MCAT Keywords

Strategies are pretty individual, and they depend on your particular strengths and weaknesses. Personally I rarely marked up passages. I apparently process the keywords automatically - when I am working with students, I have to scan the passage and think about what the keywords are (it’s like explaining to my mom how I know how the movie’s going to end: if I stop and think about it, I can come up with the signals, but I didn’t necessarily say to myself "hey, foreshadowing!" at the time).

However, I do recommend that people try noting keywords, because they’re important in grasping the structure of the passage, and that is really key (so to speak). Knowing when the author is supporting his/her pet idea, when s/he’s contrasting it with something else, when there’s an argument that’s being built up step by step - those are very important to understanding the passage. It’s the difference between knowing that the passage is about historical boats, and understanding that it’s explaining how the transition from wooden to steel boats caused a change in naval strategy. (Or whatever; I made that up.)

Keywords are also important when you’re figuring out the author’s bias. When I’m teaching, oftentimes students will know what the passage was about, but they have trouble figuring out the author’s take on the subject. You’re never going to read "Personally, I think X" on the MCAT; keywords are helpful here too. And again, I’ll go through and point out words like "clearly": why would the author use that word? The sentence makes sense without it, so it must be some sort of emphasis. Why is the author emphasizing that? Etc.

Obviously, not everyone will find that circling keywords is going to be helpful, and that’s fine - maybe you do it automatically like me, or maybe it’s so much of a distraction that it keeps you from focusing; either way, if it doesn’t work don’t do it. The important thing is being able to read for structure and slant.