Frustrated with CARS score. Any advice?

[nextinteraction]

Hey guys,

So I’m relatively okay at CARS because whenever I do practice passages (usually 3-5 a day) I score well, usually getting 1 wrong per passage or 0. When I first began doing CARS, I would get 3 wrong per passage and sometimes more.

Anyways, I have done all of UWorld, in which I averaged 64%. This was in the beginning of my prep. I then did KA passages and averaged 77% on that. Now, I’m doing TS and I’m in the 70s for that rn but I’m not done with it.

For AAMC, my prep course makes us do passages from some of the material and I have averaged 86% on that. I also did the first 2 passages on CARS QPack 1 and got 6/7 on the first and 7/7 on the second

Here’s where I am struggling:
I have taken 3 Altius FLs so far and I got a 124, 123, and 122 on CARS. So I asked for advice and was told to practice doing one FL for CARS once a week bc timing was def my issue.

I have started to do that with NS FLs and on NS1 I got a 124. I decided to work backwards (want to save the better NS FLs for full FLs rather than sections) so I decided to take NS 10 and I scored a 127 and then I took NS 9 today and got a 122!! To note, I did the second passage of the CARS QPack 1 and got a 100% right after this NS 9 FL just bc I was frustrated.

I looked through the answers and I keep making the mistake of not trusting my answer. I read the passage, then the question, and the choices and I had an answer in my head but then I started reading toooo much into it and ended up missing it, when my initial answer was correct.

How do you guys get better at this? Any advice is appreciated!!


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[Seihai]

Stop paying attention to third party CARS scores. The only material and logic that matters for CARS is AAMC. Everything else is only good for pacing/timing, not for actual scoring.

 

[GreenDuck12]

Use third party test scores for practice with reading passages from different disciples, how different questions and answers are worded, and how to systematically keep track of arguments/facts in a passage. Do not focus on the scores. I scored between 124-127 on 5 NS exams, struggled with UWorld, and then never scored below 130 on AAMC practice tests. The AAMC questions and passages are just different. Before starting AAMC try to find a method or strategy that works for you and then adjust it as needed once you start doing the real practice. Best of luck to you

 

[nextinteraction]

Use third party test scores for practice with reading passages from different disciples, how different questions and answers are worded, and how to systematically keep track of arguments/facts in a passage. Do not focus on the scores. I scored between 124-127 on 5 NS exams, struggled with UWorld, and then never scored below 130 on AAMC practice tests. The AAMC questions and passages are just different. Before starting AAMC try to find a method or strategy that works for you and then adjust it as needed once you start doing the real practice. Best of luck to you

Thanks for the reply! I appreciate it. Gives me hope that you scored similarly to me on NS and did exceptionally well on AAMC. What did you get on your real MCAT, if you don’t mind me asking?


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[nextinteraction]

Stop paying attention to third party CARS scores. The only material and logic that matters for CARS is AAMC. Everything else is only good for pacing/timing, not for actual scoring.

Ugh you’re right thank you! It’s hard not to let it get to my head but I was proud of myself today that I didn’t get too upset over it as I had in the past. I cried over my first 124 on NS lol.


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[Blueprint Med School]

Like previously stated, you should care the most about your AAMC CARS scores.

As for how to improve, well unfortunately, CARS is the hardest section on the MCAT to improve on. While there are methods you can use to become a more effective reader, this will vary from student to student. The best thing you can to do improve in CARS is just do tons of practice. You can almost always find CARS practice just by Googling "MCAT CARS practice passages," or you can purchase packages from some test prep company. After doing practice, look over every single question, including ones you got correctly, and really think about what led you to that answer choice. If you got it right, think about what exactly "clicked" in your mind that led you there. If you got it wrong, think about what mental process led you to the wrong answer. And then do practice!

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors

 

[nextinteraction]

Like previously stated, you should care the most about your AAMC CARS scores.

As for how to improve, well unfortunately, CARS is the hardest section on the MCAT to improve on. While there are methods you can use to become a more effective reader, this will vary from student to student. The best thing you can to do improve in CARS is just do tons of practice. You can almost always find CARS practice just by Googling "MCAT CARS practice passages," or you can purchase packages from some test prep company. After doing practice, look over every single question, including ones you got correctly, and really think about what led you to that answer choice. If you got it right, think about what exactly "clicked" in your mind that led you there. If you got it wrong, think about what mental process led you to the wrong answer. And then do practice!

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors

Thank you!! I will do that!


