Why do I feel like EVERYONE's verbal score dropped on the real deal???

[Blondnuttyboy]

It seems strange that EVERYONE is saying their verbal score dropped on the real, or that verbal was insanely difficult. Why is this? Are practice verbal books just took easy or what? I'm landing consistent 10's and would love an 11 on the real thing..now I'm scared of getting a 7 or 8.

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[poly800rock]

It seems strange that EVERYONE is saying their verbal score dropped on the real, or that verbal was insanely difficult. Why is this? Are practice verbal books just took easy or what? I'm landing consistent 10's and would love an 11 on the real thing..now I'm scared of getting a 7 or 8.

i took the august 2006 mcat and got a 9 in verbal, i took the april 12 verbal murder exam. i was consistent with EK verbals at 8-9 occasional 10. AAMC i was all over the board, started out at a 9, pretty solid with 9's, but then hit the last two tests i took AAMC 10 and 7 two weeks before the test. scored a 6 on each.

during the exam there was a jerk (i'm talking to you dingus in harrisburg) coughing the entire time and writing his writing sample making it close to impossible to concentrate! walked out of the april 12 exam thinking i basically blew it for a 2nd time. almost threw up because of it. figured the worst i could have done was a 6 as shown by my worst 2 practice tests, but ended up with an 11. so, if you're getting frustrated with verbal, my advice would be just to chill out.

that being said, LUCK plays a TREMENDOUS role in verbal. I happened to get a really hard one and I'm normally "ok" at verbal, so I just tried to do what I do, and assumed everyone else would do worse, which probably was the case, jacking the curve.

 

[Blondnuttyboy]

wow - that's very uplifting..how did you feel after you finished it?

I get consistent 10's on EK

I got a 12 on aamc 5 and 10's on every other aamc...i have one more week till i test and i think i'm just nervous b/c i hear about soo many people dropping like hell on the real deal.

 

[poly800rock]

wow - that's very uplifting..how did you feel after you finished it?

I get consistent 10's on EK

I got a 12 on aamc 5 and 10's on every other aamc...i have one more week till i test and i think i'm just nervous b/c i hear about soo many people dropping like hell on the real deal.

felt like crap after it. thought that was easily my lowest score. i refer you to this thread
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=5034385&postcount=77

again, if you're doing consistent, you should be fine. don't freak yourself out too much at the end.

 

[mongrel]

I took January 27 test and my verbal went up.

 

[bioteach]

I consistently got 12's on every single AAMC practice CBT I took. Got 11's on all of the Kaplan practices. Every one of them, paper and CBT. I got a 12 on the real thing. If your practices are consistent, you should be good. If your practices are all over the place, then its anyone's guess...

The only other caveat would be if you have suffer from test anxiety. That can really kill some people's scores...I was nervous, of course, but test nerves don't usually alter my performance on exams.

 

[bioteach]

double post

 

[MDee]

I was pretty consistent in my verbal (10)...But like bioteach said, test anxiety got the best of me and I actually did much lower that what I was normally getting

 

[WurangBlang]

i took the august 2006 mcat and got a 9 in verbal, i took the april 12 verbal murder exam. i was consistent with EK verbals at 8-9 occasional 10. AAMC i was all over the board, started out at a 9, pretty solid with 9's, but then hit the last two tests i took AAMC 10 and 7 two weeks before the test. scored a 6 on each.

during the exam there was a jerk (i'm talking to you dingus in harrisburg) coughing the entire time and writing his writing sample making it close to impossible to concentrate! walked out of the april 12 exam thinking i basically blew it for a 2nd time. almost threw up because of it. figured the worst i could have done was a 6 as shown by my worst 2 practice tests, but ended up with an 11. so, if you're getting frustrated with verbal, my advice would be just to chill out.

lucky!!! I freakin' bombed the verbal section... i don't know why it was so hard on apr 12th.... so angry.

 

[Blondnuttyboy]

I think what was really bothering me - is when people discuss the April 12th exam, they all say it was killer and really hard but they still did poorly. What about the curve??

 

[SketchLazy]

lucky!!! I freakin' bombed the verbal section... i don't know why it was so hard on apr 12th.... so angry.

Yeah no kidding. The April 12th verbal was killer. More passages than I expected. I almost didn't finish and completely guessed on one of the passages for all the questions. Bar bodies? WTH are bar bodies?

 

[MDee]

Yeah no kidding. The April 12th verbal was killer. More passages than I expected. I almost didn't finish and completely guessed on one of the passages for all the questions. Bar bodies? WTH are bar bodies?

I thought the verbal section always has a default of 7 passages??

 

[poly800rock]

I think what was really bothering me - is when people discuss the April 12th exam, they all say it was killer and really hard but they still did poorly. What about the curve??

i honestly think the curve saved me butt. I think i just put down "C's" for the last passage. It's such a cointoss. I know i ran out of time for sure. The thing is I usually have a gauge going out of verbal, but the april 12 verbal was for me, complete luck/good guessing

 

[Hindiana_Jones]

I thought the verbal section always has a default of 7 passages??

Yes, can someone answer if there were more than 7 passages?

