English is about 9 questions on the MDCAT. Logical Reasoning is about 9 more. Eighteen marks together, which is exactly what 18 Biology questions are worth.
Nobody treats them that way. They sit at the end of the syllabus, they are not FSc subjects in the way Biology is, and they are the first thing dropped when time runs short. That is how students end up losing marks that needed no new content at all.
Why these marks are cheap
Think about what 18 Biology marks cost you. Chapters, diagrams, processes, exceptions. Weeks of work.
Now think about what the English section asks: tenses, subject-verb agreement, prepositions, articles, sentence structure, vocabulary in context, and a short comprehension. You have been taught all of it. For most of it you do not need to learn anything new. You need to stop making four or five errors you have been making for years.
Logical Reasoning is the same shape. Sequences, analogies, logical deduction, cause and effect. No syllabus to memorise. It rewards recognising the pattern quickly, which is pure practice.
English: find your own repeat offenders
Do not revise "grammar". Nobody gets worse at all of grammar at once. Do thirty questions, then look at what you actually got wrong, and you will find your errors cluster into a handful of types. Common ones:
- Subject-verb agreement, especially when words sit between the subject and the verb.
- Tense consistency inside one sentence.
- Prepositions after particular verbs, where the only rule is familiarity.
- Articles, a, an and the, which are rarely taught properly and quietly cost marks.
- Pronoun reference, where it is not clear what "it" or "they" points at.
Write your list down. It will be short. Then drill those specific things rather than the whole subject.
For vocabulary, learn words in sentences, not in columns. A word you have seen used is a word you can recognise under pressure. A word you memorised with its meaning beside it usually is not. Work through MDCAT English practice and read the explanation even when you guessed correctly, because a right guess is not yet a mark you own.
Logical Reasoning: speed comes from recognition
The questions fall into a few families, and once you can name the family you are most of the way to the answer.
- Sequences. Find the rule between consecutive terms, then check it against the whole series rather than the first pair.
- Analogies. Say the relationship out loud in words first, then apply that exact sentence to the options.
- Logical deduction. Only what the statements say counts. Real-world knowledge is the trap here, not an advantage.
- Cause and effect. Watch for two things that happen together without one causing the other.
Thirty minutes of this a week is enough. The skill is recognition, and recognition comes from exposure rather than study. Practise it in MDCAT Logical Reasoning.
When to do them
Use your tired hours. The evening after a long Biology day is wasted on new content, and is perfect for twenty English and reasoning questions. You get the practice and you lose nothing, because this is work your brain can still do at nine at night.
Then treat them properly in your mocks. Do not leave them for the last ten minutes of a full mock test and tell yourself you would have got them with more time. In the real paper you will not have more time.
Eighteen marks, no new syllabus, no diagrams, no exceptions to memorise. The students who take them seriously are not working harder than you. They just noticed what everyone else was leaving on the table.