What to read to improve CARS

[Sunny Waffles]

Hi everyone, I’ve been lurking around SDN for awhile now and a common complaint seems to be the difficulty of the CARS section. Many seem to say your CARS score is destined by the reading skills that you acquire over years. So I was wondering if reading Science Daily or other article sources (feel free to share more) would significantly help me for the CARS section, if I try reading it whenever I can the next 2-3 yrs

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[GreenDuck12]

Better bet would be to read academic journals in art history, philosophy, literature, history, or government for CARS. Also get some strategies to increase your vocabulary and reading speed. Think challenging pieces of literature or philosophy, less scientific journals. You also have to critically engage with what your read: identify purpose, evidence, argument, counter arguments, flaws / weaknesses in arguments. To be sure, getting more familiar with articles in science journals can be useful for other sections but not so much for cars.

 

[BeMoConsulting]

Hi there! Yes, it would definitely help. Besides using the AAMC’s practice materials to prepare for CARS, something else that is very important to develop the critical thinking and reasoning skills you need to do well in this section of the MCAT is doing lots of outside reading. At least 30 minutes of reading a day. We agree that CARS passages are quite challenging, so you need to help yourself by reading materials like journals (The New Yorker, The Economist, The New York Times), Humanities and social sciences journal articles, Psychology Sociology and Philosophy journals, and even Literature (Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, etc.) A good strategy is to always try to come up with the main idea of every paragraph you read and the central thesis of the article as a whole. Do active learning when reading these texts. This means highlighting key words or phrases, doing diagrams or drawings to organize concepts, and traying to explain the article in your own words or teach it to a friend. It’s not an easy road, we know, but if you are committed and consistent in your practice, you can be successful at this. Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

[deleted1102547]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that reading random articles to build up your "reading skills" is largely a waste of time. Yes, the ability to read and understand what you are reading is important, but it is a skill that most pre-med students already have developed by the time they are ready to take the MCAT. Their reading comprehension skills may not be perfect, but it's hardly going to change over the course of six months of reading a few articles each day unless those skills are starting abysmally low. I think it is far more important to try to understand the logic and reasoning of the AAMC/MCAT.

I took the SAT/ACT and got excellent scores in the CARS-equivalent for those tests. When I took my first practice MCAT, my CARS was above average, but it was far from great. I spent a little bit of my study time really dissecting how the AAMC structures its MCAT passages, questions, and answers. By focusing on understanding their logic, I was somewhat able to predict what types of questions they would ask based on the passage and predict a few of the answers that I thought would come up in those questions. I obviously wasn't able to do this every single time, but there is a reasonably definitive logic pattern that the MCAT uses. By trying to understand that logic pattern, you can quickly eliminate answer choices or use heuristics and intuition to make educated guesses of what answers to eliminate very quickly. That saves precious time, which allows you to go back and find the concrete example within the passage that allows you to select or remove the remaining answer choices. It also allows you to focus on the important things when you are reading the passage. For example, you will learn to highlight names or years, which are often asked about. Speed is everything in CARS, so learning test logic is really important. It's what helped me greatly improve my CARS score.

Yes, if your reading skills are weak, I do recommend reading whatever you can get your hands on, but I'd prioritize test logic for CARS. Unlike B/B, C/P, and P/S, there isn't anything you need to memorize before CARS. It's not a rote-memorization or plug-and-chug formula. Everything you need to know is within the passage, You just need to learn to reason as the AAMC does. Obviously, the gold standard for doing that is the AAMC material like the CARS questions and the FL exams. Second to that, I recommend UWorld and Jack Westin.

 

[Sunny Waffles]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that reading random articles to build up your "reading skills" is largely a waste of time. Yes, the ability to read and understand what you are reading is important, but it is a skill that most pre-med students already have developed by the time they are ready to take the MCAT. Their reading comprehension skills may not be perfect, but it's hardly going to change over the course of six months of reading a few articles each day unless those skills are starting abysmally low. I think it is far more important to try to understand the logic and reasoning of the AAMC/MCAT.

I took the SAT/ACT and got excellent scores in the CARS-equivalent for those tests. When I took my first practice MCAT, my CARS was above average, but it was far from great. I spent a little bit of my study time really dissecting how the AAMC structures its MCAT passages, questions, and answers. By focusing on understanding their logic, I was somewhat able to predict what types of questions they would ask based on the passage and predict a few of the answers that I thought would come up in those questions. I obviously wasn't able to do this every single time, but there is a reasonably definitive logic pattern that the MCAT uses. By trying to understand that logic pattern, you can quickly eliminate answer choices or use heuristics and intuition to make educated guesses of what answers to eliminate very quickly. That saves precious time, which allows you to go back and find the concrete example within the passage that allows you to select or remove the remaining answer choices. It also allows you to focus on the important things when you are reading the passage. For example, you will learn to highlight names or years, which are often asked about. Speed is everything in CARS, so learning test logic is really important. It's what helped me greatly improve my CARS score.

