My Official 5-Step Guide from a 122 CARS to a 131 in 12 days!

You may remember me as the girl crying on the floor from earlier today. I've gotten a lot of messages asking for tips so I've put together a step-by-step guide to improving your CARS score. I got a 122 on FL1 on 08/15 and got a 131 on the real deal on 08/27. Here's how I did it.

Disclaimer: this might not work for everyone but I think it'll be helpful for most people!

Step 0: First thing you need to know for CARS is that there is nothing you need to know for CARS. Everything you need is already in your brain. Therefore, if you're seeing that your practice scores suck, simply doing more practice passages will not raise your score if you're using the same approach every time. To find the technique that works for you, pretend you are a patient and and self-diagnose why you're doing poorly. Then take active steps to treat the problem!

Step 1: Do 3-4 passages (I recommend QPs for this) and ignore the timer completely. See how well you can do if you are given an unlimited amount of time and 0 pressure. If you find that you're getting 100% correct if the timer is off, then you know your problem is timing and/or test anxiety. In that case, practice practice practice! If you're like me and you see that even without a timer you're still getting ~3/7 correct, then you know the problem is in the way you approach the passage and/or questions.

Step 2: Try 3-4 passages at a time but each time, try changing up one and only one technique. Then, go through the answers and try to think "did this technique hurt me or benefit me?" (the answer may vary based on the type of question and type of passage - eventually you'll start to get a hang of what technique is best used in each scenario). Here's a few good ones to try:

• Highlighting vs. not highlighting the passage - there is no "correct" amount of highlighting. I highlight almost every word just because physically interacting with the passage helps me stay focused. Some may prefer to only highlight names and dates.
• Writing out a short one-sentence summary after each paragraph or not. You may also want to try pausing after each paragraph and summarizing in your head what the purpose of the paragraph was (ex. "in this paragraph the author presented counterarguments" or "this is where the author explored a new idea about ____").
• Previewing vs. not previewing the questions first (this one is great for quick readers but may take up ~1 min/passage for a total of 9 min - can do more harm than good).
• Skimming the passage to decide if you want to do it now or later - This may work for some but I don't recommend doing this. As soon as you tell yourself "this passage is too hard" - you've already lost. It also can waste a lot of time.
• My personal favourite: going back to the passage vs. never going back under any circumstance. I am a textbook over-thinker, so when the question asks me about paragraph 2, I'll end up rereading the whole paragraph, picking apart every word and getting lost in the details and picking the wrong answer. So for me, absorbing the main idea of the passage and ONLY sticking to that when answering questions helped a lot. The answer is almost always that which best aligns with the main idea - it's usually more simple than you think.

Step 3: Try to assess what your most common errors are.

• Are you rushing to the "correct" answer because the wording looks familiar? If so, slow down and double check: does the answer you're choosing contradict the main idea? If so, is it supposed to (i.e. "opposes" questions)? Does it match the question stem? Could it be too specific? Could it be too extreme?
• Are you overthinking the question stem and putting too much emphasis on detail? If so, try reading the passage more casually and only focusing on the main idea/argument/purpose of the passage.
• Are you missing the main idea? If so, think about the purpose of the passage after each paragraph. Is the author explaining a historical event? Are they arguing for change/political movements? Think about the structure of the passage. In most cases, authors tend to build up to their main idea/thesis towards the last paragraph (so something stated near the end is more likely to be relevant to the main idea). Sometimes they'll mention the main idea first and then proceed to argue for or against it.

Step 4: Make note of different kinds of passages and whether each technique benefited or harmed you for that specific type of passage. I personally noticed 2 types: the artsy, metaphorical one (arts, philosophy, literature) and the detail-heavy one (history, anthropology, politics, econ, etc). For the artsy one, I learned to never go back to the passage under any circumstances or I will overthink the metaphors and convoluted sentence structure. For the detail-heavy one, I almost always went back when the question asked for detail.

Step 5: This is the most important one of all - learn to love the passages. My mom told me to "read them like you would your favourite book". You have to be curious and eager to hear what each author has to say and read it with passion. Have side commentary in your head as you're reading (ex. "hmm that's interesting, who would've thought". The way you approach the passage is everything. Don't get scared by words you don't know - just keep reading. Chance are, if you didn't understand a sentence, you're not supposed to and AAMC is just trying to throw you off your game. Some of the passages are actually really interesting if you give them a chance (except Picasso all my homies hate Picasso). Take a second between each passage, close your eyes, breathe, and get excited to read the next one.

GOOD LUCK!