How to Improve in CARS?

[FauxBlue]

Hi,

I've been looking around the forums about tips to improve in CARS and I've taken a few of those pointers into my own toolbox. However, I still find that I am not improving in my CARS scores. I'm currently using TPRH 2011, EK 101 and Khan Academy as practice. I try to do 3-5 passages every day and review over my mistakes by reading the explanations carefully. Timing isn't an issue for me (rather sometimes I finish too early before the 10 minutes is up). I highlight often to stay focused and I read the passages usually in 3 minutes. I write in early August so I have some time still.

Where do I take it from here? Just continue doing more passages and reviewing my mistakes? I personally feel like I'm riding against a current going nowhere right now. How should I proceed?

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[salemstein]

My CARS ranged anywhere from 124 to 130, so take my advice with a grain of salt. I was especially concerned with this section as well, since its my "wild card." I found it really helpful to pressure-time myself by giving only 9 minutes per passage instead of 10. It simulates testing conditions a bit better because it teaches you the pacing you need to recover quickly from a hard passage. Figuring out how to think like TPR or EK is not going to help you on the real MCAT. That being said, I did go over how I got things right/wrong, but only in passing detail. Focus heavily on reviewing answer choices only for AAMC released materials (Q packs, FLs). I went over every question thoroughly by going over the logic behind every answer and the mental steps required to arrive at the answer. Keep track of the types of questions you get wrong and why. For example, I noticed how I would easily get baited by an answer choice containing words extracted verbatim from a passage, only with a minor change that made the whole thing wrong. Next time I encountered something like that alarm bells would go off inside my head to double check the wording.

 

[Necr0sis713]

When I first started, I either "got the passage" or I "didn't get the passage". Usually, the reason why I got it was because I liked the passage. So what I did was I decided to read 2+ hours everyday of just random articles and stuff that would bore me. It came to a point where I enjoyed reading passages, where I approached a passage with the attitude of "I wonder what THIS one is about" rather than dreading it.

Also, trust your gut, and be ESPECIALLY cautious around answer choices that have exact words from the passage. Think about it: Test makers aren't going to make it easy for you, they're gonna bury the answer under a bunch of context clues.

 

[FauxBlue]

My CARS ranged anywhere from 124 to 130, so take my advice with a grain of salt. I was especially concerned with this section as well, since its my "wild card." I found it really helpful to pressure-time myself by giving only 9 minutes per passage instead of 10. It simulates testing conditions a bit better because it teaches you the pacing you need to recover quickly from a hard passage. Figuring out how to think like TPR or EK is not going to help you on the real MCAT. That being said, I did go over how I got things right/wrong, but only in passing detail. Focus heavily on reviewing answer choices only for AAMC released materials (Q packs, FLs). I went over every question thoroughly by going over the logic behind every answer and the mental steps required to arrive at the answer. Keep track of the types of questions you get wrong and why. For example, I noticed how I would easily get baited by an answer choice containing words extracted verbatim from a passage, only with a minor change that made the whole thing wrong. Next time I encountered something like that alarm bells would go off inside my head to double check the wording.

Thanks! I think timing isn't a big issue for me. I can often finish with perhaps a minute left, but good to know that the pressure can help! How did you find yourself noticing answer choices better? Was it through repeated practice or did you have a strategy for that such as compiling question types?

When I first started, I either "got the passage" or I "didn't get the passage". Usually, the reason why I got it was because I liked the passage. So what I did was I decided to read 2+ hours everyday of just random articles and stuff that would bore me. It came to a point where I enjoyed reading passages, where I approached a passage with the attitude of "I wonder what THIS one is about" rather than dreading it.

Also, trust your gut, and be ESPECIALLY cautious around answer choices that have exact words from the passage. Think about it: Test makers aren't going to make it easy for you, they're gonna bury the answer under a bunch of context clues.

Thanks! ^___^ It's true I often get baited by answer choices that contain words verbatim from the passage. I'll be sure to be more aware of that and trust my gut. How did you figure that out? Was it through repeated practice as well or were there other strategies you used?

 

[Necr0sis713]

Thanks! ^___^ It's true I often get baited by answer choices that contain words verbatim from the passage. I'll be sure to be more aware of that and trust my gut. How did you figure that out? Was it through repeated practice as well or were there other strategies you used?

Yeah...tons of practice. These past 2 months i've essentially did more than 6 passages a day. It hurts...but trusting your gut is actually good for CARS. Literally...almost EVERY time I go over my practice tests...the major theme is "well...shoulda trusted my gut". Think about it: if the correct answer always had exact words from the passage, then everyone would do well on CARS; but somehow, its really hard for some reason.

The right answer is always the one that "feels right but scary" like you're taking a leap of faith. They want you to be able to reason through stuff, not just find exact words. The right answer comes from a deeper place, I can't explain it. Find the answer that feels right on a very deep, not superficial, level. Unless it's one of those explicit content questions of course.

 

[salemstein]

Thanks! I think timing isn't a big issue for me. I can often finish with perhaps a minute left, but good to know that the pressure can help! How did you find yourself noticing answer choices better? Was it through repeated practice or did you have a strategy for that such as compiling question types?

I was often times discouraged because I would score really well on a CARS section from one test, only to bomb it in another. I kept a notebook to tally which kind of question would get me. I then forced myself to pay attention to those question types next time. After a few times doing this, it became natural.
Many times the correct answer is an ambiguous synonym for the general idea. It takes time to learn how to decode their tricks and I still feel shaky even after doing 2-3 passages a day since when I started prepping. @KoalaT wrote a really good CARS guide about this a while back- you should check it out.

 

[KoalaT]

Yes I did.
Golden Rule: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/how-to-improve-on-verbal-golden-rule.1189602/

How to practice practice practice to improve: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/verbal-proof-that-practice-makes-perfect.1177878/

 

[Surgery8609]

From personal experience I find that sometimes I'd be so hung up on getting each CARS passage done under the specific amount of time that this would almost sabotage my change of improving. To elaborate a bit, let's say you're "starting from scratch" at building whatever skills/methodology you will be using to understand the passage (picking up arguments, contrast words, etc.). If you are starting to do this right off the bat and constantly telling yourself (from the very first passage you do) "I have to finish this under x amount of minutes" then that pressure almost takes over and causes me to rush through and not really develop the proficiency I need in the aforementioned skills. But, if you start off with your practice by not caring about the time and maybe just having the mentality of "I'm going to take as long as I need to get what I need from the passage/build on these skills, then over time you will get proficient and faster at the skills naturally and you will find yourself meeting the time constraints required...Hope that makes sense and helps!

 

[Moms_with_DOMS]

From personal experience I find that sometimes I'd be so hung up on getting each CARS passage done under the specific amount of time that this would almost sabotage my change of improving. To elaborate a bit, let's say you're "starting from scratch" at building whatever skills/methodology you will be using to understand the passage (picking up arguments, contrast words, etc.). If you are starting to do this right off the bat and constantly telling yourself (from the very first passage you do) "I have to finish this under x amount of minutes" then that pressure almost takes over and causes me to rush through and not really develop the proficiency I need in the aforementioned skills. But, if you start off with your practice by not caring about the time and maybe just having the mentality of "I'm going to take as long as I need to get what I need from the passage/build on these skills, then over time you will get proficient and faster at the skills naturally and you will find yourself meeting the time constraints required...Hope that makes sense and helps!

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