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[deleted853480]

Don’t take your mcat in August because that’s when most Canadians take the mcat since Canada doesn’t have rolling admissions. The August mcat has the most unforgiving cars score. I learned that the hard way.

 

[Seihai]

Don’t take your mcat in August because that’s when most Canadians take the mcat since Canada doesn’t have rolling admissions. The August mcat has the most unforgiving cars score. I learned that the hard way.

Do you have any actual evidence to back up this claim, or are you just making a random assumption to try to justify your own bad score?

Making posts like this without any actual data only spreads misinformation.

 

[deleted853480]

I’m just using common sense. Since cars is the most important score in Canada, that’s the section most Canadian spend the most time studying. Plus I’ve looked at August scores compared to January scores and the August scores usually have lower cars scores. AAMC says the people that are taking the test that day doesn’t matter but I don’t buy it.

 

[deleted853480]

I know Canadian that scored much higher on the aamc practice tests vs their fl that wrote the test in August.

 

[Seihai]

I’m just using common sense. Since cars is the most important score in Canada, that’s the section most Canadian spend the most time studying. Plus I’ve looked at August scores compared to January scores and the August scores usually have lower cars scores. AAMC says the people that are taking the test that day doesn’t matter but I don’t buy it.

So your only evidence is conjecture and anecdotal/self-reported (at best)? "Common sense" is an absurd thing to cite when making a claim like this. Spreading this kind of misinformation on these forums without a proper source to back it up is at best ignorant and at worst is completely malicious.

You have absolutely no actual evidence to be saying things like "people who take the MCAT in August are disadvantaged compared to those who take it in January." You're only serving to make it so that someone who finds this thread and believes your misinformation becomes more neurotic and worse off for it.

 

[gyngyn]

I’m just using common sense. Since cars is the most important score in Canada, that’s the section most Canadian spend the most time studying. Plus I’ve looked at August scores compared to January scores and the August scores usually have lower cars scores. AAMC says the people that are taking the test that day doesn’t matter but I don’t buy it.

I have seen no evidence that any particular score is likely to be lower in any month.

 

[haleymb]

I hardly ever post on here, but I saw CARS in the topic and thought it might be helpful to share my experience. The first time I took the MCAT in 2016, I scored in the 49th percentile for CARS. When I retook it in 2018, I scored in the 95th percentile.

I think the main thing that helped me improve my scores was watching the khan academy videos that explain the section. Full disclosure: I never took any prep courses, just self-studied both times, so I’m not sure what strategies are being taught. I believe the first time I leaned mainly toward what I read in the Kaplan books.

I found the khan academy videos very helpful because they changed the way I considered the passages. Instead of reading for content I tried to almost ignore the content and devote my focus to things like tone and syntax. I only highlighted transition words and strong language. Nothing to do with content or literally anything else. It felt slightly counterintuitive to me at first, but it worked very well. It is easy to make inferences when only these types of things are highlighted and it also prevents you from missing changes in opinion, alternate views, etc

As for the rest of my strategy, I don’t really remember because it was a while ago. I hope this is helpful to someone. That section is a pain in the ass and hard to study for, but improvement is not impossible. Good luck!

 

[nextinteraction]

I hardly ever post on here, but I saw CARS in the topic and thought it might be helpful to share my experience. The first time I took the MCAT in 2016, I scored in the 49th percentile for CARS. When I retook it in 2018, I scored in the 95th percentile.

I think the main thing that helped me improve my scores was watching the khan academy videos that explain the section. Full disclosure: I never took any prep courses, just self-studied both times, so I’m not sure what strategies are being taught. I believe the first time I leaned mainly toward what I read in the Kaplan books.

I found the khan academy videos very helpful because they changed the way I considered the passages. Instead of reading for content I tried to almost ignore the content and devote my focus to things like tone and syntax. I only highlighted transition words and strong language. Nothing to do with content or literally anything else. It felt slightly counterintuitive to me at first, but it worked very well. It is easy to make inferences when only these types of things are highlighted and it also prevents you from missing changes in opinion, alternate views, etc

As for the rest of my strategy, I don’t really remember because it was a while ago. I hope this is helpful to someone. That section is a pain in the ass and hard to study for, but improvement is not impossible. Good luck!

Thank you!! I’ll def watch the KA videos then! Thanks for sharing!


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[skeptastic]

So, is the consensus that one should focus on figuring out the main idea of these 3rd party CARS passages, answer the questions, see if you got them right or wrong, but not dive into any of their answer explanations? Do any of the 3rd party companies have worthy explanations? I have seen many folks state that even answering the questions is a waste of time. Any feedback in this more recent thread?

