u/Armonrolls

Hii, I got my scores back a few days ago and have been ecstatic about my CARS score (as a Canadian, this was the section that mattered most to me). I went from a 127 on an early FL to a 132 on test day, and since I remember feeling pretty lost throughout the process, I figured I'd share what actually worked.

1. Start with third party resources early. I started using JW and UWorld a few months before my exam (JW sporadically like 6 months before I wrote, and UWorld around 3 months before test day). The point wasn't to internalize the logic behind every answer, but to get practice reading dense (and if I'm being honest, boring lol) passages and extracting main ideas out of them. That way, when I got to the 1-1.5 month period before my exam and started working through AAMC logic, I was already in decent shape from a fundamentals standpoint. Once I was more advanced, I'd grab 9 third party passages and simulate an actual test (no water and everything LOL). Earlier in my studying I'd really falter by passage 8 or 9, but after a few weeks, I'd almost be as fresh as on my first one.
2. Make a spreadsheet to track your mistakes when you get to the AAMC passages. I'd actually recommend against doing this for third party resources since you'll end up internalizing their logic, but for AAMC materials, learning to recognize patterns in their reasoning meant I could often look at a question and intuitively feel which answer was right just from pattern recognition. I'd also have a column called "justification" where I'd explain to myself why my answer was wrong and why the right answer was right. I'm someone who needs multiple passes to get things, so I'd review these periodically.
3. Experiment with shifting your emphasis from passage to questions. When I first started, I'd skim through the passage in 1-2 minutes with the mindset that I could go back to specific parts when questions came up. Unfortunately, this was flawed for two reasons. First, many questions focused on the main idea of the passage, and whenever I hit one of those there wasn't a specific part to refer to, so I'd end up basically re-reading the whole thing. Second, if you don't have a solid understanding of the passage, it takes forever to sift through the dense writing to find what a question is actually pointing at. Taking notes after each paragraph (around 5-7 words) was a huge game changer—not so much the act of writing itself, but that it forced me to pause and actually internalize what the author was saying before moving on. When I started doing this, I went from 127/128 to around 130/131 on FLs.
4. Process of elimination is your best friend. When I started, I'd read through the answers and as soon as I saw one that looked right, I'd select it and move on. But sometimes the answer I immediately dismissed was actually the right one. By giving every choice a fair shot and mentally justifying why it was wrong based on the text, I caught myself being wrong about my initial instinct more times than I'd like to admit, and I'm almost certain this saved me at least a couple times on the real deal.
5. Don't let one bad passage ruin your entire section. We all have those passages that torment us (for me it was anything relating to art or architecture). I'd recommend not spending more than 10 minutes on a passage even if you aren't confident in your answers. I used to get trapped spending almost 15 minutes on a hard one and then be super rushed for the easier ones after. On the real thing, I got a beast of a passage as my first one, but I set a hard 10-minute limit and moved on, even with some guesses. A few easier passages later I hit a great flow, getting through them in 7-8 minutes feeling confident. I finished with time to spare, went back to that first passage with fresh eyes, and actually changed some of my answers.

Overall, CARS is a grueling section and I really feel for anyone currently grinding through it. I've been there—the despair after going 1/7 on a passage (never wanna hear the name Picasso again LOL), racing through your last passage with 3 minutes left, moving on completely unsure of every answer you put down. But improvement is real if you put in the work. Good luck to everyone still in it :)

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