What’s Tested on the MCAT: The CARS Section

The MCAT CARS section (Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills) is designed to test your critical thinking, comprehension, and analytical skills through a series of complex and often dense passages. Among the four test sections, it is generally regarded as more challenging because it most focuses on critical thinking and reasoning skills.

The CARS section is unique because it doesn’t require any prior specific content knowledge. Instead, it measures your ability to read and think critically about information presented in passages from a wide range of disciplines. 

Approximately 50% of the CARS passages are derived from a wide range of social sciences and 50% come from humanities disciplines such as ethics, philosophy, and cultural studies. All of the information that’s needed to answer the questions is provided in the passage. In fact, using “outside knowledge” is a proven score-killer on the CARS section, the opposite of the science sections where you can lean on your science knowledge to answer the questions.

High scores in CARS indicate strong analytical skills, reflecting your potential to succeed in the intellectually demanding environment of medical school and beyond.

The CARS section of the MCAT is structured to test your ability to understand, analyze, and reason through complex passages. It consists of 9 passages – each followed by 5-7 questions – for a total of 53 passage-based questions that you need to answer in 90 minutes. There are no discrete (independent) questions on the CARS section. 

CARS passages can be intricate and impenetrable, and the questions may require you to discern elusive components such as the author’s implicit perspective or the subtle relationships between ideas.

On the science sections, you need to recall and apply specific scientific knowledge to answer the questions. In contrast, the CARS section does not require any prior knowledge of the passage topics. Instead, it challenges you to interpret and evaluate the information provided, making logical inferences and conclusions based on the text alone. This distinction highlights the emphasis on analytical skills.

According to the AAMC, 50% of the MCAT CARS passages cover topics from the humanities and the other 50% from the social sciences. This diversity of passage topics ensures that you encounter a broad spectrum of ideas and perspectives, reflecting the multifaceted nature of real-world issues.

Below are examples of passage topics, but there are many more:

• Ethics: Discussions of moral principles and dilemmas, often requiring you to evaluate the reasoning behind ethical decisions.
• Philosophy: Examinations of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, and values, challenging you to analyze philosophical arguments.
• Cultural Studies: Analyses of cultural phenomena and their impacts on society, which require you to understand cultural theories.

One of the most critical aspects of the CARS section is its focus on understanding the author’s intentions, tone, and perspective. To excel in this section, you need to go beyond mere reading comprehension and delve into the reasoning and rhetorical devices employed by the author.

Answering most CARS questions hinges on your ability to step back from the minutiae of the text and analyze why the author wrote the passage and how they constructed it. This means focusing on the big picture rather than getting bogged down in specific details. As you read, it’s helpful to create a mental picture of the author and their motivations.

Here are the key elements to focus on:

• Main Idea: What is the author trying to say? Identifying the central thesis or main argument of the passage is crucial. This helps in understanding the overall purpose and direction of the text.
• Purpose: Why did the author write this? Understanding the author’s intent—whether it’s to inform, persuade, critique, or entertain—can provide context for their arguments and help you anticipate their conclusions.
• Tone: How does the author feel about this? Recognizing the author’s tone—whether it’s neutral, critical, enthusiastic, or sarcastic—can give insights into their attitude towards the subject matter and their rhetorical style.
• Topic: What is the author writing about? Clearly identifying the subject of the passage helps in understanding the context and relevance of the information presented.
• Structure: How does the author organize the passage? Noting how the author structures their argument—whether through logical progression, cause and effect, comparison and contrast, or problem and solution—can help you follow their line of reasoning and anticipate their conclusions.

By focusing on these elements, you can better understand the underlying messages and the overall structure of the passages. This deeper comprehension is essential for accurately answering the questions that follow each passage.

Practical Application

So, as you tackle the CARS section, keep these strategies in mind:

• Create a Mental Image of the Author: Envision the author’s background, motivations, and perspective as you read.
• Focus on the Big Picture: Keep the main idea, purpose, and tone in mind rather than getting lost in specifics.
• Analyze Structural Elements: Look for clues like thesis statements, supporting evidence, and conclusions to better grasp the passage’s structure.

By honing these skills, you’ll improve your ability to discern the author’s intentions and answer questions accurately, all while developing critical thinking and analytical skills essential for a medical career.

Mastering the Basics: Foundations of Comprehension in CARS

Foundations of Comprehension is the first category of skills and is closest to basic reading comprehension. It accounts for 30% of questions and tests your ability to:

• Understand Basic Components: You need to identify the main ideas, themes, and key points of the passages. 
• Infer Meaning: This skill involves understanding the significance of rhetorical devices, word choice, and text structure. You must be able to interpret figurative language, identify the tone of the passage, and understand how the author’s choices shape the overall message.
• Example Question: What is the main argument the author is making in this passage?

Advanced Analysis: Reasoning Within the Text

Reasoning Within the Text is the second category of skills and goes beyond reading comprehension. These questions challenge you to think critically about how ideas are presented and connected within the passage. It accounts for 30% of questions and tests your ability to:

• Integrate Components: This involves combining different parts of the passage to enhance overall understanding. You need to see how individual sentences and paragraphs connect to form a cohesive argument or narrative.
• Evaluate Arguments: You must recognize and assess the strength and logic of the author’s claims. This includes identifying evidence, evaluating the soundness of the arguments, and understanding the author’s reasoning process.
• Example Question: Which of the following best supports the author’s argument about [specific topic]?

Expanding Ideas: Reasoning Beyond the Text

Reasoning Beyond the Text is the third category of skills and is the most challenging. These questions require a high level of mental flexibility and the ability to synthesize new information with what you’ve read, pushing you to apply your understanding in broader contexts. It accounts for 40% of questions and tests your ability to:

• Apply Ideas: Extrapolate information from the passage to new contexts. This means applying the concepts discussed in the passage to different scenarios or problems.
• Assess New Information: Evaluate the impact of introducing new factors or conditions to the ideas presented in the passage. You need to consider how additional information might change or influence the author’s arguments.
• Example Question: If the author were presented with [new information], how would it likely affect their argument?

