The CARS Section - Critical Analysis and Reasoning
Three Key Skills Tested
The Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills - CARS section of the MCAT is a 90-minute section containing 53 multiple-choice questions.
This section of the MCAT exam includes passages and questions that test your ability to comprehend what you read and has been developed specifically to measure the analysis and reasoning skills you will need to be successful in medical school. You will be asked to read and think about passages from a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, then answer a series of questions.
These passages are relatively short, typically between 500 and 600 words, but they are complex, often thought-provoking pieces of writing with sophisticated vocabulary and, at times, intricate writing styles. Everything you need to know to answer test questions is in the passages and the questions themselves. No additional coursework or specific knowledge is required. You will not only need to assess the content but also need to consider the authors’ intentions and tones and the words they used to express their points of view.
Skill 1 (30%):
Foundations of Comprehension
- Understanding the basic components of the text.
- Inferring meaning from rhetorical devices, word choice, and text structure.
More Details
Skill 2 (30%):
Reasoning Within the Text
- Integrating different components of the text to increase comprehension.
More Details
Skill 3 (40%):
Reasoning Beyond the Text
- Applying or extrapolating ideas from the passage to new contexts.
- Assessing the impact of introducing new factors, information, or conditions to ideas from the passage.
Passage Types:
Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills passages come from a variety of humanities and social sciences disciplines.
Humanities (50%):
Passages in the humanities are drawn from a variety of disciplines, including (but not limited to):
- Architecture
- Art
- Dance
- Ethics
- Literature
- Music
- Philosophy
- Popular Culture
- Religion
- Theater
- Studies of Diverse Cultures
Social Science (50%):
Social sciences passages are also drawn from a variety of disciplines, including (but not limited to):
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Economics
- Education
- Geography
- History
- Linguistics
- Political Science
- Population Health
- Psychology
- Sociology
- Studies of Diverse Cultures
More Details
