I heard that taking the exam more than 2 times looks really bad. How true is that? English is my second language, does anyone have suggestion to improve the verbal section other than just reading?
It is better to take the MCAT as few times as possible. It is important to improve if you take it more than once. How many years in between also comes into play (or so I’ve heard) - APR '02/AUG '02/APR '03 is a different 3x than APR '96/APR '01/APR '02
How to improve verbal - one thing you must do is get used to reading obscure non-fiction and understanding it. I don’t know how to do that other than reading and possibly discussing it. So, I think the most important thing is “just reading”, not that there are not techniques as well.
Chances are, with English as your 2nd language, you don’t do much recreational reading in English - textbooks, maybe the newspaper or a magazine here and there. So it is not just reading, it is also what you read.
Read alot: read complex fiction, read non-fiction books, read journals like The Economist, read the editorial sections of NY Times, WSJ, Wash Post, read those literary magazines from the news stand. Read things that force you to evaluate the author’s inflections and intentions, things that try to convey ideas and arguments, and not just reading for the facts (like news items, texts & scientific journals).
Beyond that, there are techiniques to mastering the MCAT verbal - and if you look around in the forums here, you’ll find several old threads about it.