<p>My verbal strategy...(I bombed on the real thing comparatively to my practices. I avged 12-15 on practices, scored a 12 on my diagnostic, but an 11 on the real thing. That being said, I'm still ecstatic!)</p>
<p>1) Practice under harsher timed conditions than you will encounter on the test. You will have about 8.5 mins for every verbal passage. Get a stop watch and a verbal workbook, and practice finishing every passage in 6.5 mins. When I started doing this, two things happened: 1)Even though I was using less time, my scores did not decrease. They stayed the same. 2) When I became really good at answering the passages quickly, I found that I had time to refer back to the passage on every question. Now, since I can read the passages much more effectively (meaning faster) when I see a question that I'm not sure of, I have time to go back and quickly re-read the 3-4 sentences that pertain to the question. At this point, my scores started to increase.</p>
<p>2) Attack every single paragraph. Read very quickly, but read very actively. Don't try and go too slowly to remember every detail, this will kill you. What you should do is Gather the main idea of every paragraph, and make sure you're always thinking about the POINT of the passage. Eventually, when you've done enough verbal practice, gathering the idea of a section or paragraph will come very naturally. As a byproduct, you will start to gain a sense of the types of details that are important to remember, and you will begin to remember them automatically.</p>
<p>3) When doing the read-through, DO NOT re-read a sentence if you think you weren't paying attention. Try this on any reading material: Try reading very actively, but force yourself not to re-read sentences you just read or to go back on the first read through. If you are actively reading, its amazing how much you retain without having to re-read. Your brain often tricks you into thinking that you didn't understand something, when in fact you did. </p>
<p>4) You should be categorizing the paragraphs in your head. Remember that the reading material on the verbal section is always written so that the information is organized in some logical way. The AAMC specifically picks passages that are not haphazardly organized and written. "Categorizing" means that you should be thinking about the general subject of each paragraph so that you know where in the passage to look for information when you need to refer back as you answer the questions. It does not mean stopping and summarizing every paragraph in your head as you read. This way you don't waste time re-reading large sections of the passage (or the whole passage!) to find helpful information when you do need to refer back. Instead, your categorical map of the paragraphs will give you a general idea of where that information should be located. This will save you important time when you reach one of those questions that you don't know right off the bat. Lastly, the categorical map you create as you are doing your first read through should be in your head. This means you are really just making mental notes that point you in the right direction, and not summarizing.</p>
<p>5) Answer every question in order, do not skip questions. I think that this particular point works really well because often the questions themselves are ALOT of reading! If you read a question, decide that its too hard and skip to the next, you'll then have to come back and re-read the question on your second attempt thereby wasting time! Make a mental note of and use the CBT's "mark" function on the questions that are iffy so that when you do go back and review all of your answer, you know which questions you should focus more time on. </p>