 

[GreenDuck12]

So, is the consensus that one should focus on figuring out the main idea of these 3rd party CARS passages, answer the questions, see if you got them right or wrong, but not dive into any of their answer explanations? Do any of the 3rd party companies have worthy explanations? I have seen many folks state that even answering the questions is a waste of time. Any feedback in this more recent thread?

I think the questions and answers are useful to an extent. Would I spend a lot of time agonizing over it? No! I think the questions/answers/explanations that are useful are ones that have to do with tracking an argument, finding best evidence, and getting used to reading double negatives. For example, I did 2-3 JW cars passages a day and I can count on one hand the number of perfect scores I had. On NS cars, I never scored above a 126. But on AAMC cars, I never scored below a 130. Even though JW and NS were not predictive or similar to AAMC, going through those passages forced me to hone my strategies, skills, and time management. Once I got to AAMC cars, I did spend a lot of time annotating questions and passages to get used to how they structure passages, questions, and answers.

For an alternate take, check out the thread that @Cornfed101 has on CARS, which I think is an excellent resource for folks.

 

[skeptastic]

I think the questions and answers are useful to an extent. Would I spend a lot of time agonizing over it? No! I think the questions/answers/explanations that are useful are ones that have to do with tracking an argument, finding best evidence, and getting used to reading double negatives. For example, I did 2-3 JW cars passages a day and I can count on one hand the number of perfect scores I had. On NS cars, I never scored above a 126. But on AAMC cars, I never scored below a 130. Even though JW and NS were not predictive or similar to AAMC, going through those passages forced me to hone my strategies, skills, and time management. Once I got to AAMC cars, I did spend a lot of time annotating questions and passages to get used to how they structure passages, questions, and answers.

For an alternate take, check out the thread that @Cornfed101 has on CARS, which I think is an excellent resource for folks.

Awesome reply! I've spent the last week or so pouring through MCAT threads, and only today stumbled upon the TestingSolutions 30-day guide. As you probably already know, they mention the important skills you mentioned, along with so many others. I can definitely see myself using passages more as tools to get timing and relaxation down, before I feel the need to start reviewing questions and the answers in depth. I've been trying so hard to figure out the best CARS passages sources and now recognize that early on, it really isn't going to matter much. And as you said, it's really going to be the AAMC materials that deserve the deepest level of review and analysis. I've seen a few good threads about the CARS section and cornfed consistently states that repetition means a lot more than review, especially when it comes to third party resources.

Thanks again!

EDIT: How did you do 2-3 JW passages? They seem to only come as one question per day. Did you just do 5-7 days of timed questions and count that as one passage, or is there another tool he's got that I'm unaware of?

 

[GreenDuck12]

Early on I didn’t worry about timing. Later in prep, I allotted 8:30 per passage since there are 10 passages that works out to 85 minutes with 5 minutes to spare. You can look at years worth of passages. JW does have full length CARS section that were quite challenging.

 

[skeptastic]

Early on I didn’t worry about timing. Later in prep, I allotted 8:30 per passage since there are 10 passages that works out to 85 minutes with 5 minutes to spare. You can look at years worth of passages. JW does have full length CARS section that were quite challenging.

Okay cool. So did you just use the timer once you got to each question and jot the time down for each one, or did you keep a separate, continuously running timer and try to keep it around 85 minutes or less? I've got like 10 months until I take the beast, so I'm just trying to get a really early jump on CARS passages. Trying not to buy too many since it's so early, but I do see the value in having passages that are as close to the AAMC passages as possible for the dedicated phase.

 

[GreenDuck12]

Okay cool. So did you just use the timer once you got to each question and jot the time down for each one, or did you keep a separate, continuously running timer and try to keep it around 85 minutes or less? I've got like 10 months until I take the beast, so I'm just trying to get a really early jump on CARS passages. Trying not to buy too many since it's so early, but I do see the value in having passages that are as close to the AAMC passages as possible for the dedicated phase.

For CARS, there are 10 passages of varying lengths but usually range from 5-7 questions and 4-6 paragraphs. You can breakdown how much time you have per question that includes reading the article which is around 100 seconds. That was too much for me to track so I just set a generic pace: one passage completed with questions in under 9 minutes, 5 passages completed in less than 42 minutes, etc. When doing full length sections, I would set up my notes page to make it easy to annotate the passage as well as write the time benchmarks just so I wouldn’t waste time figuring out if I’m on track or behind.

