

This is never going to get anywhere because he is just going to tl;dr your post :/. We've gone through why the research doesn't back up the "VR is useless" hypothesis several times, to no avail.

OP, you might disagree with the need for a VR section but it's not going away anytime soon, especially just because of ONE meta analysis with pretty weak results.

However, I hope you do take some of the advice in this thread regarding how to raise your score (even if you disagree with the people giving you the advice). Nobody is happy that 5-10 questions on the VR section is keeping you out of medical school, and some people on this thread have tried to offer advice. I know watching someone else go through how they got to their answers (other students, not prep instructors as they're usually just reading off a solution manual and often miss the point) has worked for a lot of my friends. I hope you put your pride aside (I know it's hard to ask a fellow pre-med for advice) and try it!

Yup...

 

[Midifelder10]

You neglected the fact that the drug works amazingly for other things and every other bit of information that did not weakly aid your argument.



Yup...

We are being specific here, drug use for one case not 10 other things.

It is great Viagra worked out for ED and not BP but now we are talking BP.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

We are being specific here, drug use for one case not 10 other things.

It is great Viagra worked out for ED and not BP but now we are talking BP.

Actually we're still talking about the drug, not the effects produced. The point being is that if you're measuring the effectiveness of something for something that it was not designed to do, then it's going to appear useless. However try to correlate it with what it is really aimed towards predicting or doing and boom.

Either way, I've made my point. There's nothing more for me to add.

 

[Barley426]

So here's how I feel about this thread. Yeah, VR is a pain in the rear. It feels useless and it doesn't have great correlation to step 1 scores or prediction of success in med school. However, there are some decent reasons why it should be there such as the ESL angle and the logic argument, blah blah.

Here's the thing, you are putting way too much time and effort trying to fight the system here bro. You need to just accept that med schools want you to do well on this section, and focus on how to do well on that section. You're ranting on here isn't going to help, AMCAS isn't going to see a thread on SDN and change their mind about how they run their MCAT. If that were the case, scores would be released instantly, since there are like 90 threads about how it sucks we have to wait 30 days.

I "struggled" in the beginning of my studies with VR and I hated it. Instead of convincing myself it was garbage and not worth my time, I researched different techniques on how to to better, and I practiced. I improved and got a 12 on the real thing. I'm not trying to rub it in your face, I'm just trying to say you should allocate your time to something that will actually help.

If you got a good enough score to get into med school, cool, move on to your applications, secondaries, or interview prep.

If you still need to get a great VR score to be competitive, then focus on making that VR better. Go practice, then practice some more. If needed,try different techniques, and practice some more. I recommend you do EK 101 passages; they're hard as F$&# but they do help in the end.

Remember, medical school and doctoring in general is going to involve doing seemingly pointless and positively tedious things and still do them well, and that's another thing they take into consideration. Even if the VR was completely pointless, they know many people have to bust their butts to do well on it, and it shows their commitment. Its how I view all these secondaries and extraneous things, it either helps show you have what it takes or shows your character or commitment.

 

[Temperature101]

In "that" case you mean? You kind of proved my point for me...Thought it was pretty obviously that communication is a two way street. Getting your point across clearly and also understanding precisely what is being said.

You meant to say 'obvious'....

 

[Midifelder10]

So here's how I feel about this thread. Yeah, VR is a pain in the rear. It feels useless and it doesn't have great correlation to step 1 scores or prediction of success in med school. However, there are some decent reasons why it should be there such as the ESL angle and the logic argument, blah blah.

Here's the thing, you are putting way too much time and effort trying to fight the system here bro. You need to just accept that med schools want you to do well on this section, and focus on how to do well on that section. You're ranting on here isn't going to help, AMCAS isn't going to see a thread on SDN and change their mind about how they run their MCAT. If that were the case, scores would be released instantly, since there are like 90 threads about how it sucks we have to wait 30 days.

I "struggled" in the beginning of my studies with VR and I hated it. Instead of convincing myself it was garbage and not worth my time, I researched different techniques on how to to better, and I practiced. I improved and got a 12 on the real thing. I'm not trying to rub it in your face, I'm just trying to say you should allocate your time to something that will actually help.

If you got a good enough score to get into med school, cool, move on to your applications, secondaries, or interview prep.

