EK 101 CARS vs. Kaplan CARS

[laczlacylaci]

I've always been practicing CARS with this book, it is a bit outdated (2008/9)
Amazon product

I've improved to consistently scoring 70-80%.
When I take the Kaplan CARS, my scores are usually 40%. I find myself getting extremely bored out of Kap passages too

I know both have its cons. Which would be more accurate toward the real exam?
Since Kaplan is more recent than the book, is EK 101 babying me?

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[theonlytycrane]

My personal opinion (feel free to disregard!):

Kaplan CARS is really bad. Their questions don't stick to the details of the passage or ask things like "Guess what the title is?"

The TPR verbal book is good to use for practice, but the passages are too easy to read while the questions are unnecessarily tricky.

I think Next Step CARS is best before AAMC stuff, because even though their passages make no sense, it's good practice to cut through convoluted non-sense and stick to passage details when answering questions.

I haven't tried EK 101 CARS, I'm interested in what others think about it.

 

[SDeduN]

Hi! It seems to me like that EK101 book has fallen somewhat out of "popular" use since the new MCAT rolled out. I recently took the MCAT and EK101 was essentially the only book I used to prepare for CARS. I took 2-3 passages a day or so starting about 1-2 months before the test. A week before the test I upped it to 4-5 passages per day to work on endurance. I got through the whole book minus the last test (#14). Since I don't know my score yet, my words only mean so much but I think EK101 provides good CARS practice/prep. I almost always looked forward to doing EK101 passages because they were engaging. I also noticed that same engagement on the real thing. Most importantly, I felt there was no question type I saw on the real CARS that I hadn't at least seen before on EK101. When practicing EK101, be sure read through the answer explanations thoroughly. Understand why your right answers were right and crucially, why your wrong answers were wrong. The solutions help you learn what question types get you and guide you on how to better tackle them intuitively. IMO that's more important than how many you missed. Also time yourself for 8min/passage, even if you actually have an average about 10min/passage on the real thing. Well we'll see what my score has to say about all my yapping, haha. Best of luck! Stay strong.

 

[laczlacylaci]

Thank you both!

 

[sh.h]

I have used EK 101 and did all the passages. I think at the beginning when you start your practicing cars, try to get a sense of how much time you have per passages, getting familiar with question types, etc, it can be helpful and you can "burn these passages" . Then you can start with passages that are more representative.
Once I did EK 101, I continued with Next Step. Then moved on to AAMC passages.
I have not used KAPLAN, so I cannot comment on that.

 

[SDeduN]

Thought I'd follow up to possibly give some validity to my above commentary on EK101. Got my results back and Fortunately scored a 129 (95%) in CARS. Of course keep in mind that everyone is different and effective preparation can vary from person to person. However, I have to give EK101 some props for my success, since that was all I used to practice. In addition to what I mentioned above, a few other "tactics" I employed when I read passages was: 1) Read actively! Strive to remain engaged and you will never need to reread sentences. Like I said, I actually started enjoying it. 2) Always keep in mind the main point of the passage as you read through, and 3) Roughly categorize/organize the content of each paragraph in your mind as you read so you can quickly reference back if necessary. Lastly, do your best to remain calm in prep and on test day. Hope that helps. Best of Luck!