How to prepare well for the CARS section of the MCAT

[DrHolmes]

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Hi,


I am a current High School student who is strongly inclined to enter the world of medicine after undergrad. Thus, I want to start preparing myself early so for better results (or so I hope). The most significant standardized test I have taken so far is the SAT. The largest problem I encountered with the test was the reading section; my score is not a good representative of how I do in class. It hurt me during college admissions; therefore, I don't want to make the same mistake(s) when taking the MCAT, granted, the two test are completely different. What are the best ways prepare for the MCAT reading section? Did you use any programs or test prep? What classes in undergrad do you believe/ took that helped you out? Any advice is greatly appreciated; I don't want to screw up the next four critical years of my life.


Thank you greatly,
Best regards

 

[Toutie]

Read. Read. Read. Great magazines to read on a regular/semi regular basis for the next few years...
cell.com, Atlantic, NEJM, The New Yorker, The Wilson Quarterly.

 

[wutwutwut]

I took a 4000 level history class in college and it was one of the hardest classes I took (and I'm a STEM major) but I got really good at reading and analyzing because we read authors from Plato to Locke. I would highly recommend taking a class like this because I think it is why I did well on CARS because it is just practice, but beware like I said this class was hard and I had to work REALLy hard to make sure it didn't mess up my GPA.

If you don't want to take a history class I would recommend reading a lot like what Toutie said above, because CARS really is just practice & also (closer to the MCAT) get a MCAT review book or even a SAT book and look at the reading strategies in there. I did not end up using all of them because I thought some did not work efficiently for me but I definitely used some of them! One that I remember was the idea to sum up each paragraph in a sentence while you read and I think this works not only for the MCAT but for any reading because it helps to keep you focused and make sure you are understanding what you are reading

 

[loveartandscience]

I wish I started preparing when I was in high school... 🙂 I'm taking the MCAT in June and what helped me improve my score a lot over the past two months was practicing CARS passages. I bought the Princeton CARS book to learn more about the question types and techniques to review my missed questions. To me it was really useful to review the questions I would get wrong because I definitely saw a trend (I would always miss the Application/New Info Questions). Khan academy has many free passages. There's also an ExamKracker book 1st edition that has 9 passages for about 14 $ on amazon.