In what order should I use my CARS resources?

[Chromatic543]

Resources I have used so far:

1. EK 101 Verbal Tests 1-9
2. Jack Westin Daily CARS
3. TPR CARS strategy book
4. NextStep CARS strategy book


Resources I have left:

1. EK 101 Verbal Tests 10-12
2. NextStep CARS strategy (2 Tests)
3. NextStep 108 CARS Passages
4. AAMC CARS Q Pack 1
5. AAMC CARS Q Pack 2

Also, is there any other resource I should be looking at?

Test date: 2 June 2018

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[Xanias]

I have not used all of those you mentioned above. However; I think the CARS Q packs should be a priority for you as they are the most representative. It won't be a bad idea to start working on those now so you can get a feel of AAMC cars. Jack Westin has section tests that you can use, they seem to be more representative of AAMC material than other prep companies, and also has a similar online interface. I have done the Next Step Full lengths and I am not a huge fan of their CARS section. EK 101 I believe is better than Next Step but is a bit more difficult than what you would expect. I would certainly start with the AAMC Q-packs, and then go to Jack Westin. You will also be doing CARS practice when you're taking your full lengths, so I doubt that you'll run out of resources.

 

[Chromatic543]

I have not used all of those you mentioned above. However; I think the CARS Q packs should be a priority for you as they are the most representative. It won't be a bad idea to start working on those now so you can get a feel of AAMC cars. Jack Westin has section tests that you can use, they seem to be more representative of AAMC material than other prep companies, and also has a similar online interface. I have done the Next Step Full lengths and I am not a huge fan of their CARS section. EK 101 I believe is better than Next Step but is a bit more difficult than what you would expect. I would certainly start with the AAMC Q-packs, and then go to Jack Westin. You will also be doing CARS practice when you're taking your full lengths, so I doubt that you'll run out of resources.

1. Would yku recommend doing AAMC CARS Q pack 2 before pack 1, due to the difference in difficulty?

2. Is it okay to do the question packs in multiple settings, or do you think it's better to sprint through in one setting?

CARS is my weakest section...I got a 124 on my last MCAT.

 

[Xanias]

1) The order you follow does not matter; I believe the first 7 passages of Q-pack 1 were the most difficult, but this is more for practice purposes, on the real test you will not get 7 very difficult passages in a row.

2) DO NOT SPRINT THROUGH THEM. You have 4 AAMC Full lengths to do that. These are for you to practice reasoning correctly and be familiar with the types of passages and question stems that AAMC utilizes. Q-pack 1 I believe has 21 passages or so, do not run through the whole thing in a day. I would personally try and do the passages one by one with the solutions option available. Basically after every passage you finish check your answers. Don't use these to score yourself, use them to improve strategy and finding your weaknesses.

- It might not be a bad idea to run through some passages twice during your study time, especially the ones you find difficult. Don't take the q-packs lightly or argue with answer choices. This will be your best resource for the CARS section. Use it wisely.

 

[Chromatic543]

1) The order you follow does not matter; I believe the first 7 passages of Q-pack 1 were the most difficult, but this is more for practice purposes, on the real test you will not get 7 very difficult passages in a row.

2) DO NOT SPRINT THROUGH THEM. You have 4 AAMC Full lengths to do that. These are for you to practice reasoning correctly and be familiar with the types of passages and question stems that AAMC utilizes. Q-pack 1 I believe has 21 passages or so, do not run through the whole thing in a day. I would personally try and do the passages one by one with the solutions option available. Basically after every passage you finish check your answers. Don't use these to score yourself, use them to improve strategy and finding your weaknesses.

- It might not be a bad idea to run through some passages twice during your study time, especially the ones you find difficult. Don't take the q-packs lightly or argue with answer choices. This will be your best resource for the CARS section. Use it wisely.

Thank you.

