Will this make a huge difference by the time I take my MCAT?

[currentlypremed]

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I realized that my reading comprehension is poor so I subscribed to The Economist, The Atlantic, Times Magazine and Scientific America magazines. I plan on finishing one magazine a week until I take my MCAT in May. Will this help me on the verbal or is there something else I should be focusing my time on?

 

[slopes23]

I realized that my reading comprehension is poor so I subscribed to The Economist, The Atlantic, Times Magazine and Scientific America magazines. I plan on finishing one magazine a week until I take my MCAT in May. Will this help me on the verbal or is there something else I should be focusing my time on?

Exam Krackers 101 verbal passages, and the Exam Krackers Verbal Reasoning Section book to teach you the techniques you should employ during test taking. When you finish a section of verbal go back over it and review everything. Look at why you got things right, and why you got things wrong. Rinse and repeat.

 

[EthylMethylMan]

I realized that my reading comprehension is poor so I subscribed to The Economist, The Atlantic, Times Magazine and Scientific America magazines. I plan on finishing one magazine a week until I take my MCAT in May. Will this help me on the verbal or is there something else I should be focusing my time on?

I'd say given the amount of time until your MCAT that it would definitely be beneficial. Those publications seem like they'd be around the level of an MCAT verbal passage. However, don't forget to dedicate a good amount of time to the science sections as well.

 

[currentlypremed]

I was thinking of using exam cracker's 101 passages, but would using it now exhaust my verbal MCAT study "resources"? What I mean is that I dont want to use it now and not have anything to study off when I'm ready to prepare for the MCAT

 

[SN12357]

I was thinking of using exam cracker's 101 passages, but would using it now exhaust my verbal MCAT study "resources"? What I mean is that I dont want to use it now and not have anything to study off when I'm ready to prepare for the MCAT

Yeah, you don't want to start seriously studying too early and a)use up materials and b)burn out. I think concentrating on just doing high-level reading for the next few months is a great idea, and then I would advise starting to seriously study around January if you have a May MCAT date.

Make sure you aren't just doing 'in one ear, out the other' reading, if reading closely is not something you're used to. Think about the audience for the article, why it was written, the opinions (obviously and subtextual) of the author, things like that.

 

[slopes23]

Yeah, you don't want to start seriously studying too early and a)use up materials and b)burn out. I think concentrating on just doing high-level reading for the next few months is a great idea, and then I would advise starting to seriously study around January if you have a May MCAT date.

Make sure you aren't just doing 'in one ear, out the other' reading, if reading closely is not something you're used to. Think about the audience for the article, why it was written, the opinions (obviously and subtextual) of the author, things like that.

You should wait until you begin your actual studying to do problems. I still think you should buy EK Cracking the verbal section as it gives you insight into how to go about the passages. You should then use this insight to practice in your weekly readings. For example practice formulating the main idea while reading the economist. A lot of the articles in there have the main idea in bold at the top of the article. Don't read that until you read it yourself and formulate an idea of the article. Compare and contrast with the right answer in bold.

 

[currentlypremed]

thats a really great idea, I never thought of that

 

[JohnQuincyAdams]

In my opinion, reading those will not help you at all on the MCAT at this point.

 

[Moose A Moose]

I realized that my reading comprehension is poor so I subscribed to The Economist, The Atlantic, Times Magazine and Scientific America magazines. I plan on finishing one magazine a week until I take my MCAT in May. Will this help me on the verbal or is there something else I should be focusing my time on?

Good idea. Stick to it and it'll help.be sure to be actively reading the whole time.

 

[currentlypremed]

In my opinion, reading those will not help you at all on the MCAT at this point.

why wont it help? I have almost a year to take the mcat

 

[Radon XP]

Reading things just for the sake of MCAT practice isn't a good plan IMO. Subscribe to what you're interested in, and then read and read closely. Of course, on the real MCAT, you're going to be given passages you may not find interesting, so I guess it's good practice in that regard.

You need to have a plan, though, to read "actively". Passively reading a bunch of articles from The Economist won't really lead anywhere.