Did you know that 130+ scorers actually know and label the different types of sentences they come across in a typical CARS passage?
They know that if they can identify which type of sentence they’re reading, they’ll be able to gain a much better understanding of the passage, and pinpoint more correct answer choices.
This strategy is especially helpful for breaking down and understanding the messaging of the most difficult CARS passages.
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If you can get good at identifying these sentence types, your CARS score can increase dramatically.
So let's begin...
First, there are the Key Idea sentences.
Here, the author gives his or her own viewpoint that he or she hasn’t mentioned yet. The first time they mention it is when it’s most important to note. If they’ve already said it before and are just repeating it in a different way, it’s not as important because you’ve already identified it.
Top CARS scorers always have a radar for Key Idea sentences because they’re the most valuable. When you come across one of these, you must understand it completely. Even if you have to pause and think to completely understand it, then do that.
Recognizing if it’s a Key Idea sentence comes down to a few factors. The first is the obvious; if it isn’t the other types, then you know it’s this one. Another way 130+ scorers recognize a key idea sentence it that it usually entails a ‘summarizing’ phrase like ‘thus’, ‘therefore’, ‘in conclusion’, etc.
Also this isn’t a hard rule but you’ll often find Key Idea sentences show up after contrast words like ‘however’, ‘nevertheless’, ‘but’, ‘yet’, etc. Remember, you’re not concluding that whatever comes after the contrast word is a key idea – the point of contrast word recognition is to just set off an signal in your mind that a key idea most likely will be coming.
Second, there are the Evidence sentences.
Top scorers know these are the sentences that provide backing and support for the key idea.
So how do top scorers ensure they identify Evidence sentences correctly every time? Well these sentences are usually strong logical examples.
A lot of students confuse these sentences as statements that are just further expanding on the key idea. 130+ scorers know it’s important to know that distinction between whether it’s expanding or providing evidence because AAMC passages are very picky when it comes to what’s ‘evidence’ and what isn’t.
For example, if a statement said, “Most leaders in this city are passionate about abstract art.” Then, if the following sentence says, “They rarely enjoy art in the form of sculptures.” This is not an evidence-based sentence. This just expands the same point and isn’t giving us proof for it. We have no reason to believe the validity of any of these sentences because they all need evidence.
If another sentence said “Professional art researcher, David H., presents statistics in his recent book about leaders and their art preferences”, then we have some evidence about the initial sentences and a clear attempt by the author to validate the claim.
Next, there are ‘Elaboration’ sentences and ‘Acknowledgement’ sentences. These are the two sentence-types that are connected to reasons why most students keep choosing the incorrect answers on CARS.
Elaboration sentences are extremely important to identify. 130+ CARS scorers emphasize knowing the difference between Evidence and Elaboration sentences because whenever you get a ‘support’ question (which happens quite often), one or more of the answer choices will almost always pertain to Elaboration sentences to throw you off. And guess what? Choosing the Elaboration answer choice is probably one of the most common mistakes most students make.
Then we have the Acknowledgement sentences. Identifying these sentences are usually the most difficult, yet they’re just as important. Most students confuse these sentences with the Key Idea sentence, which is a huge mistake that leads to incorrect answer selections on majority of the questions, since almost all questions always pertain to the key idea.
We’ve covered both these sentences in much more detail, with examples so you can know exactly how to identify them and use them, in the 130+ Scorer CARS Mastery Report.
We've filled that downloadable PDF resource with dozens of powerful CARS strategies that 130+ scorers have constantly been using to dominate this section.
Lastly, know that top MCAT scorer’s have many secrets which all boil down to this one fact…
To score 128+ on every section of the MCAT, especially on CARS, there are two things you need to do…
1) Apply the right strategies and approaches so you're not wasting time studying inefficiently.
2) Do constant practice passages using these strategies so you can start naturally thinking like a top scorer.
If you practice doing passages properly, with the right framework and strategies, within weeks and sometimes days, you can get to the point where you start seeing through all the haze and unnecessary details.
You’ll see through the disguises, the fluff, that was placed there to confuse you, trick you, and most importantly, waste your time…
Eventually you'll realize that you're now thinking like a top scorer.
Unlike most premeds who don't have the correct strategies and are practicing in inefficient ways, who end up going through months of confusion, frustration, mediocre scores, and no real progress...
Most of whom never get into a good med-school because they didn't know how to approach one "scary from the outside" exam...
When your test date is just a week away, do you want to be in the shoes of the average premed or do you want to naturally be thinking like a top scorer?
You got this,
The MedLife Mastery Team
Your MCAT Success Mentors
P.S. When it comes to this sentence-analysis strategy, top scorers make sure to never stop after every sentence to analyze which type of sentence it is. That’ll take too much time.
You can do that when you review so you get a better ‘feel’ for passages so that during timed conditions when you’re taking tests, you’re identifying the sentence types more-so ‘in the background’.
As you constantly review and practice, it’ll become more automatic and easier. Just make sure you’re reviewing and taking practice tests correctly, with reliable strategy.
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