What to do for verbal and MCAT??

[Restart13]

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I have my MCAT coming up this Saturday, and I am wondering what to do as far as taking the test and voiding it or canceling and taking it later. I have been getting some really crappy scores lately in the VR section, anywhere from 8-9 down to a 6 and 4 (was out of it mentally that day). My question is this:

Would you delay based off just the verbal? I think come test day I can pull of a 7-9. I am starting junior year this fall and can wait, but I want to take it this summer before school starts up again, as I have studied all summer. My sciences are about a 23 between BS and PS and I want to get at least a 30. My reasoning is that my VR is not going to improve regardless of how much time I spend on it.

 

[Propylene]

Tricky. I wouldn't leave too much up to chance. I've been having trouble with verbal too but the best bet for me was to keep practicing. I'm starting to get a better feel for what a "right" answer normally is. Are you using test prep materials? I really like ExamKrakers for their verbal advice. I know that you want a 9 or above in verbal so be careful if you aren't regularly scoring that.

 

[kpcrew]

the way i handled it was by doing the interesting passages first since i always felt like i did well on those questions since I paid attention to the material. i always did the boring ones last when i was tired of reading passages anyway.

 

[patineurMD]

My reasoning is that my VR is not going to improve regardless of how much time I spend on it.

This.

If you really feel like you've done all you can to prepare for it, just attack it and give it everything you've got. The worst that can happen is that you bomb VR and have to retake. Yeah, that sucks, but like you said you have the time. If you do well, though, you won't have to worry about it anymore and there is absolutely no better feeling than being permanently done with the MCAT (at least so far in my life, I'm sure STEP exams will be even more intense ).

 

[tn4596]

are you scoring yourself with EK 101, dont worry about those score, just make sure you finish all the passage with ample time left (about 10 min to go over ur answers and hard passage) and bring your reading up to speed.
You just have to be confident in ur reasonning when answering those question or the distractor will get you. Plus, some of the answers for questions in EK101 can be wrong.
You havent take the real thing yet so dont lose ur confident

 

[kehlsh]

I have my MCAT coming up this Saturday, and I am wondering what to do as far as taking the test and voiding it or canceling and taking it later. I have been getting some really crappy scores lately in the VR section, anywhere from 8-9 down to a 6 and 4 (was out of it mentally that day). My question is this:

Would you delay based off just the verbal? I think come test day I can pull of a 7-9. I am starting junior year this fall and can wait, but I want to take it this summer before school starts up again, as I have studied all summer. My sciences are about a 23 between BS and PS and I want to get at least a 30. My reasoning is that my VR is not going to improve regardless of how much time I spend on it.

Probably a bad attitude going into the exam. Even if I suck at English, I believe you can hit consistent 9+s in verbal if you put the work. My biggest mistake in prep for MCAT was that I did not take verbal as seriously and mostly just practiced with FLs. I thought verbal practice as waste of time because you cannot actually "prep" for it. But you actually can: I've noticed a different level of verbal understanding by doing several passages daily and going over it. In addition, post analysis of what you are getting wrong is important as your depth of understanding question types will be enhanced. I would highly recommend you delay just to improve verbal. Verbal can screw your entire MCAT up. I would wait to take until you get at least 9+ on last 3 FLs.

 

[Melomare17]

Probably a bad attitude going into the exam. Even if I suck at English, I believe you can hit consistent 9+s in verbal if you put the work. My biggest mistake in prep for MCAT was that I did not take verbal as seriously and mostly just practiced with FLs. I thought verbal practice as waste of time because you cannot actually "prep" for it. But you actually can: I've noticed a different level of verbal understanding by doing several passages daily and going over it. In addition, post analysis of what you are getting wrong is important as your depth of understanding question types will be enhanced. I would highly recommend you delay just to improve verbal. Verbal can screw your entire MCAT up. I would wait to take until you get at least 9+ on last 3 FLs.

after u get to 11s, its only a matter of 1-2 questions to from an 11 to a 13 so once ur there the only thing u can do is see what types of questions u are getting wrong

 

[paul411]

My reasoning is that my VR is not going to improve regardless of how much time I spend on it.

This kind of defeatist thinking does you no good.

Since you state "I am starting junior year this fall and can wait," I would suggest taking some more time to do serious prep before you take the MCAT. I made the same mistake you were about to: I rushed my first MCAT and ended up with a 30 (11PS 8VR 11BS). I felt thought to myself, "my VR is not going to improve regardless of how much time I spend on it". Turns out that's total BS. For my second MCAT, I buckled down and did tons of practice for VR. My VR score went up 5 points to a 13!

The MCAT is a standardized test so if you do enough practice, you can actually master a good chunk of it. The MCAT is an important component of your application, don't rush it. 👍

 

[Restart13]

Thanks for all the opinions and I think I made my final decision...I'm gonna end up delaying it. I just took AAMC 8 today and got a 28...7 on VR lol I think I am going to delay and maybe take it on Aug. 23rd. I still wanna take it before school starts up again though so late August is the latest I wanna go. I did have a family funeral this last weekend, and I think that explains a little bit why I've been out of it, but it's still very frustrating. I'm just gonna do some EK and save my last AAMC 11 for a few days before and just go for it then regardless of how I do on it.

And for advice as for going over VR section, what do you guys specifically recommend? I have the most messed up pattern. For an example, today on AAMC 8 I got 15 wrong I got 10 wrong within two passages. The rest were 1 or 2. I had one 100% They usually tend to be ones that are VERY uninteresting [Humanities for me]. Any advice while doing EK would be very much appreciated!