I'm just starting my CARs prep and I'm going through TPR CARs book and some of the techniques in there include ranking passages, writing down notes, previewing questions etc. I'm wondering whether there is enough time during the actual exam to do all this? I was planning on practicing reading quickly and understanding the passage and doing lots and lots of practice passages. Is anyone willing to share how they're studying (or studied) for this section of the exam? Thank you!
CARs Studying Techniques
- Thread starter pch
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Different strategies work for different people, but most of the "ranking / triaging" techniques (or any strategy that involves attacking passages out of order) are generally a bad idea. These were typically developed for the "old MCAT," so the fact that the AAMC now presents questions one at a time makes these methods even more likely to waste time. Every second that you spend clicking ahead or skipping around is a second that could've been spent reading or reasoning.
The other big issue with "ranking" passages is that people tend to be really, really bad at gauging which passages are harder vs easier. We tend to naturally prefer topics that are more familiar (hence why many premeds used to like the "natural sciences" passages on the old test). But the more familiar the topic, the more likely that you'll use outside knowledge instead of what the author is actually saying - or, at least, that this knowledge will cloud your judgment. The difficulty of the questions also doesn't correlate well with how dense or hard-looking the passage is to read. I can't count how many students I've heard say "this one was really easy to read, but I still missed 3 questions" - either because the questions were actually tricky, or because they felt overconfident and jumped to conclusions.
As far as good CARS study methods go, definitely work through a lot of practice passages. Ideally, you want to do some verbal every day as opposed to making one or two days per week "verbal days" - even the act of seeing MCAT-style writing each day can help tremendously. When you start out, don't rush. Read a few passages at your "natural pace" (time yourself, but don't set a time limit). I've generally found that unless someone reads REALLY slowly, it's generally fine to read at your natural pace as long as you don't "get stuck" reading and re-reading sentences that you don't understand. After all, if you rush through a passage, you'll likely have to do the equivalent of reading most of it again when you reach the questions. (Of course, if your natural pace is like 6 min just to read a passage, you'll certainly want to speed it up.)
Finally, keep a log of the questions you miss (and ideally, of any ones you answer correctly that you were unsure about). Write down why you think you missed the question as well as why you were tempted into your wrong choice (this is important)! People often focus on "why the right answer is right," but don't realize that they tend to pick the same wrong answers over and over - ones that are too extreme, too specific, out of scope, only partially accurate, etc.
Anyway, good luck! 🙂
The other big issue with "ranking" passages is that people tend to be really, really bad at gauging which passages are harder vs easier. We tend to naturally prefer topics that are more familiar (hence why many premeds used to like the "natural sciences" passages on the old test). But the more familiar the topic, the more likely that you'll use outside knowledge instead of what the author is actually saying - or, at least, that this knowledge will cloud your judgment. The difficulty of the questions also doesn't correlate well with how dense or hard-looking the passage is to read. I can't count how many students I've heard say "this one was really easy to read, but I still missed 3 questions" - either because the questions were actually tricky, or because they felt overconfident and jumped to conclusions.
As far as good CARS study methods go, definitely work through a lot of practice passages. Ideally, you want to do some verbal every day as opposed to making one or two days per week "verbal days" - even the act of seeing MCAT-style writing each day can help tremendously. When you start out, don't rush. Read a few passages at your "natural pace" (time yourself, but don't set a time limit). I've generally found that unless someone reads REALLY slowly, it's generally fine to read at your natural pace as long as you don't "get stuck" reading and re-reading sentences that you don't understand. After all, if you rush through a passage, you'll likely have to do the equivalent of reading most of it again when you reach the questions. (Of course, if your natural pace is like 6 min just to read a passage, you'll certainly want to speed it up.)
Finally, keep a log of the questions you miss (and ideally, of any ones you answer correctly that you were unsure about). Write down why you think you missed the question as well as why you were tempted into your wrong choice (this is important)! People often focus on "why the right answer is right," but don't realize that they tend to pick the same wrong answers over and over - ones that are too extreme, too specific, out of scope, only partially accurate, etc.
Anyway, good luck! 🙂
