8 Easy Tips and Tricks to Score 131 in MCAT CARS

[@nicothemedstudent1082]

Moving on from hard questions is such a good tip! I increased a 122 to 127 from not getting stuck on the hard questions and maximizing the number I got correct! Theyre all worth the same !

[@EricSun20]

That's AWESOME to hear! Glad this video helped you :D

[@Carla25hf]

I appreciate you saying that you got a 123 diagnostic and raised it by practicing. A real life success story. Great video!

[@jiageng1997]

When Eric said take a break I thought it was going to be like 2 days. Turns out he was referring to 5-10 second breaks.

[@EricSun20]

To clarify: I meant 5-10 second breaks during the exam to refocus your mind :)

[@jiageng1997]

@@EricSun20 thank you for your clarification! Haha I actually understood what you meant later in your sentence. I got 130 for CARS (and 525 total) on the real thing :)

[@EricSun20]

Congrats!!! That is AMAZING :D

[@janelonton]

First off, your voice is sooooo soothing! It almost feels like your vid is about meditation (in a good way). LOL. And yes, accuracy over speed!! I realized this while practicing as well.

[@EricSun20]

You get it 😌✊. Thank you for the kind words Jane! :)

[@DollyDomDom]

I had so much anxiety prior to opening this video but you have such a calm relaxing voice my entire mood changed. Thanks Eric!

[@EricSun20]

Really glad that it helped calm you down! Hopefully it was helpful in other ways too :)

[@dr.howardvan4499]

Hello Eric, congrats on Mac, second 131 on CARS is excellent. I really like the video. I pass it along to my son to cheer him up a bit since he did not do well on first diagnostic CARS section.

[@EricSun20]

Thank you Dr. Van! I can't wait to hear what your son thought about the video - I'm sure he will start improving soon. I hope you and your family are doing well and staying safe during this time :)

[@lauraeager373]

Thanks for the tips! I’m retaking the MCAT (second attempt in 2 weeks!) and I’ve been working on making sure the answer choice answers the question. I relate SO much to second guessing and changing my answer from the right to wrong one. I also wrote a short summary after reading each paragraph to help me stay focused. I, too, keep logs of questions for all sections of every question, even the ones I get correct. While I make sure I answer every question, I often flag those I’m not 100% sure so I can review later if time allows. CARS is my favorite section as I’m a non-traditional applicant with a BA in English!

[@Sergio-qm9ij]

Can't wait to see your journey in med school! Can med school youtubers are a scarce resource. I hope you make a video addressing EC's and the MMI, thx man.

[@EricSun20]

Thanks, I have a video coming this Wednesday about some of the ECs I did during high school and university :)

[@yuhantang5334]

Thanks Eric! This is very inspirational! I have been doing a lot of practice, my accuracy for CARS is pretty good but I do not do well when I time myself. I don't think I am good with speed reading. I like how you are pushing yourself and overpreparing. When I have been studying so hard without reaching my goal score it is very discouraging. Watching your videos really keeps me motivated. I basically studied the way you did, and the only problem is I do not read fast enough, so once I time myself my score will go down.

[@lychaaaaa]

Accuracy over speed is a great tip! I've been trying to finish under 10min, but I notice I get more questions wrong. I'm going to start giving myself 15min and slowly work myself down to a shorter time. Thank you!

[@EricSun20]

Amazing Lychaaa! It's all about finding what works best for you. I hope the tips I shared are helpful and you improve your score :)

[@sarahgutierrez5628]

I feel so encouraged thank you!! Your video was so calming :))

[@itsmeashlib4394]

Your voice is soothing as hell! 😂 thank you for the info!!

[@Valeria-uz2lb]

thank you for this!! using this advice :)! Such a positive soul

[@EricSun20]

Thanks Valeria! I am incredibly glad it was helpful to you! Goodluck and stay in touch! :)

[@HiRSquared]

Congrats on your high score! And thank you for sharing your experience and tips! Great video (also love the calming background music!)

