<p>I've generally had problems with my comprehension early in my academic career. I scored a 540 on the SAT Critical Reading back in high school but have been scoring 10's consistently on the verbal exams in Exam Krackers (with the help of a combination of reading The Economist and reading about one verbal passage from Exam Krackers a day); I'm not satisfied (I'm hoping to get at least a 11 on the real thing):</p>
<p>Which do you think is the more efficient method, solely reading from The Economist (WSJ, etc.), or, strictly reading one verbal passage a day from any of the MCAT prep books (and answering the associated questions)?</p>
<p>Perhaps a combination thereof might be my best bet, but I find The Economist to be very boring. If you could only use one of either method, which would you choose?</p>
<p>Is there any reason you can't do both? The Economist may be boring but so are most of the MCAT passages. I personally would save up all the verbal passages and do a complete timed verbal section at the end of each week.</p>
<p>Admittedly, I don't enjoy reading (no surprise), and so I would have trouble doing complete verbal exams at the end of each week (I do one each month in addition to reading one verbal passage each day). At the same time, I really have been intent on improving my comprehension skills but without 'overdoing' it; I'm a rising sophomore.</p>
<p>Maybe I should've put it this way: Is 8 minutes of studying off verbal passages from Exam Krackers more productive than reading The Economist for 8 minutes? </p>
<p>I want to know why people have been recommending reading news journals instead of just directly going at practice verbal passages. It seems to me the latter would be the better strategy. Reading news journals would merely improve your comprehension skills, while doing MCAT Verbal sections would not only improve your comprehension but at the same time enables you to know the test inside and out, which not surprisingly does lead to better results. </p>
<p>For example, I've been playing Starcraft for 8 years now, and I'm sooooo gooooood at it. =] However, I wouldn't be as good if I had instead studied the strategy guide first and finally played after 8 years.</p>
<p>... because your analogy is backwards. The MCAT is the strategy guide to reading comprehension -- the shortcut, the highly abbreviated version. Actually playing the game is a far richer experience -- like reading in its full context.</p>
<p>I'm not quite sure what you'd get out of reading the Economist for 8 minutes a day or doing a 8-minute passage. It seems to me, your time would be better served reading the Economist for 50 minutes straight at the end of every week or doing a complete verbal section if you are truly intent on improving your verbal score (which is already at a 10).</p>
<p>The biggest issue that I'm gathering from what you've described...if you're just reading the passage, you're not developing the skills needed to do well on the MCAT. Reading comprehension is part of it, but good scores come from being able to answer the questions - you don't get points from being able to understand all the complexity of the article. The important skill is to get the gist of the passage and then know where to look for the information you need to answer the question, taking that information and applying it to find the correct answer.</p>
<p>If you're not critically reading the economist passages, you're not going to derive any benefit. At the end of the passage you need to - at a minimum - be able to identify the topic, the scope, and the purpose of the passage (why the author wrote the piece). Brief example - you could have an article about the olympics, the scope would be michael phelps, and the purpose would be the author explaining why he felt Phelps was the greatest olympian of all time.</p>
<p>If you want to further expand it, you need to think about what sort of information would make the author's position stronger, or that would refute the position they've taken. </p>
<p>Perhaps if you make it more interactive, you'll find it easier to to spend time doing.</p>
<p>Shades has suggested the New Yorker, which I've never found to be quite as closely related but probably works okay. In terms of newspapers, really only the WSJ is up to snuff, although the NYT Magazine is pretty good. I'd bet Atlantic Monthly's a pretty good publication, too. Foreign Affairs tends to be a little more dry and esoteric than you need, but is not a bad option.</p>