MCAT practice FL 1 score: 491 (124/119/127/121)

[GurjantSingh]

I am so disappointed. What should I do for CARS (are the khan academy videos worth it?). I found myself not being able to understand the passage at all, there were words that I had never seen before and topics that I have never heard of. Political and historical passages went over my head, I felt like I was reading the passage but was not comprehending anything from the passage. They literally looked like long boring essays and I got caught in the midst of trying to re-read every line. Anyways same thing for the other sections, I have no clue what to do from now on.

I havent registered for the MCAT yet so I have time and need to sit down and focus. I know I can improve my CP, BIO and PS section by reviewing material, memorizing terms/equations etc. I have been out of college for 2 years and I took this practice exam after reviewing only the main stuff on Kaplan quicksheets and trying to memorize everything in 2 weeks. BUT how can I improve my CARS.

Any tips/suggestions/advice are much appreciated guys!

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[I'mJustCurious]

The only way I improved my CARS is by doing at least two passages a day. I’m still not where I want to be, but I do see a difference by daily practice. There are a bunch of different strategies that you can find online. Find one that works best for you and master it with practice.

 

[Cornfed101]

CARS is all about reading comprehension. You will find a lot of gimmicky things online for strategies with that section, but the main thing is you need to work on your reading comprehension. It comes with practice. Here are some strategies to help with reading comprehension:

1. Metacognition – Metacognition means “thinking about thinking.” In the context of reading comprehension, it is being aware of your own thinking. For me, this basically means to have an internal dialogue with the author.
2. Comprehension Monitoring – After reading a sentence ask yourself, "what does this sentence/word mean?" On CARS, if you still don’t understand something, it is best to ignore that sentence and move on.
3. Linking – In discovering the main idea, it is important to be able to quickly connect a sentence you just read to a sentence you have previously read. This helps you develop the main idea and make comparisons that will be essential in answering questions.
4. Summarizing – When you truly understand something, you are able to water it down to simple main points that even a fourth-grader could understand. You need to be constantly summarizing and re-summarizing what you read as you are reading it.
5. Main Idea Finding – CARS questions tend to focus on the main idea of the passage. In fact, if all you can do during a passage is to discover its main idea, you can often answer the majority of the questions correctly.
6. Using Background Information / Previewing – Although the CARS section does not require you to have background knowledge on philosophy or history to understand these passage, using what background information you do have can help make a passage more understandable. Most people discourage using background information for CARS, but I think this is lousy advice. It helps to visualize it better if, for example, you know what a Picasso painting looks like when reading a passage about him.
7. Visualization – By visualizing what you read, you will not only understand it better but also have an easier time remembering it.

I know this may seem rudimentary, but this helped me improve in ALL sections and my CARS went from a 123 on my diagnostic to a 129 on the real deal.

 

[Blueprint MCAT Tutor]

Thanks for your question @GurjantSingh. I know it's frustrating to get a score below expectations, but I don't think it's indicative of your ability per se. I think you rushed into taking this exam a bit. You haven't yet done the adequate amount of review to be successful on the MCAT. However, like you said, that doesn't mean you can't do further review to improve! The Kaplan sheets are great for general overview, but they are not adequate for a sole study source.

As others have mentioned, improvement comes from practicing passages and learning from your mistakes by review. Don't use anymore aamc material until later in your study schedule. For now, go back and review the content from books or khan academy and do problems concurrently with what you have read to reinforce the material. After you have covered everything then you can try some more practice exams (there is access to some free practice exams from next step in my signature if you need).

The advice for CARS given by @Cornfed101 is superb and I don't have much to add to that. Just be consistent in practicing CARS everyday because it's a subject that can't be crammed and requires a lot of time to get good at. As for the other subjects, practice is king so do as many problems from various sources as possible and make sure you thoroughly review them to learn from your mistakes.

Good luck with everything and stay positive! You still have time to improve and will do so if you work hard and consistently. Please feel free to reach out with any further questions.