CARS

[Mian97]

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what's the best way I should prepare for CARS and the MCAT in general if I'm taking it in about 14 months. Ik it's early but I'm garbage or worse than garbage at English reading comprehension and writing (1800/2400 sat). So far I'm reading 3-4 articles a day from the CARS course by jack. Plz help I'm brain dead when it comes to readig


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[Doctor or bust]

Get used to reading academic journals in a variety of fields. the new england journal of medicine is a good one, science, nature, etc. Take a class which is mostly about comprehending the content of academic papers (my university has a few, yours may also). Academic papers will be very helpful for most of the MCAT. CARS specifically, read books. Read literature, philosophy, history, etc. Try out some popular books and see if you came to some of the same conclusions about the reviews you read on the books online. Look for overarching themes to books as opposed to minute details, its about being able to quickly extract information from passages. The MCAT 528 book by Kaplan might help. Don't stress too much about it yet though, you are still a long way away from the actual test. Exhaust the available practice books if you want to from time to time ( next step CARS strategy/practice book, EK CARS 101 passages, etc.).

 

[jazzmetal]

For CARS - if you're still 14 months out, you probably don't want to buy online access to the AAMC materials yet, although of course do that when the time is right because they're the best source for CARS. Consider using LSAT prep books in the meantime.

When you read a passage, put on your lawyer hat and imagine you're going to debate the author. What's their main argument? Do they cite evidence for the points they're making? What are the strong points and weak points of their position? What facts could you use to weaken their argument? When you're evaluating the answer choices, ask yourself: did the author really say that, or am I reading something into it? (Objection your honor, assumes facts not in evidence!) Remember that the answer to each and every question can be found within the passage itself.

Beyond that, read as many essay-style articles as you can find, e.g., from The Economist or The Atlantic or The New Yorker - articles where the author is trying to persuade you of something. You could even ask a classmate/friend to read the same articles, then talk about them together to see if you're picking up the same points. Imagine that the author is a future patient of yours and for a proper diagnosis, you need to understand where he or she is coming from.

Pay attention to words that can have different meanings in different contexts and think about whether you're picking up on that context. Look up words you don't know and start a running vocabulary list.

Practice as much as you can tolerate, and leave twice as much time to go over all of your answers to learn why the right answers are right and the wrong answers are wrong. See if there are any patterns in your wrong answers and work on fixing those mistakes.

It's great that you're thinking about this so far in advance. Best wishes!

 

[ymedex]

what's the best way I should prepare for CARS and the MCAT in general if I'm taking it in about 14 months. Ik it's early but I'm garbage or worse than garbage at English reading comprehension and writing (1800/2400 sat). So far I'm reading 3-4 articles a day from the CARS course by jack. Plz help I'm brain dead when it comes to readig


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If you've got lots of time, that's great. When you say you're 'garbage' at comp, it sounds like you need to be a little more focused about question specificity. If you've looked at actual CARS passages/questions, you should notice they fall into several distinct types. This is very important because you need to recognize those patterns, which might clue you in regarding what's most difficult for you. I don't know that I struggled as much as you, but at 1st I wasn't too tuned in to patterns; once I was exposed to this idea through rx4mcat, though, it's made my prep much more productive.

 

[Coltuna]

what's the best way I should prepare for CARS and the MCAT in general if I'm taking it in about 14 months. Ik it's early but I'm garbage or worse than garbage at English reading comprehension and writing (1800/2400 sat). So far I'm reading 3-4 articles a day from the CARS course by jack. Plz help I'm brain dead when it comes to readig


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Is Jacks course the one where you get office hours for life or whatever?

 

[Mian97]

Is Jacks course the one where you get office hours for life or whatever?

I'm not taking a course I'm just reading the articles he posts in his thread


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[workaholic181]

what's the best way I should prepare for CARS and the MCAT in general if I'm taking it in about 14 months. Ik it's early but I'm garbage or worse than garbage at English reading comprehension and writing (1800/2400 sat). So far I'm reading 3-4 articles a day from the CARS course by jack. Plz help I'm brain dead when it comes to readig


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This is going to sound dumb but with the amount of time you have until actual testing day I would try to read books.. I've seen other people on here with a large amount of time before test day state how much just reading for leisure helped their cars score. You don't have to read Faulkner or Joyce or anything like that but read books you'd enjoy of a reasonable level of difficulty and I really think you'll be better by the time your test comes.

Closer to test day I highly suggest the CARS SBs on AAMC practice site.

 

[rmalia]

what's the best way I should prepare for CARS and the MCAT in general if I'm taking it in about 14 months. Ik it's early but I'm garbage or worse than garbage at English reading comprehension and writing (1800/2400 sat). So far I'm reading 3-4 articles a day from the CARS course by jack. Plz help I'm brain dead when it comes to readig


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Reading in general can't be a bad idea, so doing so can't make your skills worse, but I'm guessing you don't really like to read. If this is true, then maybe it would be most helpful to put yourself into test mode simulations so you can really focus on areas of weakness. With a long time horizon, you might improve enough at CARS test-taking to make a significant difference. Of course, you have to search out some good simulations.

 

[MoDiddy]

This is going to sound dumb but with the amount of time you have until actual testing day I would try to read books.. I've seen other people on here with a large amount of time before test day state how much just reading for leisure helped their cars score. You don't have to read Faulkner or Joyce or anything like that but read books you'd enjoy of a reasonable level of difficulty and I really think you'll be better by the time your test comes.

Closer to test day I highly suggest the CARS SBs on AAMC practice site.

Strongly agree with this. Has helped me