CARS section in Official guide?

[frodo25]

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Did anyone else find the OG CARS section to be easier than normal? I would like to believe that I improved in CARS (scoring in 50-60% on TPR and EK, 80% on OG), but I am skeptical.
Was it comparable to the real MCAT for those who already have taken it? Please say yes🙂

 

[a_borgia]

Nope, OG questions were a little easier - I'd drop 10% from your score there to get a more realistic apporximation of how many you'll get correct numerically.

 

[ElectricNoogie]

The OG is only 5 passages. They cannot possibly represent your average MCAT. There is far too little AAMC info out right now to make a conclusion one way or the other about difficulty. However, these are passages right from the AAMC itself, so these are passages that can appear on your MCAT. The Q packs are CARS passages that have already shown up on real MCATs. There will be a mix of easy, medium and hard passages on test day.

This underscores the need for extensive CARS practice. You cannot say the OG is easier than the real thing because it is the real thing. It's just not representative of everything.

 

[a_borgia]

I can, however, objectively say that having taken about 25 old/practice sections plus all the QPacks and the actual exam, the OG skewed easier on CARS. Perhaps it is on the curve of question set difficulty, but it certainly falls on the low end.

 

[ElectricNoogie]

I can, however, objectively say that having taken about 25 old/practice sections plus all the QPacks and the actual exam, the OG skewed easier on CARS. Perhaps it is on the curve of question set difficulty, but it certainly falls on the low end.

Yes, you could say that, but without raw data from the about performance from more than just a few people it would never be objective. As stated above, this falls on the spectrum of real AAMC CARS, not "easier than." However, I agree with you that, from my personal experience with CARS and lots of feedback from my students, your average MCAT CARS section would easily contain ~ 5-6 passages that, on average, would be harder than the ones that appear in the OG. My guess is they wanted to ease student into the logic and thinking of CARS so they didn't put in their toughest passages. There are some good ones out there byt prep companies and on the AAMC practice test which is much more representative.

On test day you could get a section where 4-5 passages seem so easy to you, but its highly unlikely. As always, take ANY practice test result with a grain of salt.

Good Luck!