Charles Chaney’s VR Mastery
•Curriculum for Increasing Verbal Reasoning
Scores
1
Chaney’s VR Strategies
• Creating a reading practice program.
– If you’re serious about improving your VR score
dramatically, plan to read challenging material 2-3
hours per day for 6-8 months.
•
Reading practice program schedule.
–
1st month: Focus on mechanics by reading a large quantity of
material at a normal pace to improve eye movement and
minimize word skips.
» You’ll be addressing problems with misreading words,
skipping words, skipping lines, and choppy eye
movement.
2
Chaney’s VR Strategies
• Creating a reading practice program.
– Reading practice program schedule.
–
2nd month: Work on strengthening memory and
comprehension using sentence recall and paragraph
summary techniques to become proficient at identifying the
topic, setting, and main idea of every paragraph as well as
the entire
» You’ll be addressing problems with faulty memory and
overall comprehension.
3
Chaney’s VR Strategies
• Creating a reading practice program.
– Reading practice program schedule.
–
Months 3-6: Work on strengthening memory and
comprehension by practicing neuro-visual programming
during your entire reading session daily.
» You’ll be addressing problems with faulty memory and
overall comprehension.
4
Chaney’s VR Strategies
• Creating a reading practice program.
– Reading practice program schedule.
–
Months 7 & 8: Work on honing your reading speed and test
familiarity by establishing your reading speed to 250 words
per minute with complete comprehension after going
through 70 MCAT VR passages minimum.
» You’ll be addressing problems with slow reading speed
and MCAT cold feet.
5
Chaney’s VR Strategies
• Creating a reading practice program.
– Some final tips:
–
–
–
Rely on the “forced reading” technique in which you read for
at least 30 minutes during your daily session without allowing
your eyes to stop moving ever.
Use TSM analysis for an hour of your reading (Topic, Setting,
Main Point) to understand what you’ve read.
Use sentence recall and paragraph summary for an hour of
your reading to improve your memory and comprehension.
» Read sentence, then pause, then restate, then move on.
» Summarize each paragraph then check it for accuracy.
6
Chaney’s VR Strategies
• What should you read for practice?
– Go out of your way to find the types of readings
containing MCAT-level material.
–
Ten topics areas often appearing in VR passages:
» Anthropology.
» Art Criticism.
» Economic Theory.
» Humanities.
» Literary Theory.
» Natural Science.
» Philosophy of Science.
» Political Science.
» Psychology.
» Sociology.
7
Chaney’s VR Strategies
• What should you read for practice?
– Go out of your way to find the types of readings
containing MCAT-level material.
–
Read primarily from peer-reviewed journal articles:
» American Scientist.
» Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies.
» Foreign Affairs.
» New England Journal of Medicine.
» Nature.
» Shakespeare Quarterly.
» Common Knowledge.
» Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies.
» Academic Search Elite.
8
Chaney’s VR Strategies
• What should you read for practice?
– Use the library databases to find relevant journal articles.
–
Try to read online journals when you can to get prepared for CBT
(computer-based testing).
» American Scientist.
» Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies.
» Foreign Affairs.
» New England Journal of Medicine.
» Nature.
» Shakespeare Quarterly.
» Common Knowledge.
» Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies.
» Academic Search Elite.
» The Modern Language Journal.
9