Looking for CARS reading material (books)

[Barrista125]

Hi all,

I am a retaker of MCAT. The first time around I scored 129/124/131/132. And I really would like to improve my CARS section. I found that since English was not my first language, reading really hard passages/books and practicing my own highlighting techniques in it has been very helpful. The problem is, I don't want to be going through individual articles like this one
Jack Westin: CARS Course Practice Reading

Rather, I'd like to have entire books at my disposal so I have consistently hard materials to look at. So far, what has worked for me is going through the AAMC's Q packs and looking at the source in tiny print, picking out the absolute hardest I can find. For me, this is usually literature, arts, history, or philosophy. I highly recommend this method for those of you who are struggling in CARS as well, since the reading material you'll get will be exactly AAMC's type (well it's the source that they picked).

Anyways, I'd like to start a list here, so anyone who has some good books to recommend please put it here. Also, please rate the difficulty (1-10), helpfulness for you, as well as subject in each book. I'll start with the two I just went through.

Rene Wellek & Austin Warren's "Theory of Literature"
Difficulty: 7.5
Helpfulness: 8
Subject: Literature

Howard Gardner "Creating Minds"
Difficulty: 6
Helpfulness: 6
Subject: Arts

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[SpoiledMilk]

Unless you are planning to apply to Canadian schools, retaking a 516 is not wise.

A 124 in CARs will not prevent you from getting into medical school in the US, especially since English is not your primary language.

@Goro @gyngyn @LizzyM @HomeSkool

 

[Goro]

Unless you are planning to apply to Canadian schools, retaking a 516 is not wise.

A 124 in CARs will not prevent you from getting into medical school in the US, especially since English is not your primary language.

@Goro @gyngyn @LizzyM @HomeSkool

100% agree.

 

[Barrista125]

Unless you are planning to apply to Canadian schools, retaking a 516 is not wise.

A 124 in CARs will not prevent you from getting into medical school in the US, especially since English is not your primary language.

@Goro @gyngyn @LizzyM @HomeSkool

I've struggled with this decision for a long time, too. I have already applied two cycles with 3.7 GPA, 5 published papers (one first author), 2 years shadowing surgeons, volunteer in three countries, two hospitals, is the president of several clubs, and applied to schools in high, mid, and low tiers. I had one interview out of 20-30 schools both cycles. I hate to admit it, but CARS is my problem..

 

[SpoiledMilk]

With those ECs, I suspect it might be something in your application like a lukewarm LOR or incoherent PS, etc. Therefore, before retaking a 516 and risk a lower score, if you applied both times without having someone look over your application, then while I normally hate advocating for an outside consulting service, pay them to look over your app.

@gonnif provides those kinds of services. Maybe you could speak to him about your app.

 

[JustinM88]

I’m becoming more hesitant to try any CARS material that doesn’t follow the AAMC question patterns...

 

[6754Lululox]

I was in the same boat as you 15 years ago and English as my second language. I went into teaching for over ten years, came back and got in a few weeks ago. My first advice is that the purpose of the cars section is to see if a patient comes in and talks about a bunch of random stuff, can you figure out the important points related to their health from their stories. Understanding that brought me up by 4 points on the CARS. If you want my EK books, I’m in Boston and happy to give them to you.