Good at CARS, bad at timing.

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Magyarzorag

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I recently did FL 2 and although I was short on time a little bit for CARS, C/P, and B/B, I only had to guess on about 3-5 qs for B/B and C/P, but I had to guess on 14 (28%) of the questions for cars.

The thing is I performed pretty well on the first 40 questions, getting 83% correct. Had I continued this streak, I would have gotten a 128, a very respectable score. However I ended up with a 125 after having to guess on the remaining 14 questions. My test is in a month and IDK what to do. I realize I spent as much as 4-5 minutes on some questions (these excluded first questions which are shown to take longer cause I had to read the passage). I'm not a fast reader, but after annotating/highlighting, still take about 5 minutes to read the passage.


I really don't know how to finish CARS on time other than to bribe some AAMC official to accept a fake diagnosis for ADHD and award me extra time.

I usually spend a lot of time rereading passages, not cause I didn't understand them, but for questions that allude to one specific word or thing mentioned in the passage without giving you any paragraph references.

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There are a number of different strategies for CARS. You have to figure out what works for you and what allows you to finish. I usually took about 6 minutes reading passages so that I had them down really well and then I answered the questions in about 3 minutes. Taking 4-5 minutes for a single question is a waste of time. When practicing CARS if you feel like a question will take more than 60 seconds, skip it and flag it. To do well on the MCAT you have to be willing to let questions go that take too long. That is true for any section.

If you think you have to go back to the passage for more than 1 or 2 questions per passage then you are working too hard. Most questions can be answered with the main idea in mind, or they reference a specific paragraph, which requires a quick re-read.
 
@Cornfed101

Many questions don't have a line reference, but in the answer explanations, they may pull evidence from multiple paragraphs to support their answer. It is finding this support that takes the most time .
 
Avoid the temptation to refer to the passage more than absolutely necessary. If a question says "from paragraph 2" or something like that, look at it. Otherwise, I would recommend you don't find evidence in the passage. When you are reading you should be constructing the main idea and the arguments that the author is making. This guides your answers more than specifics. The AAMC asks about the big picture a lot more than specifics. Even when they do ask specific sounding questions, it can usually be answered by understanding the main idea well.
 
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Avoid the temptation to refer to the passage more than absolutely necessary. If a question says "from paragraph 2" or something like that, look at it. Otherwise, I would recommend you don't find evidence in the passage. When you are reading you should be constructing the main idea and the arguments that the author is making. This guides your answers more than specifics. The AAMC asks about the big picture a lot more than specifics. Even when they do ask specific sounding questions, it can usually be answered by understanding the main idea well.
I literally have the same issue. Would you recommend writing a quick note for each paragraph that way you have something to refer to when answering questions??
 
I literally have the same issue. Would you recommend writing a quick note for each paragraph that way you have something to refer to when answering questions??

I tried that, but it took too much time and didn't provide enough benefit for me. I had much more success just taking a few seconds to stop and think about a paragraph right after I finished it. It accomplishes the same purpose but without wasting time writing. The worst thing you can do in CARS is just blaze through the passage and then get to the end thinking "what did I just read about??" Take a little extra time and think how each couple sentences fits into the main idea.
 
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I tried that, but it took too much time and didn't provide enough benefit for me. I had much more success just taking a few seconds to stop and think about a paragraph right after I finished it. It accomplishes the same purpose but without wasting time writing. The worst thing you can do in CARS is just blaze through the passage and then get to the end thinking "what did I just read about??" Take a little extra time and think how each couple sentences fits into the main idea.
Thank you! Any particular third party resources that you recommend?
 
Thank you! Any particular third party resources that you recommend?

Use any third-party resource to work on timing and linking with the main idea, but don't waste time with 3rd party questions. Nothing compares to AAMC and if you spend too much time doing 3rd party CARS it will mess you up.
 
Use any third-party resource to work on timing and linking with the main idea, but don't waste time with 3rd party questions. Nothing compares to AAMC and if you spend too much time doing 3rd party CARS it will mess you up.
Thank you. I was really struggling with TPR cars. JW seemed ok and testing solutions I found the easiest. Hopefully it’s like AAMC lol.
 
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