Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS)

Our Thoughts

There are no shortcuts. Do a ton of practice to improve in CARS. If English is not your first language, then you may want to spend some of your study time just reading some challenging books in English on a variety of topics, but, realistically, who has time?

Do the official practice from the AAMC exclusively in the last 4-8 weeks before you take the exam. Third party resources will not always perfectly align with the reasoning of the exam. However, if you found any other resources helpful, please share!

My biggest challenges personally were:

1. Do NOT bring any outside knowledge to your answers. If you know something about the passage, even common knowledge, forget it!

2. Trust the author. This was difficult for me. Occasionally, there is a passage that just feels wrong. In most cases, it is necessary to take the passage at face value. Exceptions will have language indicating satire, but that is really rare in my experience.

I would like this to be a forum for sharing resources and discussing strategies. Please just keep in mind that your strategy should be individualized to your needs.