Re-Cap of Verbal I

Hey everyone!

For those of you who weren't with our class at the beginning, please know that I've uploaded all of the other re-cap emails to the class blog:  mchv10702.blogspot.com.  The username is mchv10702, and the password is letsgo45T.  You can anonymously post questions and have me answer them!

As always, we’ll start by looking ahead to what’s coming up next (Organic Chemistry I) before discussing Verbal Reasoning I.

Your required homework for the Organic Chemistry I session:

• Organic Chemistry Review Notes Chapters 1-5
• The topics covered in these chapters reviews much of the material typically taught in the first semester of most introductory organic chemistry courses.  Many reactions will be presented in these pages, but please keep in mind that we present these reactions as examples of reaction patterns – they are NOT to be memorized.  The most conspicuous reaction patterns – the substitution and elimination reaction mechanisms of alkanes – will be reviewed in class, but what you will see in our lesson is that the key is to understand why a reaction mechanism is preferred in a certain situation.  Please note that alkene and alkyne reactivity has been formally removed as a topic by the AAMC, but we recommend that students remain familiar with the concepts outlined in these chapters as you may find that background information helpful in understanding a challenging organic chemistry passage.

• Online Workshop & Quiz:  Nomenclature and Functional Groups
• Organic chemistry is, at its heart, about the reactions and interactions between different functional groups.  Therefore, to engage in a review of the important principles of how organic compounds react we need to be familiar with the different functional groups and how they are typically named.  In other words, it is absolutely imperative that you be fluent in the language of organic chemistry.  We will spend a few minutes in each of the organic chemistry sessions briefly reviewing nomenclature, but do not expect those to be teaching moments; you are expected to know the structure of ethanol or octane, butanoic acid or propanal.
• One additional quick note:  the quiz associated with this OWQ asks some challenging nomenclature questions that test some of the more esoteric features of IUPAC convention, but the MCAT is highly unlikely to ask these sorts of questions.  The utility of being familiar with nomenclature and functional groups lies in the fact that you will find it difficult to understand MCAT passages if you’re struggling to remember just what exactly is a “thioester”?  What’s the best way to learn this?  As you read through the notes, go to class, and take practice tests you will regularly encounter many different compounds; keep a list of the compounds you encounter that you are only vaguely familiar with, or completely unfamiliar with.  Each time you pull out that sheet of paper to add something new to that list revisit the previous list.  In general, this type of learning process is the best way to prepare for the MCAT because it has a built-in repetition factor of concepts you learned about earlier, thus increasing the probability that you will be able to develop a deeper knowledge of the core science concepts.  The deeper your understanding, the easier critical thinking becomes, and – as you all know – that’s the key to success on Test Day!

One last word on homework:  the reading assignments for the next five science lessons (Biology I, Physics II, General Chemistry II, Organic Chemistry II, and Biology II) are quite dense.  The issue is not merely the number of chapters assigned to each of these lessons, but also what these chapters review.  For example, the reading assignments for Physics II cover thermodynamics, simple harmonic motion, waves, electrostatics, magnetism, and circuits.  That’s nearly a semester’s worth of physics!  Oh, and there are also three online workshops assigned to that unit as well.  While Physics II is the most flagrant offender, Organic Chemistry II has 95 pages of reading about carbonyl compounds and spectroscopy attached to it, and Biology II reviews nearly all of physiology.  In short, plan ahead carefully!   

To reinforce what we have covered Verbal Reasoning I, complete the following:

• Take Test 1 in the Verbal Reasoning Strategy and Practice book
• Read Chapter 3 in the Writing Sample section of the Verbal Reasoning Strategy and Practice book
• Critical Reading Basics Online Workshop & Quiz
• Grammar & Usage Online Workshop & Quiz
• Writing Online Workshop & Quiz
• Diagnosing Questions Online Workshop & Quiz
• Arguments Dissection Basics Online Workshop & Quiz

All of these items are available on your online syllabus.

