EK,NS,TPR vs AAMC CARS?

[galvanicpod]

I have taken all. EK CARS by far the hardest! Is it even worth doing? I've been doing better on NS and TPR CARS.

For those who have taken the new mcat already. Which practice exam is most representative to AAMC CARS?

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[625233]

I've heard TPR is actually about the same difficulty as AAMC (surprisingly), but EK has always been considered good prep.

 

[galvanicpod]

I've heard TPR is actually about the same difficulty as AAMC (surprisingly), but EK has always been considered good prep.

Great. thanks!

 

[GrapesofRath]

EK and TPR are your best bet. You might find EK easier than the AAMC prep material(particularly new EK material) but keep in mind how many people report the real MCAT to be way harder than AAMC MCAT CARs. So I would still view your EK results as relatively important, I just wouldn't necessarily freak out over a few bad passages.

 

[DesitnationMD]

TPR was ok, but the passages did not fit the tone of the AAMC CARS very well. Their explanations were decent fro wrong and righter answers and the Qs came one at a time like the real MCAT. I stopped using TPR early on.

NS cars was mixed. Some passages mimicked the AAMC really well, but a good minority of them (25%) were pulled from older (pre-1900) passages where the language was tough to follow. Tough is good, but tough through obscurity/hard to follow is not really the AAMC style. Explanations were always very thorough though, which was really important to getting better at CARS.

EK was better at mimicking the AAMC tone move consistently, but their explanations were often kinda weak and justifications were no logical like the AAMC tries to be. Also the passage Qs all came at once, which is not how the new MCAT is laid out, which may affect your timing (it did mine). A lot of times there was no (IMO) good explanation for why my answer was wrong.

For full lengths I'd go with EK or NS. If you want CARS only, TPR, EK and NS have verbal books. The NS 108 cars book and the TPR book are made for the new MCAT. the EK 101 VR book is for the older exam so be aware it will have 1/3 nat science passages which are no longer on the exam.

TPR book HERE

NS book HERE

EK book HERE

 

[Doctor Dream]

I have taken all. EK CARS by far the hardest! Is it even worth doing? I've been doing better on NS and TPR CARS.

For those who have taken the new mcat already. Which practice exam is most representative to AAMC CARS?

If you haven't already, I'd HIGHLY recommend doing the AAMC CARS practice packs. The CARS section of my exam was VERY similar to them, and they were easily the best prep material for CARS that I used (which included NS, TPR, Kaplan, EK, and other AAMC stuff)

 

[Jack Westin]

I agree with @Doctor Dream

After every MCAT administration, my students email me telling me how similar the actual CARS section was to the AAMC question packs (and the other sections as well). If you were to look at only one CARS resource, make it the question packs.

 

[galvanicpod]

Testing on 23rd. Thanks all!

 

[RaspberrySlushy]

The QPacks were great. Can't compare to the real thing b/c I'm taking the exam same day as you, but they "felt" more AAMC, similar to the OG and the AAMC FL.

I also thought that EK's explanations were really not very similar to the AAMC ones at all. Frustrating. After doing a bunch of the QPacks, I could tell a huge difference, and I agree the passages seemed similar but the question explanation rationales were too different to really be super helpful.

And I agree about pre-1900 materials with language that is really hard to understand, you don't really see that on the AAMC materials, so I would stay away from those b/c they probably won't be all that representative. Since your test is so soon, I'd really focus on the QPacks and really focus on reviewing whatever you miss and get used to the AAMC thought processes. And the OG and FL if you haven't already done those.

 

[Roayer]

The QPacks were great. Can't compare to the real thing b/c I'm taking the exam same day as you, but they "felt" more AAMC, similar to the OG and the AAMC FL.

I also thought that EK's explanations were really not very similar to the AAMC ones at all. Frustrating. After doing a bunch of the QPacks, I could tell a huge difference, and I agree the passages seemed similar but the question explanation rationales were too different to really be super helpful.

And I agree about pre-1900 materials with language that is really hard to understand, you don't really see that on the AAMC materials, so I would stay away from those b/c they probably won't be all that representative. Since your test is so soon, I'd really focus on the QPacks and really focus on reviewing whatever you miss and get used to the AAMC thought processes. And the OG and FL if you haven't already done those.

I'm going to disagree with you on that, I had at least one passage on one of my tests dated 1850.

 

[DesitnationMD]

I'm going to disagree with you on that, I had at least one passage on one of my tests dated 1850.

yeah, i too had 1 passage from the turn of the century on my real exam. Language had been updated a bit, but it can and will show up, but I would doubt more than 1, if ever.