[@EricSun20]

Thank you so much! :)

[@marlenemichel297]

Thank you for sharing your wisdom!! You are a GENIUS!

[@EricSun20]

Thanks for watching my first video! Next week, I'll be posting the study schedule that I used to score a 523 (99th percentile) and all the resources that I used. Stay tuned to the channel! ⚡What tips were the most helpful for you? Comment below ⚡

[@tallonmuhlestein3162]

I came here because I was feeling frustrated that I haven't seen a lot of improvement in my CARS practice. I have been taking several practice exams and I wasn't "acing" (eye roll) the CARS section like others. I think the best tip is to practice and trust yourself. Dont worry about others and just keep practicing!

[@owensutton8413]

Congrats on getting into Mac 🎉 big accomplishments ahead

[@EricSun20]

Thanks Owen! Long time no speak! :)

[@الرفيق]

thanks for the tips Eric, Really appreciate it

[@arminsariaslani5139]

This helped alot, thanks man, deff drop more content we need more motivation for the MCAT season:)

[@EricSun20]

Great to hear Armin! New videos every Wednesday, subscribe to stay up to date :)

[@mrssquirtle]

can't wait to see more content!!!

[@EricSun20]

Thank you Alicia! Stay tuned for more :)

[@janelin3782]

Over preparing is a really helpful one !!

[@EricSun20]

Thanks Jane! 💓

[@shahbazmughal3911]

4:30 my man actually pulled out shoes, I love it 😂😂😂😂😂

[@EricSun20]

Never a bad time to flex 🤧🤧

[@jannatirfan6487]

Thank you so much for making this video. I am hopefully writing the MCAT in a few months and this video helped a lot :)

[@EricSun20]

Thanks Jannat :) I am really glad that you found this video helpful :)

[@Xman-et7te]

SO HELPFUL THANKS!

[@maricog658]

Thank you so much! Subscribed immediately can’t wait for more videos.

[@EricSun20]

Glad you enjoyed Biankaveli!

[@416pat]

Good stuff Eric!

[@EricSun20]

Thanks Pat! :D

[@jasonlau7178]

Hey Eric. Thanks man I appreciate the tips. I want to grow my confidence in CARS these days and your words were encouraging and helpful!

[@EricSun20]

Hey Jason, thank you for sharing! Love to hear that I'm being helpful 😁

[@DarrenChaiMD]

Practice practice practice makes progress. I definitely would 2nd the part about going for understanding before speed. When I was first starting off I would take even 15 mins/passage but after lots of practice it’s totally reasonable to get it down to 9mins!!!

[@EricSun20]

Exactly! For anyone reading this, Darren is an upper year medical student with some fantastic tips about medical school. I highly recommend checking out his channel!

[@DarrenChaiMD]

Eric Sun MD appreciate the shoutout man! Look forward to meeting you soon :)

[@miyanaka3849]

When I took my diagnostic test the CARS section was the best for me but I still need a lot more practice. Your video was really helpful and provided a lot of great ideas I’m gonna try to incorporate into my studying :))

[@ArmeenNabavi]

Haha I see that Western library silent study zone card in the background. Thanks for making such an informative video!

[@EricSun20]

Haha you already know! Thanks for the support :)

[@Gigalithz]

False advertising, I heard this guy actually got a 134

[@EricSun20]

The truth finally comes out :o

[@crystalwu2584]

Great video!! 👏🏼

[@EricSun20]

Thanks Crystal! :D

[@mrnarason]