 

[Hednej]

I went up to a 12 on the real deal. On the practice Kaplan tests, I consistently got 9s and 10s on the practice tests. I was getting so frustrated with my lack of improvement that I started doing ONLY verbal for my last two weeks and this was hardcore, maybe like 3 verbal tests a day. The most I could squeeze out of the Kaplan tests were 11s, but I did get a 12 on one of the earliest AAMC tests and those are considered to be easier for the most part so I wasn't counting on that.
I took the April last year and thought that the verbal was one of the hardest I had ever done. Plus, there was construction outside, the air-conditioning sucked, and the elevator made the "Ding" noise every 2 minutes or so. But still, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out about my 12.

My advice to all those who want to seriously improve on the verbal: practice, practice, practice and then review, review, review. Seriously, verbal is the only part that does not require any previous knowledge. You CAN get better with pure practice.

Good luck

 

[Hindiana_Jones]

My advice to all those who want to seriously improve on the verbal: practice, practice, practice and then review, review, review. Seriously, verbal is the only part that does not require any previous knowledge. You CAN get better with pure practice.

Good luck

What do you recommend for reviewing? EK method, or just looking over your old tests?

 

[Hednej]

What do you recommend for reviewing? EK method, or just looking over your old tests?

Sorry but I've been out of the loop for over a year now. What's the EK method? When reviewing, I would look to see what the correct answer was. Then I would try to determine why I picked the wrong answer and why the right answer is right. Then I would look at any explanations that were available. Afterwards, I would finetune my reasoning machine accordingly.

 

[poly800rock]

What do you recommend for reviewing? EK method, or just looking over your old tests?

i never even bothered ever looking over the answers. seriously, your logic is always different than theirs. plus that means that you could probably do the same test twice without remembering that you even did it the first time. that's what i did

 

[roycer]

Does anyone know where I can get additional practice for VR? I am currently using EK 101 but eventually exhaust this resource. I can have access to Kaplan's VR tests but a lot of you say that it is not representative of the actual MCAT. Any suggestions?

 

[vector2]

I took the MCAT for the first time last August and I thought I destroyed verbal, but I only ended up getting an 11. I just took the May 16th exam, and once again I thought I destroyed that section, but we'll see what happens. I have my fingers crossed because I think fewer questions (and what I believed to be easier passages with less flowery language) will definitely help.

 

[MDee]

I took the MCAT for the first time last August and I thought I destroyed verbal, but I only ended up getting an 11. I just took the May 16th exam, and once again I thought I destroyed that section, but we'll see what happens. I have my fingers crossed because I think fewer questions (and what I believed to be easier passages with less flowery language) will definitely help.

So, to clarify, you felt that the passages you had on the 5/16 exam were an easier read? I took the 4/16 exam and the verbal SUCKED

 

[Blondnuttyboy]

did any of you 4/12 takers take aamc 9 cbt? How did aamc 9 compare in terms of horrible verbal passages? I just took 9 today and I thought the passages were so stupid...

I still pulled an 11 - luck? Im curious anyway

 

[poly800rock]

did any of you 4/12 takers take aamc 9 cbt? How did aamc 9 compare in terms of horrible verbal passages? I just took 9 today and I thought the passages were so stupid...

I still pulled an 11 - luck? Im curious anyway

you thought 9 sucked? 9 was really similar to the real MCAt i took in august. aamc 10 really sucks. the april exam was like none other i had ever read before, it was so random and tiresome. the passages were really long and the questions were really vague from what i can recall, if anything at all now. did i say the passages seemed really long?

 

[jochi1543]

I scored the same as I had on EK and AAMCs.

 

[meddoc1]

May 11 exam seems pretty normal. Not very long passage. 5 passages were okie and 2 were harder. But other than that, it seem much easier than AAMC 9 or 10

 

[meddoc1]

Maybe after the april exam, the AAMC people think that making the verbal too hard is not accurate in representing the results thats why they are making the verbal part easier. Thats what I hope, cos I am taking it again tomorrow. Hahahahahaha

 

[littlealex]

I'm starting to be pretty convinced that the test is fairly consistent. I've gotten the identicle splits on every single one of my AAMC practice tests with a slight upward trend (scored 2 points higher on the 8R overall).

I'm hoping the real thing will be similar to the practices, but I really don't get how people have such big swings in their tests.

 

[Blondnuttyboy]

well I pulled a 33 on aamc 8 and 9. (12,10,11), (11,11,11) and I really want a 35 on the real thing. I take it May 31st AND I'm a third timer so I have a lot of pressure..

I guess I'm just nervous b/c I know if I destroyed the verbal, it would help offset the fact that I'm third timing and my gpa sucks

 

[12thandSouth]

I took the April 12th and found it to be no more difficult than the AAMC tests. When I walked out, I felt fine, and I scored a 13, which was a point higher than my practice average.

That being said, I believe there was more than one form on that date (and on all the dates, for that matter), becuase other April 12thers mentioned having passages that I definitely did not have.

 

[poppytart]

I scored a point higher on the real deal than I did on CBT 10, which many thought had a difficult VR section. Just relax on the actual test day and you should score in your practice range.

 

[poly800rock]

I scored a point higher on the real deal than I did on CBT 10, which many thought had a difficult VR section. Just relax on the actual test day and you should score in your practice range.

this is key, relax.

 

[dayumgina]

Verbal is like a pap smear. Relax or it'll hurt.



Damn I'm good.

 

[MDee]

Verbal is like a pap smear. Relax or it'll hurt.



Damn I'm good.

hahaha