Are you reading in a way that you pause after each sentence, and after each paragraph, and process/summarize what you've read thus far? I'm not one who does this in note-taking form, but I always do it out loud or in my head. I will often attempt CAR passages with my students and say out loud for them what I am thinking. I cannot say how many times I've had a student look at me with surprise and say something like: "You really stop and THINK about every single sentence??" or "You stop after every single sentence and summarize??"
Usually, the disbelief is because students think that there is no way in the world you'd have time to do it that way. To the contrary, I consistently read CAR passages in about 4 minutes pretty universally, and I always stop after each sentence and think for just a few seconds about what I just read. Then, with each new sentence, I stop just long enough to summarize (or sometimes even say out loud to myself softly) how that last sentence "added to" or "built upon" or even "contradicted" the gist of what I'd read up to that point.
In this way, I make sure that I understand each component of the passage and get a solid understanding of how each argument relates to or builds upon the passage theme generally.
I find that if I can do that, or if I can get my students to do that, the questions become MUCH easier. I have my students begin by practicing this method, even thought at first it takes them 8-12 minutes/passage. Then they gradually try to do the same process a little more rapidly each time...until eventually they get down to 3-4 minutes to do basically what they were doing in 8-12 min before. Hope that helps!