<p>The verbal reasoning passages "tend to be from low-level academic papers." What are some examples? So, the reading passages are not as hard as the AP Literature and Language exams? Comparing to SAT verbal (critical reading), is the MCAT verbal reasoning harder, easier, or about the same?</p>
<p>The MCAT verbal reasoning is much harder than either the SAT: CR or the AP: Language. It's also considerably harder than the LSAT or GRE reading passages, frighteningly enough.</p>
<p>I should rephrase: VR passages tend to be from "articles on academic subjects which would be meant to inform somebody from the general public." As previously stated - repeatedly, I believe - it's the sort of thing you'd find in magazines and newspapers.</p>
<p>MCAT is harder than SAT verbal.....</p>
<p>I never took any APs so i dont know about that comparison.</p>
<p>hey, I have question on what a "good" MCAT score is. While people say anything over 30 is a decent score (w/ hopefully 10s accross the board), i have also heard of something called the "magic number". i was told that magic number = gpa*10 + MCAT score. Magic number of 70 is suppossed to be "the goal". Looking at it though, it seems awfully difficult to get a gpa of 3.8 and mcat of 32, especially at school like UC Berkeley, where gpa is difficult to get.</p>
<p>It depends a great deal on what kind of school you are aiming for and your own application.</p>
<p>In my case, I looked at the schools I wanted to go to and looked at my application. With a home state of California (bad) and ORM status (also bad), I aimed to have an index (what you call a "magic number") of at least 4 points above those schools' medians.</p>
<p>what is the national average of your "magic number?"</p>
<p>i really dont know. I just heard about magic number from people. The average range for MCATs in UC Berkeley seems to be 30-34 (although this seems like a broad range for me). This has me worried... there seems to be no way that i can get anything more than 3.6-3.7 overall gpa.</p>
<p>but... according to this website... <a href="http://www.studentdoc.com/medical-careers.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.studentdoc.com/medical-careers.html</a> , the average seems to be 3.6 gpa and over 30 mcat, which would compute to a 66 "magic number" score.</p>