 

[skeptastic]

For CARS, there are 10 passages of varying lengths but usually range from 5-7 questions and 4-6 paragraphs. You can breakdown how much time you have per question that includes reading the article which is around 100 seconds. That was too much for me to track so I just set a generic pace: one passage completed with questions in under 9 minutes, 5 passages completed in less than 42 minutes, etc. When doing full length sections, I would set up my notes page to make it easy to annotate the passage as well as write the time benchmarks just so I wouldn’t waste time figuring out if I’m on track or behind.

Maybe I'm confused, but I don't see actual passages with multiple questions on JW's site. I see one question at a time, each assigned to a different date. Let me know if I'm mine something!

EDIT: I somehow completely missed the "next" button at the bottom of the page. Haha!

 

[JimKimSlim]

As above, DO NOT TRUST YOUR SCORES ON 3RD PARTY RESOURCES. The only resources that matter are the QPack and FL’s. The fact that you scored 6/7 and 7/7 on the first two passages of QPack I tells me that your CARS is pretty solid because the first 60 problems of CARS QPack I are considered way more difficult than the actual test. As for reference, I also used Altius to practice CARS and would consistently score 125-126, but I ended up crushing CARS QPack 1 & 2 (both ~85%) and consistently got 128-129 on AAMC FL. I ended up getting 128 on the real test. You’re doing fine and just use 3rd party resources to practice timing rather than to understand their logic. Finally, I know this is N = 1, but my individual scores on the actual test were the exact same as my AAMC FL4 score, so use that last FL carefully and wisely. I wish the best of luck to you.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

JimKimSlim is 10000000000000000000000000000% correct! No CARS materials, and I used them all, can match AAMC. My first time studying I put too much credence into advice I got from prep books. I practiced reading comprehension and not analytical reasoning. My second time studying I put far more effort into breaking down the AAMC materials and my score went up.

I still think CARS is BS and the score you get is a crapshoot to a large extent, but I can say with complete confidence that no third party materials will get you where you need to be. Use them for exposure and timing, just like JimKimSlim said.

 

[skeptastic]

Thank you @JimKimSlim and @PlsLetMeIn21!

So would you even check your answers for 3rd party CARS passages, or just read to gather the main idea and analyze, along the lines of what the TestingSolutions 30-day guide teaches? Are there 3rd party sources where you'd never even check the answers to see if you got it right because they are so bad? Are there any 3rd party sources at all that are worth analyzing wrong and right answer choices?

 

[JimKimSlim]

Thank you @JimKimSlim and @PlsLetMeIn21!

So you would you even check your answers for 3rd party CARS passages, or just read to gather the main idea and analyze, along the lines of what the TestingSolutions 30-day guide teaches? Are there 3rd party sources where you'd never even check the answers to see if you got it right because they are so bad? Are there any 3rd party sources at all that are worth analyzing wrong and right answer choices?

When I used Altius FL’s, I didn’t even check the answers, since some of their logic was inconsistent. I remember using Khan Academy passages and reading through their answers, but I didn’t take any serious note. You can keep using third party resources, like UWorld, to practice timing, but when you feel doubtful, throw in two or three CARS QPack passages to gauge where you’re at. Again, the first 60 problems of QPack 1 are harder, so use the latter half or QPack 2 for more accurate reflection.

 

[skeptastic]

When I used Altius FL’s, I didn’t even check the answers, since some of their logic was inconsistent. I remember using Khan Academy passages and reading through their answers, but I didn’t take any serious note. You can keep using third party resources, like UWorld, to practice timing, but when you feel doubtful, throw in two or three CARS QPack passages to gauge where you’re at. Again, the first 60 problems of QPack 1 are harder, so use the latter half or QPack 2 for more accurate reflection.

Thank you for your insight. It is so tough to wrap my head around not checking my answers for the vast majority of CARS passages I'll do, even though the reasoning makes sense, considering that 3rd party sources have been unable to mimic AAMC logic. What's confusing is that the 30-day guide has you reviewing CARS passages for almost the entire 3 months of that plan, and there aren't enough AAMC CARS passages to last for 3 months. Are folks not really on board with the 30-day guide plan, or are they just applying it only to AAMC CARS passages?


EDIT: I don't even care about the 30-day guide anymore. I believe the consensus, which is that 3rd party CARS sources are for timing and main ideas, and only AAMC CARS material should be reviewed and carefully analyzed to learn how the exam designers think. Thank you all for such thorough and wonderful insight!