If you still need to get a great VR score to be competitive, then focus on making that VR better. Go practice, then practice some more. If needed,try different techniques, and practice some more. I recommend you do EK 101 passages; they're hard as F$&# but they do help in the end.

Remember, medical school and doctoring in general is going to involve doing seemingly pointless and positively tedious things and still do them well, and that's another thing they take into consideration. Even if the VR was completely pointless, they know many people have to bust their butts to do well on it, and it shows their commitment. Its how I view all these secondaries and extraneous things, it either helps show you have what it takes or shows your character or commitment.

Most of what you say is correct but what I am saying is this is extremely inefficient way of gatekeeping. It only proves one thing, you are good at verbal.

 

[LuciusVorenus]

Most of what you say is correct but what I am saying is this is extremely inefficient way of gatekeeping. It only proves one thing, you are good at verbal.

The BS section only proves you're good at standardized BS tests.
The PS section only proves you're good at standardized PS tests.
Shadowing only proves you're good at shadowing.
etc
etc
etc

And let me preempt your "No BS and PS show you are more likely to succeed in medical school" with a no, they really don't either. It's an extremely weak study so I don't understand why you keep saying "look at the study I posted" as if it's scripture. We've all looked at the study and we're not impressed! It doesn't help that it's a meta-analysis either, so we have no idea how weak the individual studies were. As others have pointed out, most of the individual studies point out how past a 27 none of the sections of the MCAT are predictive of anything. Should we throw the whole test out?

Besides, do you really think the physics on the PS of the MCAT is "real" physics? The physics on the MCAT is a complete joke. I took a few circuit analysis and design classes, and when I saw the "electricity and magnetism" section of the MCAT I wondered why they even bothered including that stuff. Honestly, the same can be said for the biology and organic chemistry sections as well. General chemistry isn't even a subject! It's just "general" chemistry.

If this study was the holy grail of MCAT studies and actually showed what you keep trying to convince us that it shows, the VR section would have been excluded from the 2015 MCAT revamp. INSTEAD they're adding MORE VR related questions (social sciences, behavioral sciences, etc).

It's not as if there's some kind of massive comparison afoot to keep you out of medical school, they obviously know something you/we don't.

 

[sinuous sausage]

Please, anyone that has read the answers to the VR passages knows that VR is a joke. The correct answer often has less to do with critical reasoning abilities and more to do with making the same assumptions about the topic or author as the testmaker.

It's called psychology and situational awareness, dude. Maybe the ability to read between the lines a little bit.

Sounds like the OP needs to go shutter himself into a laboratory. For the rest of humanity, culture is more than cell lines steeped in media.

 

[Midifelder10]

The BS section only proves you're good at standardized BS tests.
The PS section only proves you're good at standardized PS tests.
Shadowing only proves you're good at shadowing.
etc
etc
etc

And let me preempt your "No BS and PS show you are more likely to succeed in medical school" with a no, they really don't either. It's an extremely weak study so I don't understand why you keep saying "look at the study I posted" as if it's scripture. We've all looked at the study and we're not impressed! It doesn't help that it's a meta-analysis either, so we have no idea how weak the individual studies were. As others have pointed out, most of the individual studies point out how past a 27 none of the sections of the MCAT are predictive of anything. Should we throw the whole test out?

Besides, do you really think the physics on the PS of the MCAT is "real" physics? The physics on the MCAT is a complete joke. I took a few circuit analysis and design classes, and when I saw the "electricity and magnetism" section of the MCAT I wondered why they even bothered including that stuff. Honestly, the same can be said for the biology and organic chemistry sections as well. General chemistry isn't even a subject! It's just "general" chemistry.

If this study was the holy grail of MCAT studies and actually showed what you keep trying to convince us that it shows, the VR section would have been excluded from the 2015 MCAT revamp. INSTEAD they're adding MORE VR related questions (social sciences, behavioral sciences, etc).

It's not as if there's some kind of massive comparison afoot to keep you out of medical school, they obviously know something you/we don't.

Obviously since there is no verbal in medical studies I don't need to prove I am good at that.

Other section maybe a joke to you but it does not matter as it is all relative. They are checking if you are better than others and that is kind of important.

So they go ahead and add one more section and that justifies their incompetence. Remember these are the same people who added the writing section.

There is no giant conspiracy but it keeps me out.

 

[Ochempwnsme]

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