Demystifying 5 Common MCAT CARS Strategies

en.clix.vn4 weeks ago

0 5 6 minutes read

Some students can get a high score on the mcat car section with little effort. while others practice hundreds of passages and end up bombing the section. What distinguishes high scores from low is not how much you practice alone. it’s about whether or not you have a good mcat cars strategy and whether or not you really stick to that strategy on test day.

Without a good strategy for the car section, it will be difficult to score well, even if you practice a lot. For those looking for more resources, check out the free mcat cars daily practice.

Reading: How to review cars mcat reddit

The key is to find a good strategy and use it for each passage. here are some mcat car strategies students use (note that not all mcat car strategies are created equal, some are superior):

mcar car strategy: an introduction

if you know anyone who got good car scores, they had a strategy. Whether you meet them in real life or read about their success on reddit or sdn, they must have had a strategy. if they claim they didn’t, they just didn’t realize they were using one.

Those who tell you they don’t have a strategy have built one through many years of reading. it is a habit that they have formed but are not aware of. fortunately for them, their unconscious good habits correlate well with the mcat’s thinking style.

This strategy could also have been developed through an unconscious habit they acquired while practicing.

regardless of which mcat cars strategy you use, I don’t recommend changing mcat cars strategies too often, especially during the exam. What I mean is, don’t jump from one habit to another. stick to one mcat car habit or strategy throughout the exam, even if it’s not the best.

mcat one car strategy

The most common mcat cars strategy is to read the entire passage and answer each question in the order listed. I recommend this strategy more. the mcat wants the test taker to spend more time on the passage than on the questions. This is the logical and obvious way to approach cars, but even if you had to, you would have to do it correctly.

as you read, see if you can get a big picture of each paragraph.

ask yourself:

what’s going on?”

what does the author want you to get out of this paragraph?

if you can answer this question for each paragraph, you know enough to get a perfect score in cars.

mcat car passages are not as difficult as you think. students simply tend to overcomplicate paragraphs by making connections or assumptions that don’t exist. Please be as direct or explicit as possible when answering this question, after reading the paragraphs. be efficient in your summaries. your answer should be 3-4 words long. and if you’re not, practice hard until you are. this is a skill and it takes time to master.

When it comes to answering questions, develop a step-by-step method that you can follow consistently. For example, in the car strategy course, I teach students the steps to follow for each question. Step 1 should always be to summarize what is being asked in the question. if you don’t know what the question is, how can you find the best answer?

It’s a simple but very important habit. steps like this should be followed every time you answer any car question. I know this sounds elementary, but you wouldn’t believe how many students can’t do this. Test anxiety can prevent you from thinking clearly and sticking to a strategy. that’s why perseverance is key while you practice.

you can practice it right now.

mcat cars strategy two

Another common strategy for the mcat car section is to read only the first and last paragraph of each passage before addressing the questions. I do not recommend this strategy. if the mcat didn’t want you to read the middle paragraphs, why would they include them? This strategy may seem like a good shortcut to finding the topics of the passage, but the middle paragraphs are vital in this regard.

You can only find the topics of the passage by reading the entire passage. In addition, you could receive questions about a particular paragraph. so by using this strategy you are betting. Considering that most of the questions in the mcat cars section are based on the general theme of the passage, you won’t be able to answer most of the questions correctly if you don’t read the entire passage.

mcat three car strategy

Another strategy students use is to first read the questions before reading the passage. This may seem like a smart thing, since you know what to look for as you read. but this is probably the worst strategy there is. First, the questions on the MCAT are designed in a way that minimizes the possibility of a student extracting information. they mainly ask application questions. and in many cases, they ask questions about ideas that are not even related to the passage. If you study volumes 1 and 2 of AAMC’s car quiz packs, you’ll notice this trend. By using this strategy, you are wasting precious time. and potentially fall into the traps that the aamc creates for students who are too detail oriented. The mcat car section is a big picture test, not a detail oriented test. Sure, there are questions that ask you to revisit the passage, but they’re rare.

mcat four car strategy

the fourth common strategy is to spend the 90 minutes reading and answering only 7 passages out of the 9 passages given, doing your best to answer all questions correctly in those 7. but then completely guessing the questions in the last two passages without even reading them in the last 20 seconds of the test.

A friend of mine used this unorthodox strategy to get a 9 on the verbal reasoning section above (a 126 on cars). he took his sweet time to get everything right in 7 passages. but he would completely guess two passages, without reading the passage or the questions at all! I do not recommend this strategy. some of the 7 passages will have difficult questions that hardly anyone can answer correctly. you will sacrifice many easy questions from the passages you don’t ask. but hey, this mcat cars strategy worked for him! He is now a practicing ophthalmologist who graduated from UCSD School of Medicine.

mcat five car strategy

This leads to the fifth most common strategy: Skipping all 9 passages to do the easiest ones first. this is done by reading the first two lines of each passage to determine its difficulty. Personally, I think this is a decent strategy, but it’s definitely not recommended. this is because the first few lines of each passage can only tell you so much about what you are about to read. sometimes the first line or two will be difficult to understand, but the rest of the passage is easy.

this leads to the fifth most common strategy: skip all 9 passages to do the easiest ones first.

I think one advantage of this strategy is to find passages that you feel comfortable with in terms of themes. For example, if you noticed that the first passage is about art and the second passage is about the presidential election, you probably find the second passage easier to understand because of your familiarity or interest in the topic. however, that doesn’t justify moving because you eventually have to make the first move at some point to get a 127 or higher. I have also noticed that the easier the reading, the more difficult the questions. boring or dense passages often have the simplest questions! therefore, if you skip these passages at the beginning, you may be jeopardizing your score.

master your mcat car strategy

these are all habits or in other words mcat cars strategies. again, some strategies are better than others. but as long as you stick to a strategy that gets you the most answers right, stick with it to the end. you don’t have to find a complete testing strategy that works for every question. only one who can score well enough to get into medical school (for US schools: 127 is ideal, for Canada: 129).

have a plan and execute it. don’t just go into the exam with an “anything can happen” mentality. if you have bad habits, your strategy won’t help you as much. This is when I suggest seeking guidance and possibly finding a new method to adopt.

However, it is very difficult for students to change their thinking pattern or strategy. this is due to bad habits acquired over many years. That is why mcat cars is a difficult section to improve and that is why being aware of your bad habits and learning a new mcat cars strategy can take you far. not just in this section or other parts of the exam, but in all future exams in your medical career.