Hi everyone, I will be taking the mcat mid May. My biggest concern is CARS. I have poor reading comprehension skills and I read fairly slowly. I am a biology and chemistry major and I feel I can do well on the other sections with some good studying. However, I feel hopeless about verbal. How should I go on about studying for it? Should I read non-mcat material and try to improve reading comprehension and speed or should I just start reading practice passages and do questions and review? I am going to be working full time for the next two months and part time march-may. I really appreciate any advice!!
CARS Help!
- Thread starter _scentral
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Hi _scentral, I think you already have a pretty good grasp of what you need to do for verbal: passages & general reading is going to get you more comfortable with CARS.
CARS is my best section as a lit. major. To get yours up I'd go with:
- Reading an article/day from The Economist, The Atlantic, & Nature (you'll be surprised how quickly you'll seem smart in conversations with a better grasp of what's going on in the world around you).
- Buy a novel and go with it! Read every day. Annotate (read with a pencil; write notes in the margins; underline vocabulary words you don't know and make a list; put a giant star on every page that really touches you so that, years from now, you'll be able to see what your younger self was thinking). Start with teen/young adult (bah, the Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies... think "High School English") if reading is really not your thing, but work your way up. There are a billion novels out there to choose from, but go on the modern library website's "top 100" novels of all time. If you can work your way up to manage to read and digest The Brothers Karamazov, Ulysses, and/or The Fountainhead, you're going to be able to handle the writer's description of the human experience--a good definition for what literature is--and be prepared for the arguments they throw at you in CARS.
- TPRH Verbal, if you can find it.
- EK 1001 VR.
- Many people don't suggest this, but there's a boatload of verbal reasoning available from SAT books (Khan Academy has it too) that goes above and beyond what you're asked to do on the MCAT.
CARS is my best section as a lit. major. To get yours up I'd go with:
- Reading an article/day from The Economist, The Atlantic, & Nature (you'll be surprised how quickly you'll seem smart in conversations with a better grasp of what's going on in the world around you).
- Buy a novel and go with it! Read every day. Annotate (read with a pencil; write notes in the margins; underline vocabulary words you don't know and make a list; put a giant star on every page that really touches you so that, years from now, you'll be able to see what your younger self was thinking). Start with teen/young adult (bah, the Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies... think "High School English") if reading is really not your thing, but work your way up. There are a billion novels out there to choose from, but go on the modern library website's "top 100" novels of all time. If you can work your way up to manage to read and digest The Brothers Karamazov, Ulysses, and/or The Fountainhead, you're going to be able to handle the writer's description of the human experience--a good definition for what literature is--and be prepared for the arguments they throw at you in CARS.
- TPRH Verbal, if you can find it.
- EK 1001 VR.
- Many people don't suggest this, but there's a boatload of verbal reasoning available from SAT books (Khan Academy has it too) that goes above and beyond what you're asked to do on the MCAT.
Thank you for the advice! However, my biggest concern is that it might be too late to read novels or newspaper articles. I think it might be more beneficial for me to just read passages and answer questions from prepbooks for any standardized exam. What do you think?
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You're right: passages w/ questions are going to be your main & best source of practice.
That being said, to be become a better critical thinker & reader (CARS = Critical Analysis & Reasoning Skills), read. Read articles & books. Read! You have the time. We're talking about 4< months, not 4 weeks.
That being said, to be become a better critical thinker & reader (CARS = Critical Analysis & Reasoning Skills), read. Read articles & books. Read! You have the time. We're talking about 4< months, not 4 weeks.
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@To be MD is giving you great advice! Reading everyday, vocab words, and practice passages will take you very far in 4-5 months. The trick is to stick to it everyday. Reading is a skill that takes time to develop. The more you practice, the more confident you will be on test day. Confidence is everything on this exam because the MCAT loves to intimidate you and to make you doubt yourself.
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I was that student that never knew why I was failing the CARS section when I would always walk out of the test feeling like I aced that section. I was that student that always thought CARS is something you cannot study for. I was also that student that took the test twice and got a 123 both times. The only thing I did differently when taking the test the third time around was that I practiced with more stringent time conditions and with many passages. I also took the passages and pasted them onto a microsoft doc and zoomed out to 120% and practice with this zoomed setting so that I can stimulate the real mcat testing situation. I did it!!! I finally broke the 123 barrier and got a 127. The reason why I am saying this is I was extremely depressed that my score was 123 for the longest time and taking the test a third time was a lot of pressure, but I still managed to improve so don't lose hope! A bit about me…I took the mcat at the end of sophomore year summer after 3 months of studying and got a 26. I took the new version of the mcat having studied for an additional 3 more months and got a 502 (26 again). The third time I took the test I got a 506 (29) and now I'm getting ready to apply! So don't lose hope or get overwhelmed by the # of posts with 510+ because statistics show that there is only 33% of the population getting that score and much lower percentages for scores that are 520+. Only people who do well post so don't let that bother you. Just keep practicing! Good luck!!!
Now to specifically, answer your question……
That is a hard question because with time and lots of practice you should be able to significantly reduce your time. I would go with a 50-50% time ratio for reading and answering questions. As you read the question, with lots of practice, you should be able to intuitively know whether to look in the passage or use the main idea. When you do, remember you are not going back to find a specific sentence that will help paraphrase the answer choice like the SAT but rather you are reminding yourself what the main idea of that topic was….you should be skimming that section and should know where to look in the passage rather than try to skim the whole passage to find that section. So that's one way to reduce time…I wouldn't suggest any fast reading techniques because you will not understand the passage and if you don't subvocalize you lose track of the author's tone which also helps you remember main ideas and helps you extrapolate information. In fact, try to figure out which sentences in the passage are loaded with transitional ideas and author's tone and highlight them as you read so you can look back. I honestly believe practice is the only way to reduce your time and not reading techniques.
P.S. when i took the may 6th exam and got a 127 in CARS I wasn't able to finish the last passage and had 6 min for it. Now there is a possibility that that passage could have had lots of experimental questions, but in any case the score would have still been 125+ so try to focus on getting questions right first then focus on time.
Now to specifically, answer your question……
That is a hard question because with time and lots of practice you should be able to significantly reduce your time. I would go with a 50-50% time ratio for reading and answering questions. As you read the question, with lots of practice, you should be able to intuitively know whether to look in the passage or use the main idea. When you do, remember you are not going back to find a specific sentence that will help paraphrase the answer choice like the SAT but rather you are reminding yourself what the main idea of that topic was….you should be skimming that section and should know where to look in the passage rather than try to skim the whole passage to find that section. So that's one way to reduce time…I wouldn't suggest any fast reading techniques because you will not understand the passage and if you don't subvocalize you lose track of the author's tone which also helps you remember main ideas and helps you extrapolate information. In fact, try to figure out which sentences in the passage are loaded with transitional ideas and author's tone and highlight them as you read so you can look back. I honestly believe practice is the only way to reduce your time and not reading techniques.
P.S. when i took the may 6th exam and got a 127 in CARS I wasn't able to finish the last passage and had 6 min for it. Now there is a possibility that that passage could have had lots of experimental questions, but in any case the score would have still been 125+ so try to focus on getting questions right first then focus on time.
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Btw I completely agree with Jack Westin, practice, practice, practice…..and sometimes its all about confidence!
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This is by far the best resource I've found so far to help with CARS. To improve in CARS you need to do one thing. Practice CARS. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...’s-30-day-guide-to-mcat-cars-success.1131850/
