Building Confidence on CARS

[MCATLasagna]

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone else has the same problem that I'm noticing early on with my CARS section. I'm planning on testing 4/20 and have the goal of taking 2 FL CARS exam/week. I read KoalaT's post about the golden rule and have been trying to employ it. What ends up happening is that I narrow it down to 2 answers, select the right answer, PROCEED TO PSYCH MYSELF OUT, and switch to the wrong answer. The same thing will happen with other questions where if I had just listened to my gut, I would have gotten the answer right (but I convince myself that my gut is wrong). Also, I don't know if this helps, but the majority of the questions that I get wrong are INFERENCE type questions.

Short of just not double checking my work, does anyone have any tips?
I'm currently in the 128 range after starting in the 126 range. I would love to break through to the 130 range if possible.

Thanks!

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[MoDiddy]

Go with your first answer and leave it don't overthink it. Try not to go back to the passage when answering questions unless absolutely necessary

 

[Swagster]

My problem was that I would always get it down to two choices, and then I'd start this mental haggling process with myself. I wasted time and never felt great about my answer. Halfway through my studying, I changed my mind frame and starting asking myself, "what do they want me to pick?". This calmed my nerves and helped pull my score up. CARS for me was the most mentally challenging, because the reasoning is different than science. You have to think the way a CARS person thinks.

 

[NextStepTutor_1]

Hi @MCATLasagna -

When going back and forth between two answer choices, it can be helpful to think about which is wrong, rather than which is "better," because thinking about which is "better" can leave you more prone to extended thought processes that go beyond the scope of how CARS wants you to reason -- that is, you might talk yourself into picking an answer choice for reasons that aren't what they're looking for. (A common example of this is picking an answer just because it has some of the same key terms as are in the passage, or because it sounds more interesting -- the right answer can absolutely be boring!). Instead, when you focus on eliminating the wrong answer choice, you're more likely to be deploying CARS logic (as @Swagster pointed out, you have to think in CARS mode).

(I also agree w/ others that changing your answers in general is usually not the best idea, but especially for CARS, because for CARS, you have to go back through your whole thought process about the question and the passage, and that's tough to do when you're reviewing answer choices at the end. I'm not quite sure I would say to never change an answer choice, because I'm really wary of 100% generalizations, but it doesn't sound like it's working for you, and there are good reasons why answer-changing for CARS is often more likely to hurt than help).

Best of luck on your upward trajectory on CARS!