So a lot of people who take the mcat come from a stem background, where reading and writing is not nearly as important to as, say humanities majors. This is a major problem because CARS passages are basically short essays, if you are not used to reading essays, you will do very poorly. You know that history, English, philosophy, or politics class you took freshman year, and they made you read and analyze an author in the field's essay that you thought was complete BS as a lofty stem major? Well this is exactly what it's testing you on. Essays are not like fiction novels or science articles you are used to. They are essential arguments or theses, the author is trying to tell you about something or convince you about something. And often the manner they do it is a type of prose you aren't familiar with, which makes you confused. In novels, information and often intention is told to you, same with scientific articles where there are very direct statements or explanations. This is not the case with essayist writings. And it's not for the reason you think, purposeful obfuscation for pretentious or esoteric non-stem scholars. Essays' topics form a wide range and can often be a complicated or obscure subject matter or something simple or quaint. The language they use is often very verbose or indirect, which is often bewildering to the uninitiated. But once you become initiated, the prosaic or prosaically written arguments and ideas; what the author is writing makes a lot of sense and you truly understand or at least the gist, of every sentence the author said. So, for the studying of cars, I think practice reading essays is the best way to ready or condition oneself for the cars section, beside directly testing yourself in practice cars sections. I recommend picking up "The Globalization Reader". It has a bunch of essays in the same vein and difficulty of the cars about politics, international relations, Global Studies, sociology, and all that crap. If you can read those essays and answer the questions in the back then you should do fine. Any other book with a collection of essays should do the same, regardless of topic. And of course why would this be useful for someone who is trying to become a doctor. You're not going to be writing essays as a doctor, of course. It is clear that the purpose of cars is to be able to extract information from a large subset of information and be able to draw the correct conclusion or most valid interpretation from it. Also the fact that you can read analyze difficult passages shows your level of critical thinking and able to discern things that are ostensible to improbable.

[@EricSun20]

Never seen this much detail in a comment before. Victor brings up some great points everyone!

[@rudrapandya2603]

Top tier CARS advice 🙌🏽

[@EricSun20]

Thank you Rudra! 💓

[@natalieg4052]

It’s the salt lamp in the background for me. Thank you for this video! It is golden!

[@EricSun20]

Another really kind comment, thank you Natalie :)

[@alexb9319]

Omg I started with a 123 CARS diagnostic too😩 thanks for this video!!!

[@EricSun20]

You'll see improvement soon! Thanks Alex!

[@nicholashaynes3483]

Thanks for the great advice. Would you recommend reading the questions before the passage? Having trouble deciding which approach is better.

[@EricSun20]

Hey Nicholas, I would recommend not reading the questions before the passage. If you take this approach, then you might be biased towards looking for specific things in the passage, which might cause you to not see some important details. Try reading the passage first to get a good general understanding of its contents before looking at the questions.

[@polarchips]

Helpful and very relaxing video. Gave me a lot of confidence and hope going forward in my studying. Maybe I'll see you at Mac one day :)

[@EricSun20]

Hey PolarChips! Thanks for sharing that with me. I hope I get to see you at Mac one day too! :)

[@James-nj3kk]

Great video thank you! Please could you link your cars log of all your wrong answers just so I can see how you went through your mistakes.

[@EricSun20]

Unfortunately, I'm having a difficult time locating it, but it essentially just included a category of what kind of mistake it was (i.e. missed the main idea, didn't see supporting evidence, misread something) and a short lesson that I was going to take away from the mistake. Hope that helps! :)

[@James-nj3kk]

@@EricSun20 No problem and thank you for the advice I will make sure to incorporate it. Last Q did you create a cheat sheet for CP or immediately write anything down on the whiteboard on test day? Thank you again!

[@EricSun20]

I didn't make any kind of cheat sheet. I find scrambling to write stuff down to refer to afterwards can actually be detrimental (i.e. what if you are so stressed you write the equation down wrong). I prefer to rely on a solid understanding of the equation and memorize it beforehand

[@IceCreamMT]

I’m really curious about what do you bring to eat to the test center that wouldn’t make you fall asleep? Or just normal practice exam 30 minute breaks?

[@corallechuga7809]

thank you so much for this helpful information

[@EricSun20]

Glad it helped Coral! :D

[@jordanlee2837]

Do you have any tips on memorizing the Erik Sun’s stages of development?

