<p>On my SAT CR I scored a 660 and know I need to improve my overall verbal reasoning, not only for the MCAT, but for college as well. </p>
<p>To current or past pre-meds, what books do you suggest I can read to help overall improve verbal reasoning? I already planned to spend my summer working out, getting a job, and reading a lot, so I was just wondering if there were any good books to read that could also help improve my verbal reasoning. If not, should I read the newspaper everyday? New York Times? US News?</p>
<p>NY Times would be good, as would reading books in a variety of subject areas. Reading some journal articles and tearing them apart analytically would be good practice. (Practice doing things like looking for potential weaknesses in the argument of the articles and then writing a practice response to the article.)</p>
<p>MCAT VR is an entirely different animal than the SAT material. Take at look at some practice MCAT passages to get an idea for what they ask you do take from a passage, and then just start reading. The economist is good (very dense stuff), but I argue that any non-fiction reading is helpful.</p>
<p>Thanks. I figure reading fiction would overall be fun and could possibly help improve my writing, vocabulary, and reading speed. Reading The Economist sounds good since I’m actually taking AP econ now and would love to keep up with current events throughout college. Reading that would probably be good practice in analyzing the material. Anything else besides The Economist?</p>
<p>To be useful for MCAT prep, the reading material needs to make you think - “Why is the writer saying this? Does he have a bias?” “What evidence is the writer providing to support his point of view?” Ideally, good news implicitly answers those questions, so there’s no reason for the reader to have to ask them. There should be no author bias (unless it’s the editorials, of course) and the evidence provided to make a point should be clear and factual. </p>
<p>That’s why reading like the Economist is better - they provide facts, but they also make an argument for a certain interpretation of those facts. (The main goal of news sources like the NYT is facts only - not interpretation.) MCAT reading is never going to ask you to regurgitate a statement made in the passage - the questions will ask you to interpret what’s been written.</p>
<p>I honestly can’t remember what else Kaplan told us was good reading practice for the MCAT, but I think the New Yorker may also be acceptable.</p>
<p>EDIT: Google tells me that some people at studentdoctor.net’s forums also recommend New Republic and the Atlantic.</p>