<p>so MCATs are pretty much passage based reading, and the verbal section is just reading and answering. So, what SHOULD i read to improve my reading skills, and my overall score when i take the MCATs. I still have lot of time till i take the test. So, please help me out. Thanks!</p>
<p>The Economist is an excellent publication. Practice going through articles from it paragraph-by-paragraph. Break down why the author included each sentence. What purpose did it serve? Why was it there?</p>
<p>No need to put yourself through this drill too often. Just read as much as you can, and drill every once in a while.</p>
<p>Wall Street Journal is also an excellent substitute, although the passages will be less similar in tone. (Other newspapers are worse.) Shades_Children has suggested the New Yorker. Atlantic Monthly might also work. </p>
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<p>Here's one good example. Barack Obama, of course, has a political tilt to him (duh), but he's nothing if not masterful with words. Here's a paragraph from his speech about Reverend Wright, which is (again) nothing if not well-written. Take a look:</p>
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[quote]
Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety — the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ignore the content. Ignore the content. Put aside whether you agree with what Obama is saying. (This is very good practice.) Because in a moment, you're going to examine it for strengths and for weaknesses, and you don't want to bias yourself.</p>
<p>What device is Obama using in second part of the first sentence? He's using opposition -- doctors vs. welfare moms. He emphasizes that they are different. What's the purpose of emphasizing this difference? Oh, he said it in the first half of the sentence: he is explaining that Trinity contains a wide cross-section of society.</p>
<p>Why does he need to explain that? Because he is trying to defend the church against attacks. What is his defense? That it's a broad representation. Therefore, we can infer what he thinks those attacks must have been: that Trinity represents a very narrow segment of American society. (This is, in fact, a correct inference: the attacks were that Trinity's pastor is a radical, out of the mainstream of society's accepted beliefs.)</p>
<p>Now look at the last sentence. Is its tone about the church positive or negative? Mostly, it's negative, although he of course balances it. Given the purpose of the passage as a whole (to defend Trinity), why is he saying negative things about it? Because he is attempting to demonstrate that he appreciates the criticisms brought against it. What is his tone? Is it dismissive, authoritative? Neither -- the tone he is attempting to strike is one of understanding and acceptance.</p>
<p>Now, what are the two middle sentences for? This is much harder. Break it down, piece by piece: what does it actually say? It says that black churches can be "raucous," "bawdy," and "jarring." There's an important caveat that he adds: "to the untrained ear." So what he's saying is that black churches can sometimes be startling and jarring experiences to outsiders.</p>
<p>Why is he saying this? The author (Obama) is most likely trying to demonstrate that a full understanding of the situation is complex and may require interpretative effort.</p>
<p>Okay, why is that important? More precisely, how does that fit into the overall context of the argument? Obama is attempting to use these two sentences to argue that many critics do not understand black churches. By implication, he is implying that they do not understand the specific elements that they are criticizing.</p>
<p>Stay on these two sentences for a moment. We'll practice another question form. What piece of evidence would most undermine Obama's argument here? What's the claim? That critics don't understand. What would undermine it? A critic who understands. For example, if most critics had spent many years involved with Trinity. What piece of evidence would most substantiate Obama's argument? If a very small proportion of people who had spent many years at Trinity were among the critics. </p>
<p>Okay. Now step back for a bird's eye view. What does this paragraph, as a whole, communicate? Look over the answers we've already given. 1.) That Trinity represents a broad cross-section of Black Americans. 2.) That many outsiders (critics, by implication) do not understand the church very well. 3.) That he understands that in some ways, it is a culture with some negative attributes.</p>
<p>How do these three come together? He is trying to tell us, basically: "It's complicated." It is diverse; it is difficult to interpret; and it has some negative and positive attributes.</p>
<p>Okay. Now what's the purpose of this paragraph in the overall speech? Remember the purpose of the overall speech: he is trying to defend his involvement with Trinity Church despite some unfortunate incidents with Reverend Wright. Why does, "It's complicated" help serve to explain this? It implies (and in fact, he says elsewhere in the speech) that there are unseen positive aspects to the church as well, which un-understanding critics are not paying attention to.</p>
<p>Obama's overall strategy with this paragraph, then, is not to refute, not to dodge, and not to disprove, but to outweigh.</p>
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<p>This is, of course, a political speech. And doubtless some aspects either of it or of my analysis provoked somebody's ire, somewhere. And that's useful to me, because it proves a point: you have to be able to analyze these passages dispassionately, approaching them from both angles. What would support his claim? What would undermine his claim?</p>
<p>You need to keep specific pieces in mind and be able to refute or support them without necessarily refuting or supporting the entire passage. You need to understand why authors used specific portions of what they used. You need to understand how the pieces of their arguments fit together to make a coherent whole.</p>
<p>^45 .</p>
<p>Thanks a lot bluedevilmike!!!</p>
<p>Okay bluedevilmike wins this one.</p>
<p>wow that was impressive bdm!</p>
<p>does he get paid to do this? ahah</p>
<p>lol .</p>
<p>BDM is the King.
(You should even publish your own MCAT verbal prep book)</p>
<p>Hey, if people would buy it, I would certainly think about it.</p>
<p>But you would lose your anonymity.</p>
<p>Well, I wouldn't label it bluedevilmike's guide to the MCAT. And I wouldn't advertise it on here (which would be a violation of terms of service anyway).</p>
<p>i wouldnt buy the book, since you are on this forum to give advice in person. lol</p>