Old AAMC Tests (Verbal)? NextStep 108 CARS? Testing Solution CARS?

[FauxBlue]

Hi~!

I've recently done some searching for more CARS material because I am about to exhaust my materials from EK 101 and TPRH 2011 (saving Q packs closer to exam date). I came upon a few of these resources from my searching (a) Old AAMC Test for Verbal (b) NextStep 108 questions for CARS 2014 and (c) Testing Solution CARS full lengths.

Anybody have any experience with any of these 3? I want to hear some opinions about these materials before committing to them. How are these resources compared to the actual CARS?

If these are not great, what are other resources?

**Is it even worth it to use the old AAMC tests for verbal? Is CARS still very similar to the previous verbal?**

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[theonlytycrane]

(b) NextStep 108- I have this book. I don't really like the passages because the questions are not AAMC style. They are more passage-detail type questions with tough / dense passages. I would say that practicing with this book helps to improve timing for dense passages and to not be as intimidated, but doesn't give enough critical thinking practice because you'll be searching the passage for the answer more than reasoning about an author's argument.

(c) The Testing Solution CARS questions are perfect in terms of AAMC style. The problem is that their practice format is bad. You only get a kindle e-book with questions on a different page than the passage. So if you want to refer to the passage you have to click back. You can setup a PDF with the passages side by side with the e-book, but it's kind of clunky. Their passages are also ultra-hard (the hardest you'll find). I would say it's good practice to get better at dense passages, but there's no way to time it accurately due to their lack of test setup. You can try out t1 for free (http://www.mytestingsolution.com/quizzes/t1-mcat-cars-practice-test/) but the web interface is pretty bad and I wouldn't worry about the timing because the passages are so hard that it's unrealistic to practice fully timed against 9 super killer passages.

I don't know about Old AAMC verbal. Have you done the KA CARS? They aren't the best, but they are free and might hold you over for a week or two depending on how many you do a day. If you have a prep book set you can also get passages from online resources or from practice tests.

I also saw your other post and I think you're doing the right thing looking for the best practice material to use. Another user was saying that CARS is just about reading comprehension- I disagree and think it's more about just training your brain to become a wrong answer eliminator.

 

[MareNostrummm]

Testing Solutions is excessively hard compared to the AAMC CARS material

 

[ymedex]

Testing Solutions is excessively hard compared to the AAMC CARS material

That's good info, because I'm looking around for some AAMC-like prep for CARS (ESL background), so I really need some materials like that; I'l check out the Testing Solution free test; anything else you know of?