The MCAT CARS section is scored on a scale of 118 to 132, just like the other sections of the MCAT. Each question on the CARS section contributes equally to your raw score, which is then converted to the scaled score using a statistical procedure called equating. This process adjusts for slight differences in difficulty across different test versions to ensure fairness. The resulting scaled score represents your performance relative to other test-takers.

Roughly one third of test-takers will score 127 or higher and this should be your target range—even higher if you have a weak GPA or you want to attend a top-ranked medical school.

CARS has a relatively steep scoring scale, and, with only 53 questions, there is a lot of psychological pressure to avoid mistakes. But perfection is NOT required. You can usually get one in four questions wrong and still comfortably pull off a 127. Cut that down to one in five and you’ll move above the 80th percentile. Remember this room for error whenever you get stuck on a really difficult CARS question. Make an educated guess and move on. Don’t allow one difficult question to drain your time and keep you from successfully finishing the section.

While the CARS section is difficult, consistent practice and proper review of your work can lead to excellent results!

For a detailed explanation of the MCAT scoring process, read our article Understanding Your MCAT Score Report.

The Critical Role of CARS Scores in Admissions

CARS scores play a pivotal role in the medical school admission process. Admission committees view the CARS score as a crucial indicator of a candidate’s critical thinking and analytical skills, which are essential for success in medical school. Here’s why:

• Critical Thinking: These skills are fundamental in medical training and practice, where physicians must interpret medical literature, understand patient histories, and make informed decisions.
• Predictor of Medical School Success: Research has shown that a strong performance on the CARS section correlates with success in medical school and on medical board exams.

The Weight of CARS Scores in Admission Decisions

How significant is your CARS score? In the past, medical school admission committees didn’t give as much weight to CARS as they did to the science sections. This has changed, given the CARS section’s predictive power. Nowadays, many medical schools consider your CARS score to be the most important for admission decisions as it best embodies your ability to think critically. 

A few medical schools now only look at your CARS score. Others have CARS cut-offs and you won’t stand a chance if you underperform on this one section—no matter how well you do on the science sections. Remember this if you are ever tempted to cut short your CARS practice. Medical schools are looking for intellectual dexterity and, in their view, your CARS score is a good proxy for this.

• Specific Schools: McMaster University only uses the CARS score in the selection process and it counts for 32% of the pre-interview decision (who gets an interview invitation) and 15% of the post-interview decision (who gets an offer of admission). The University of Calgary requires out-of-provice applicants to score 128 (90th percentile) or higher on CARS to even be considered for admission.
• Admission Strategy: High CARS scores can bolster an application, even if other section scores are average. Conversely, low CARS scores can be a red flag, regardless of strong performance in other areas.

CARS is challenging because it tests your ability to comprehend, analyze, and reason while being under a time constraint, reading passages that are long and complex, covering a wide range of topics.

The questions on the MCAT CARS section are not straightforward. They test your ability to understand the passage and analyze it critically. The questions often ask about the main idea, the author’s tone, or the application of information.

The answers to these questions can seem subjective. These multiple-choice questions often have more than one answer that seems correct. This can lead to confusion and uncertainty. The complexity of the questions and the subjectivity of the answers test your critical thinking skills. They require you to not just understand the text, but to interpret it and make inferences.

Lastly, time pressure adds another layer of difficulty. With only 90 minutes to answer 53 questions, speed, efficiency, and time management are crucial.

Additional reading: Why is the MCAT Difficult for Science Students?

Improving your MCAT CARS score requires a strategic approach that focuses on enhancing your reading comprehension, analytical skills, and test-taking strategies. Thankfully, this section becomes a lot more manageable with the right strategies.

• Skipping Around: Skipping around the CARS section to find easier passages is a bad idea. Some easy passages have difficult questions and some difficult passages have easy questions. Also, skipping around disrupts your flow and increases anxiety.
• Reading Questions First: Avoid reading the questions before the passage. This distracts you from fully comprehending the passage and understanding the author’s argument.
• Speed-Reading Techniques: Speed-reading compromises comprehension. Focus on thorough reading and understanding the passage’s main ideas and structure. 

Instead, adopt strategies such as:

• Consistent Practice: Practice with a few CARS passages every day. This will improve your active reading skills and your familiarity with different passage styles, question types and, most importantly, recurrent wrong answer types (extreme, beyond scope, narrow, etc.).
• Review Your Practice
• Focus on Accuracy, then Efficiency 
• Simulate Test Conditions: Practice under timed conditions to build stamina and efficiency.

Start your preparation early and incorporate diverse reading materials to enhance your comprehension and analytical skills. Philosophy books, such as Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant or Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, help develop complex thinking. Logic books, such as Introduction to Logic by Irving M. Copi, can improve your reasoning skills. Reading general non-fiction, such as essays from The New Yorker or The Atlantic, exposes you to different writing styles and topics. Focus on identifying the author’s perspective, understanding their arguments, and improving your vocabulary to better understand and analyze complex texts.

Later on, as you start planning your MCAT preparation, focus on CARS-specific resources.

At Prep101, we dedicate 32 hours to teaching CARS in our MCAT prep course (more than the vast majority of top-tier MCAT prep companies), ensuring you have the best preparation possible. By taking advantage of our extensive resources, practice materials, and expert guidance, you can build the skills needed to excel in the CARS section and increase your overall MCAT score.

For personalized advice and to learn more about how Prep101 can help you succeed, book a free consultation today. Good luck with your preparation!