[@EricSun20]

Hey Jordan, assuming you mean Piaget, I would love to share some free advice. I imagined myself at that stage in life or imagined family or kids that I knew around that age. Making that real-world connection helped me with the concept of each stage, and I only had to memorize the age groups! Hope that helps :)

[@wendyzhai1035]

Hello Eric, congrats on getting into mac master! I'm from Western and these tips are really helpful! Just wondering, did you practice every day? How many passages did you do each day?

[@EricSun20]

Hey Wendy! I just graduated from Western this year, go Mustangs! I am posting another video next week with my study schedule and the resources I used so stay tuned. But long story short, I practiced CARS for around 90 minutes Monday to Friday. Hope this helps!

[@wendyzhai1035]

thx! will be waiting for your next video!

[@EricSun20]

Thanks Wendy! :)

[@jaylim2798]

Hi Eric Great tips and videos. Do you by any chance offer consulting sessions privately for the CARS section?

[@BillyBob-tr5cv]

I heard reading books also help. Like aiming for a book a week and then 2 books a week and keeping that constant reading style until the exam. Obviously with practice, but I was wondering what your input is on this.

[@EricSun20]

Of course, some experience reading would always help. But I find that within the 3-4 months people typically spend studying, you usually can't get MUCH better than in your ~18 years of reading. Focused practice on reading > Reading books casually

[@wl5721]

Hi Eric, I've followed your channel for a bit of time, thank you for sharing! Could you please tell me how you prepared the talking in this video recording? Is it bullet points, do you rehearse ahead of time, or even just read off the scripts? Sorry for such a random question, not sure if you'll notice and be kind enough to share some tips, I really appreciate it!

[@Martin_Leung]

wooah 131 ain't no joke, love this! Hope to see more from you through your med school years! Also it was pretty funny how your hair changed throughout the video 😂

[@EricSun20]

Can't wait to follow your journey too! You're the first to mention the easter egg 👀👀

[@jameschan3992]

Hey great video. I was curious what sources did you use to practise CARS?

[@EricSun20]

Thank you! I will be posting another video next week detailing the resources I used, but some of the bigger ones for CARS were Jack Westin, TPR hyperlearning, and EK verbal reasoning!

[@zachyazdani5967]

Hi, what practice did you do for cars? JW, uworld, Aamc? If you practice a lot then you would run out of aamc cars material pretty quick right

[@garlic98]

hi I am not sure on how to keep track of mistakes/what to write in the mistakes log. Would you be able to give an example or share your mistakes log? Thank you

[@EricSun20]

I keep track of why I got questions wrong: i.e. concept, didn't read question right, didn't understand. Then I fix that problem! :)

[@garlic98]

@@EricSun20 Thank you!

[@catafernandezzzz]

when you say you would get 75% accuracy and then move on, how exactly did you do this? Did you make sure to get 75% on at least "x" amount of passages (i.e. 5) and then make sure to decrease your time? I test in a month and a half and am really struggling with CARS so I want to try your strategy but I am not really sure how to implement it

[@EricSun20]

Hey Catalina, yes exactly like that. Start with one passage, make sure you can at least hit 75%, then add another passage and make sure you can get 75% on both. Then keep adding more and more until you get to 9. Hope that helps you :)

[@almiraalmira1451]

Hi, thanks for this super helpful video. Would it be possible to do a video going over a CARS passage?

[@EricSun20]

Thanks for the kind reply :) sure I can do that soon, subscribe so you don't miss it!

[@Gigalithz]

@4:22 for a joke!

[@EricSun20]

Funny guy eh

[@michaelmontross4006]

Hey Eric, how did you go about reducing your time per passage? Did this happen naturally as you practiced more, or did you have some sort of system in place?

[@EricSun20]

Hey Michael, great question. I naturally got faster as I practiced, but I also consciously gave myself less and less time as I continued practicing (i.e. 30seconds faster than last week)

[@ucheakoma863]

Why did you use the old examkrackers verbal reasoning book and not the new cars edition?

