CARS

[pre-med2020]

My exam is literally a month away (aug 8) and I'm not doing very well on CARS right now. My AAMC practice test showed a 123, but my TPR is saying I got a 125 and I dont understand the discrepancy since TPR is harder. Either way, I don't have a lot of time to improve and CARS is literally the only section that is bringing down my score. If I do 7 of the 8 passages (for the shortened exam) and randomly guess on the 8th one, would my score be higher than a 123, assuming I at least get 70% right on passages 1-7? I know it also depends on the test, but just roughly.

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[JimKimSlim]

A good rule of thumb for a good CARS score is getting only one problem wrong per passage, which yields around 128/129 on AAMC FL’s. If you’re talking about 70% correct per passage, that should be 2 problems wrong per passage. If you also completely guess the last passage, then you should expect around 124-125.

 

[pre-med2020]

A good rule of thumb for a good CARS score is getting only one problem wrong per passage, which yields around 128/129 on AAMC FL’s. If you’re talking about 70% correct per passage, that should be 2 problems wrong per passage. If you also completely guess the last passage, then you should expect around 124-125.

Great thanks! Do you have tips for CARS? I've been doing passages for 3 months now with little improvement. I did TPR, Kaplan, and testing solutions but nothing seems to be working. I don't understand where I am going wrong.

 

[JimKimSlim]

Since you're only a month away, I would suggest using only AAMC materials for the remainder of time to prime your brain into AAMC logic. In general, I believe CARS tests your ability to understand and retain the information from the passage. In my case, I took as much time as possible understanding the passage and creating a mental flowchart that connects the thesis and the main idea of each paragraph (6 minutes-max). This helped me solve the problems quickly without going back to the passage often. Creating and retaining the mental flowchart take some time, but it's an incredibly useful skill to practice even beyond college.

Another great tool you should use is the type of CARS problems you miss the most. In my case, I did well on foundation and reasoning within the text problems but didn't do well on reaosning beyond the test problems. So I thoroughly analyzed all my mistakes on that type of problems whether I got it right or wrong and even created my own AAMC style problems using their passage.

Doing this helped me get 128 on the actual test.

 

[theonlytycrane]

Can you describe how you're approaching CARS? Are you running out of time? You have a month so you should be able to come up with a better plan than just guessing on the last passage (that can go really bad).

 

[pre-med2020]

Can you describe how you're approaching CARS? Are you running out of time? You have a month so you should be able to come up with a better plan than just guessing on the last passage (that can go really bad).

I used to follow the TPR suggestions of writing things down on the note board (for each paragraph) but quickly realized that is a waste of time as I could use that time to read the passage more carefully. So instead I just started highlighting the topic sentences for each paragraph and some key words (like but, furthermore, etc). They also suggested previewing the question which kind of helped but I also felt like it was a waste of time. When I look at the breakdown, there really is no one question type I get 100%. The most recent practice exam I took (July 12-CARS Score 124) showed that I literally got a 50% for each question type, so I feel like I either don't have a solid strategy or I don't have a strategy at all. Please help....

 

[theonlytycrane]

Yeah I would avoid all the gimmicky stuff like that. Basically you just want to focus and read the passage -> then answer the questions. Stay calm and maintain good timing. And practice this with a lot of practice passages.

I would not do any note taking, crazy highlighting, previewing Q, skipping passages, etc. It just makes everything chaotic.

The NS CARS 108 book is solid, so if you buy that and practice in addition to the AAMC materials and keep your calm / keep your pace that would be the best plan for the next month.

 

[pre-med2020]

Yeah I would avoid all the gimmicky stuff like that. Basically you just want to focus and read the passage -> then answer the questions. Stay calm and maintain good timing. And practice this with a lot of practice passages.

I would not do any note taking, crazy highlighting, previewing Q, skipping passages, etc. It just makes everything chaotic.

The NS CARS 108 book is solid, so if you buy that and practice in addition to the AAMC materials and keep your calm / keep your pace that would be the best plan for the next month.

Great thanks!