I didn't know that there were 4 AAMC FLs. When I first took the test in Sep 2016, there was one AAMC FL and a Sample AAMC test, from what I remember.

 

[Xanias]

Thank you.

I didn't know that there were 4 AAMC FLs. When I first took the test in Sep 2016, there was one AAMC FL and a Sample AAMC test, from what I remember.

No problem. Yes they added 2 more full lengths since then. Make sure you do those and all section banks before your test.

 

[Chromatic543]

1) The order you follow does not matter; I believe the first 7 passages of Q-pack 1 were the most difficult, but this is more for practice purposes, on the real test you will not get 7 very difficult passages in a row.

2) DO NOT SPRINT THROUGH THEM. You have 4 AAMC Full lengths to do that. These are for you to practice reasoning correctly and be familiar with the types of passages and question stems that AAMC utilizes. Q-pack 1 I believe has 21 passages or so, do not run through the whole thing in a day. I would personally try and do the passages one by one with the solutions option available. Basically after every passage you finish check your answers. Don't use these to score yourself, use them to improve strategy and finding your weaknesses.

- It might not be a bad idea to run through some passages twice during your study time, especially the ones you find difficult. Don't take the q-packs lightly or argue with answer choices. This will be your best resource for the CARS section. Use it wisely.

Hello again, so for Jack Westin passages, I sometimes do well (6 or 5/), but sometimes get only 3.

For the AAMC CARS Q pack 1, I got:

Passage 1 (3/7)
Passage 2 (2/7)
Passage 3 (3/7)
Passage 4 (5/7)

Which is REALLY frustrating! How do you get through without losing confidence? My tedt date is the 2nd of June, and the panic has kicked in.

I don't think the issue is timing, as I am able to finish a passage in ten minutes (4 min to read, 6 min to answer), but A GOOD AMOUNT of questions trip me up when I get it down to 50/50

 

[Xanias]

Hello again, so for Jack Westin passages, I sometimes do well (6 or 5/), but sometimes get only 3.

For the AAMC CARS Q pack 1, I got:

Passage 1 (3/7)
Passage 2 (2/7)
Passage 3 (3/7)
Passage 4 (5/7)

Which is REALLY frustrating! How do you get through without losing confidence? My tedt date is the 2nd of June, and the panic has kicked in.

I don't think the issue is timing, as I am able to finish a passage in ten minutes (4 min to read, 6 min to answer), but A GOOD AMOUNT of questions trip me up when I get it down to 50/50

Try doing the passages without timing yourself. Give yourself more than 4 minutes to read and try to jot down a few words for every paragraph. At the end, write down what you think is the main idea for the passage (the main idea should be the main argument the author is trying to make or the common thread throughout all the paragraphs). You will find that a lot of the questions can be answered from the main idea.

The first few passages are difficult in a sense, so I wouldn’t worry about your performance so much at this point.

 

[NextStepTutor_1]

Hi @Chromatic543 -

If you find yourself having trouble with 50/50 choices (i.e. you correctly eliminate 2 wrong answers and have trouble choosing between the other 2), I've found it to be helpful sometimes to switch from looking for the better answer choice to looking for the wrong answer choice in that pair. This is especially likely to be the case if you find yourself going to for interesting/appealing-sounding answer choices that have some flaw instead of boring but correct choices. The basic idea here is that looking for the "best" choice leaves you with a lot of room for guessing by instinct and non-test-like thinking, but focusing on eliminating the wrong answer is more targeted, because there's a relatively more limited and predictable set of ways in which answer choices tend to be wrong.

Hope this is helpful & best of luck w/ CARS! Would definitely second what other posters have said about the first few QPack passages, especially the Picasso one, being unusually difficult. The name of the game at this stage is learning from what the questions have to teach you .

 

[Chromatic543]

I am currently 50/85 on the AAMC CARS Q Pack 1 breaking it down to around three passages per day, and doing the passages in ten minutes.

How is this so far? Is my score too low?