Yes, if your reading skills are weak, I do recommend reading whatever you can get your hands on, but I'd prioritize test logic for CARS. Unlike B/B, C/P, and P/S, there isn't anything you need to memorize before CARS. It's not a rote-memorization or plug-and-chug formula. Everything you need to know is within the passage, You just need to learn to reason as the AAMC does. Obviously, the gold standard for doing that is the AAMC material like the CARS questions and the FL exams. Second to that, I recommend UWorld and Jack Westin.

Thanks for the advice bro. I’m a freshmen in undergrad rn. So I don’t plan on taking the Mcat till junior or senior year. My SAT EVBRW score was a 660 with prep so I feel like I should strengthen my reading skills since most premeds probably had a higher SAT scores coming into college

 

[deleted1102547]

Thanks for the advice bro. I’m a freshmen in undergrad rn. So I don’t plan on taking the Mcat till junior or senior year. My SAT EVBRW score was a 660 with prep so I feel like I should strengthen my reading skills since most premeds probably had a higher SAT scores coming into college

That's around the 90th percentile for EBRW, so you are at a decent starting point. The type of people who take the MCAT are probably are a bit more academic, so it wouldn't be wise to assume you'll automatically score in the same percentile on that MCAT and the SAT. However, I think that a 90th percentile SAT score is indicative of the fact that you can read and learn the test logic.

Also, the MCAT is still a long way away. Please enjoy college and don't stress about it too much. It's fine to have the MCAT on the back of your mind, but you definitely don't need to begin studying for it or stress about it right now. Keep your GPA up and learn the content in your classes. That alone is 80% of preparing for the MCAT.

 

[GreenDuck12]

Also, the MCAT is still a long way away. Please enjoy college and don't stress about it too much.

^This

 

[Sunny Waffles]

That's around the 90th percentile for EBRW, so you are at a decent starting point. The type of people who take the MCAT are probably are a bit more academic, so it wouldn't be wise to assume you'll automatically score in the same percentile on that MCAT and the SAT. However, I think that a 90th percentile SAT score is indicative of the fact that you can read and learn the test logic.

Also, the MCAT is still a long way away. Please enjoy college and don't stress about it too much. It's fine to have the MCAT on the back of your mind, but you definitely don't need to begin studying for it or stress about it right now. Keep your GPA up and learn the content in your classes. That alone is 80% of preparing for the MCAT.

Appreciate the advice. I’m a little stressed out about the whole MD process and maintaining a a high gpa throughout undergrad. In high school, I messed around a lot and ended up with a sub 3.0 gpa. I’m really hoping I can change my ways in undergrad

 

[MyOdyssey]

Better bet would be to read academic journals in art history, philosophy, literature, history, or government for CARS. Also get some strategies to increase your vocabulary and reading speed. Think challenging pieces of literature or philosophy, less scientific journals. You also have to critically engage with what your read: identify purpose, evidence, argument, counter arguments, flaws / weaknesses in arguments. To be sure, getting more familiar with articles in science journals can be useful for other sections but not so much for cars.

I thought CARS did NOT include literary fiction passages, only literary criticism.

 

[GreenDuck12]

I thought CARS did NOT include literary fiction passages, only literary criticism.

You are correct. Purpose of reading literature is to be exposed to a wider range of vocabulary and learn shades of meaning.

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

Actually, I think the key to scoring high on CARS has to do with your logical thinking ability rather than your reading ability. CARS questions are actually quite formulaic and each question can be answered with a set algorithm. You just have to practice on real questions over and over and find that algorithm for why wrong choices are wrong.

 

[MyOdyssey]

Actually, I think the key to scoring high on CARS has to do with your logical thinking ability rather than your reading ability. CARS questions are actually quite formulaic and each question can be answered with a set algorithm. You just have to practice on real questions over and over and find that algorithm for why wrong choices are wrong.

Care to share that formula and algorithm?

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

MCAT constructs wrong answer choices with certain logic embedded and rather certain bias we all lean onto. So you have to go through each wrong answer choice and explain why they are wrong. Scope is too big, no support from passage, right information but wrong place and etc. Just go through each wrong answer choice and you will see the pattern.

I got to the point during the exam that I could immediately tell why each choice is wrong and confidently choose the right answer in 95% of the time. Ended with a 132.

The formula is that if you have any reason why this choice can be wrong it must be wrong.

 

[Proudfather94]

Hi everyone, I’ve been lurking around SDN for awhile now and a common complaint seems to be the difficulty of the CARS section. Many seem to say your CARS score is destined by the reading skills that you acquire over years. So I was wondering if reading Science Daily or other article sources (feel free to share more) would significantly help me for the CARS section, if I try reading it whenever I can the next 2-3 yrs

You would do better reading CARS passages from practice questions. You need to practice the skill of being able to quickly read and retain information that you can critically think about when you answer questions.

 

[Osteosaur]

You are not trying to build your reading skills. You are trying to answer CARS correctly.

The best way to practice for a test is under testing conditions.

Practice more CARS sections. The goal is to be able to extract the information they want to answer the question from the article in a timely manner.

As an undergrad the best thing you can do for the MCAT is space out your studying so it becomes second nature, and not take the test before you are ready.