With respect to Verbal Reasoning, I would like to reiterate a few key points from our last lesson:

• Reading the Passage

• It is quite difficult to maintain focused attention on seven dense passages within a limited amount of time; thus, we recommend that you use a passage mapping strategy to help you maintain focus as you read through each paragraph.  In addition to helping you maintain focus, this strategy helps improve your short-term memory, which will help save you time when it comes to answering the questions.

• Answering the Questions:

• Speaking of the questions, always make sure to STOP after reading the question stem and think to yourself: “Ok, what is this question really asking me?”  Many incorrect answer choices are true statements based on what the passage stated, but they are incorrect because they fail to answer the question posed.  Just as with the mapping strategy, maintain self-discipline and apply the same method of attack to each question to reduce the odds of a careless mistake.  After you have identified what the question is asking for, make a prediction (a framework of what the answer needs to have – remember, it’s like a shopping list), and then attack the answer choices keeping in mind that three of them are definitely wrong and only one is correct.  You can also think of the correct answer as being the only one that is unflawed.  If you are stumped at any step along the way, be ready to mark the question and move on to the other questions for that passage.

• Outside Reading:
  Some quotes from the AAMC itself on how to prepare for the Verbal Reasoning section:
• “Read extensively to develop a broad, solid knowledgeable base that can equip you to understand a variety of types of texts and topics.”   
• “Learn the purpose, content, and structure or argument by taking courses that require you to analyze text materials; read and analyze essays and editorials in newspapers, magazines and journals.”

To help you get started, we recommend publications such as The New Yorker, The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Scientific American.  The key is to read material that is outside of your comfort zone.  For example, if you’re a music history major that hates anything to do with economics (like someone I know…), then reading an economists’ nuanced breakdown of the recession is where you want to get started.  On the other hand, if you’re a science major that has gone out of your way to ensure the only liberal arts courses you’ve taken are freshman writing seminars then reading an analysis of the development of Giovanni de Bardi and the Florentine Camerata’s return to Grecian classicism would be a great place to go (as a side note, Galileo Galilei’s father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a member of the Camerata who wrote opera; also, if you do read about the Camerata, I’d love to discuss it with you!).  If you need help finding an academic journal in a certain area (philosophy, literature, paleontology, etc.), I encourage you to start here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_journals.  You can go further to look at specifically humanities journals, social sciences journals, and natural sciences journals (note that those are the same three categories we use for passage typing!).

Helpful Hints:

• Critical Reading Skills can’t be honed in a day.  You MUST commit to practicing MCAT Verbal Reasoning passages every day.  Start off slowly – one or two passages at a time – and don’t worry about timing/pacing.  Steadily work through practice passages to get the hang of the method – it might seem cumbersome at first, but you’ll get the hang of it with practice.
• As you practice passages, read for structure – not for details – and pay attention to the author’s use of evidence, conclusions, assumptions, keywords and tone.

With respect to the Writing Sample section, I ask that you take the following steps over the next few weeks:

• Log into your KapTest syllabus, click on the “My Tests” tab, scroll to the bottom and click on “Take AAMC Test 3.” In the new window that will open up click on the radio button titled “Writing Samples” (it’ll be on the left-hand side).  This page is an excellent resource for you to learn exactly what the AAMC expects of you in the writing sample – read through some of the sample essays written and the AAMC’s explanation of why that essay received the score that it did. 
• Next, visit this website: http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/preparing/writingsampleitems.htm

You will find a huge list of writing sample prompts that “will be similar or identical” to the ones that will appear on your MCAT.  On the one hand, it seems kind of cool that the AAMC is giving away a list of all the possible topics they can ask you to write about, but the list has approximately 375 prompts on there!  We’ll talk more about how we can use this to our advantage in MSCT II.

Congrats to those of you who made it all the way through this email, and I’ll see you at Organic Chemistry I!