Day 10 – CARS Question Types: The Main Idea
Remember, do two passages today, and be sure to do the keyword review! Today, we start a mini-series on the question types the MCAT uses to populate the CARS section. It’s fine to read through these posts and try to utilize the tips I lay out here, but if you are still struggling with your timing (which is fine and normal), don’t focus on these more advanced techniques until later. You’ve got to learn to walk before you can run and strategies pertaining to question types on the CARS are some of the most advanced we’re going to explore. Let’s get into it!
The Main Idea:
Main Idea questions may seem easy, as they are asking you in the most general terms, “What is this passage about?” But often,
Main Idea questions are also the ones that intimidate students the most. Instead of zooming in on one manageable portion of the passage, one detail or one argument,
Main Idea questions require you to actually understand what the author is trying to do in a more global sense, why the author wrote the passage, what’s the point of it all. If you struggle to keep arguments straight, to see the big picture, to understand the “Why” of the passage,
Main Idea questions are going to be tricky for you, at least initially. Beyond the particulars of the
Main Idea question type, the having a firm grasp of the main idea of the passage is going to help you answer almost every CARS question in some way or another. It’s not always easy to do at first, but with a little practice we’ll get you there. And fortunately, we’ve got a few tricks you can use which make it seem as if the
Main Idea comes to you. I call this approach,
Painting to the Main Idea:
What’s the Frame?
The first thing you want to do is to take a look at your frame. During your preview read of the passage, you should be able to figure out more or less what the frame of the passage is. This is the broadest category that your passage fits in. The frame of a passage on General Lee’s strategy at Gettysburg would be the Civil War. Within a frame, there are thousands upon thousands of possible subjects for a passage. When we are framing a passage, we are looking for the broadest category that still tells us something about the passage so we can use that frame to organize our own thinking about it. Identify the frames for the following passages snippets:
AAA Examining the gradual changes in rural Spanish in the Dominican Republic.
AAA The philosophical implications for young existentialists post World War II.
AAA The social significance and impact frozen dinners had on the 1950s familial unit.
Once you’ve identified the frame, you’ve not only framed what you are talking about (the painting inside the frame), but you’ve also learned something about what you aren’t going to be talking about in regards to the passage. This can be incredibly useful when trying to eliminate answer choices. In establishing a frame for the passage, you’ve set yourself the broadest boundary for a possible answer to a
Main Idea question.
Notice for the first passage, the frame might be something like
linguistic change, thus we know that any answer choices to a
Main Idea question absolutely cannot have a broader scope than linguistic change and that in all likelihood the scope will actually be more narrow than the frame. Think of the frame as the outer boundary and that the correct answer will always be contained within it. For the second passage, the frame might be something like
post-WWII existential philosophy, or maybe just even post-
WWII philosophy. It would depend on your 10 to 15 second preview read of the passage. For the third, it might be something like
social influences on the family. Notice that a more general answer choice concerning sociology wouldn’t be narrow enough to be a correct answer to a
Main Idea question as it resides outside the frame.
What’s the Subject?
After you’ve established the frame, you’re next going to narrow your focus to find the subject of the passage. This is like saying, the subject matter of the painting is the field of wild roses. Whereas with the frame, we said what was in and what was out, with the subject, we get at what it is that the painting is about. Within the frames of the
Civil War, Linguistic Change, Post-WWII Philosophy, and Social Influences on the Family, there are endless subjects that a passage might take up. For the example passage on General Lee’s Strategy at Gettysburg, the subject is just that, General Lee’s Strategy at Gettysburg. This is what the passage is about. This is the material of the passage. It is the “What” in the question “What” is the author talking about? Whereas you should know the frame by the time you finish your 10 to 15 second preview read, your subject may not become clear until later into actually reading the passage.
What’s the Point?
If the subject of a passage is the “What,” the point is the “Why.” Why did the artist paint the painting? Did she paint it to evoke the feelings of passion and love, or to remind you of the experience of a lazy relaxing day in a field of wild flowers? In terms of the CARS, why did the author write this passage? Why didn’t she just leave the page blank?In the case of the Civil War passage about Lee, it isn’t clear based on the information given to you, but a few possibilities include:
AAA Lee’s strategy was risky.
AAA Lee’s strategy should have won him the war.
AAA Lee’s strategy was ill-conceived.
AAA The failure of Lee’s strategy turned the tide of the entire war.
The possibilities are endless, so I won’t be exhaustive here, but what I want you to see is that the point of the passage is why the author wrote it. If you are able to frame the passage, understand its subject, and identify its
point, you’ve figured out the main idea of the passage.
Examples of Main Idea Question Stems:
The MCAT will ask you for the main idea in a number of different ways. Below, I’ve included a few examples. Main Idea questions are as general as they come on the MCAT CARS, so this will be your first indication you’re dealing with a
Main Idea question type.
AAA The main idea of this passage is:
AAA The author’s central argument is:
AAA The central thesis of this passage is that:
AAA The author most likely wrote this passage in order to:
AAA Which of the following best characterizes the main idea of the passage?
AAA What is the author’s central concern?
AAA The author can best be viewed a proponent of:
AAA The intended audience of this passage is most likely:
Tips for Main Idea Questions:
– General questions have general answers!
– Look for the argument or idea that is so central to the passage that without it, the passage would no longer make sense, it would have no teeth, its purpose would be unintelligible.
– Eliminate answer choices which contain arguments the author doesn't actually make in the passage, then sort through the ones she does and determine which is the most significant. Be on the lookout for answer choices which subtly flip the author's argument while retaining her language.
– Look for too specific or too narrow of answer choices. If an idea is only touched on in one paragraph, it is not likely to be the central argument of the passage.
– While general questions will almost always have general answers, be weary of too broad of answer choices. While the too narrow or too specific trickster answer choice is the most common, the MCAT has been known to widen the scope far beyond the passage to create a trickster answer choice.
–Be on the lookout for “correct” arguments, which are arguments that the author makes, but that are not the central argument or thesis of the passage. Once you think you've found your choice, decide if the passage would make any sense without the idea represented in the answer choice. If it wouldn't, you know you've got your answer, because a passage without its main idea makes no sense!
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Ok that’s it for today. We’ll have some Main Idea exercises in the next few days to help you practice getting better at identifying it, but for now, just try to keep an eye out for Main Idea questions as they come up in your daily two passages and also be sure to integrate the tips we've laid out for you. Also, if you've got a question about the CARS, leave it below. I love answering questions! See you tomorrow.
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“
Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.”– Chris Grosser
. I will be retaking in January. I was doing pretty good in the AAMC CARS practice material however my timing was way off in the real exam. That is one of my key weaknesses I am trying to work on this time around. 