[@EricSun20]

New doesn't always mean better. This was definitely the case here because the old one was more representative

[@ucheakoma863]

Thanks for that quick and timely response homie! Ordering now!

[@EricSun20]

Awesome Uche! :)

[@satinderjit4]

When the shoes came up, I loled.

[@TheTamorres]

where can I get a diagnostic test? I'm trying to know what my starting score would be before I actually start preparing for it..

[@EricSun20]

Check out this video where I go through all of the resources that I used including a free diagnostic test: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iHXLp6KKq5iApc0. I would use the free diagnostic test from BluePrint Prep. I found it to be a helpful first test to start off with before I started my studying. Hope this helps :)

[@natalieg4052]

I love the soothing piano music in the background

[@EricSun20]

Thanks Natalie! :D

[@sunairaahmed3720]

Hi! I had a question regarding doing third party cars. I know you did several of them per day before starting AAMC, so how did you not get caught up in the logic before moving on to aamc since their logic is different? How did you make sure to not get caught up on third party cars reasoning when u go over the answers (basically how did you go over them) Im scared that once i transition to aamc cars, my score will be lower because i heard their logic is diff than third party Also do you recommend doing TPR hyperlearning cars workbook from 2011? I saw it on ur mcat schedule and I was wondering what u liked about it!

[@mucenyu7419]

😊😊

[@ChocolateVodka9]

Thank you sir

[@marinahanna5513]

what sources did you use to practice CARS tho

[@EricSun20]

Hey Marina! I answer that exact question here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iHXLp6KKq5iApc0

[@maddieek6865]

I always get stuck between 2 and choose the wrong one lol. Any tips for that?

[@EricSun20]

Hey Maddiee, that's great you can get it down to 2 answers already. If you were purely guessing, you already have a 50% of getting it right which is the best you can do sometimes. If you find that you're usually choosing the wrong one, go through the same process of self-analysis. "Why did I choose this? What could I do better next time? Why do I usually get this kind of questions wrong?". Asking yourself these questions will help you next time you come across a question where you are stuck between two choices

[@maddieek6865]

@@EricSun20 thank you so much for the reply!!!I'll think about this next time. I've been doing practice qs and have been getting frustrated hahaha. Love your vids!!

[@Al-pf7bg]

Niceeee

[@EricSun20]

Thanks Alex! :)

[@sonamm1137]

how many passages would you do every day?

[@EricSun20]

Do whatever is helpful and manageable for you. For me, that was between 3-7 passages a day which gradually became 9 passages a day as I got closer to the exam!

[@sonamm1137]

@@EricSun20 did u stick to aamc or what other company the closer you got to your test date

[@EricSun20]

Definitely AAMC!

[@sonamm1137]

I might run out of aamc. What’s the next best thing.

[@EricSun20]

@@sonamm1137 TPR Hyperlearning is great practice! Would google that :)

[@estherkim7266]

This was so helpful! Thank you, Eric! :) What do you think is the most effective way to review a CARS practice test after you take one?

[@EricSun20]

Hey Esther, I would recommend you go through and look for why you got a question wrong (i.e. didn't read the question well or didn't know the concept). Once you know the cause of the problem, you can go about fixing that exact problem and improving for your next test. Goodluck!

[@TheGrapplingNinja]

I wanna get into Mac med

[@EricSun20]

Hey! Reach out to me on insta or fb if you have anything I can help out with. Links in my description!

[@EricSun20]

Hey! Reach out to me on insta or fb if you have anything I can help out with. Links in my description!

[@elam9914]

Can u make a vid on how to smile as wide as the Sun to help put patients at ease?

[@EricSun20]

You read my mind 😍

[@elizabeth5986]

Carry me to 131

[@EricSun20]

You don't need anyone to carry you; it's always been inside you

[@kingofthefall7883]

🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@EricSun20]

Hope this helps you! :)