CARS Drives the MCAT

The MCAT is the rare standardized test that serves as a great metric for how someone will do in medical school and as a doctor. It is a test that evaluates a student’s knowledge of biology and chemistry to make sure they have a solid foundation for studying medicine. Students are expected to have a basic understanding of psychology and human behavior. And then there’s the reading section. Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS) seems like the odd section in the test since it doesn’t seem to test anything that is specific to the medical field. But it is low-key the most important section of the test. CARS provides the best evaluation of how a student will do in medical school, but to a degree it also predicts how well someone will do in a medical career. 

The name of the section itself explains why CARS matters so much: it is a critical thinking test. Being a successful doctor isn’t just about having a comprehensive knowledge of the human body and how it works; a doctor must also know how to apply that knowledge to provide the best treatment for their patients. CARS tests this skill by making reading passages self-contained. That’s to say that outside knowledge doesn’t help on this section at all. Instead, students have to work with the information given in the passage to find the best answers. 

Passages can cover a variety of topics from art history to child psychology to literary theory to urban planning. Students are not expected to have any background in the topics but rather adapt to the subject material. Being able to process new information in real time is what doctors do whenever they treat patients. And just like patients, no two CARS passages are the same. Furthermore, CARS passages are the products of authors that express themselves in different ways and with different writing styles. A good doctor needs to be able to understand what their patients are saying.

I like to tell my MCAT students that CARS is like triage. Imagine working in an emergency room when nine patients are stretchered in after a fiery roller coaster accident. We want to save every patient, but that might not be realistic. Likewise, the goal is to complete every passage, but that’s not always feasible. Most of the MCAT students I’ve taught over the past decade have been highly motivated and used to failing at tasks. But the truth is that CARS was designed so the average MCAT student won’t be able to complete all nine passages. The idea of skipping a passage, let alone two or even three, can be hard to accept. However, to do well in CARS students have to learn to manage their time and decide which passages to focus on and which to skip. 

While CARS is framed as a reading test, it is really about a student’s ability to evaluate and understand information. Unlike the other sections of the test, CARS prep doesn’t entail learning content. Instead students practice by becoming more analytical readers, understanding the finer meaning of language, and honing their process of elimination. Incidentally, improving those skills will help on other parts of the test, showing that CARS is the secret behind the entire MCAT.