Examkrackers Mcat 101 Passages: Cars: Critical Analysis & Reasoning Skills

While I do like the general stategy that EK provides for tackling CARS (focus on the main idea, avoid referring to the original passage as much as possible), I can't recommend this question package. Half the questions have a 50/50 answer where the correct answer seems to be chosen based on a subjective criteria. The solutions provided are paragraphs long and sometimes require some logical hoop jumping to justify. The difficulty is also wildy inconsistent, one practice set I got high 70% and then the next set I got 49%. I don't have any reason to believe I degraded my ability 20% within two weeks, but it just seems too inconsistent for me. I know these passages are supposed to be difficult, but the question stems and answer choices just don't seem reasonable when compared to other CARS sources.

It's nice that there are so many passages (I was anxious about running out of practice material) but the quality of the material is not ideal. The questions are not representative of what you will likely encounter on the actual MCAT (I took the MCAT last summer, I am preparing for round two). My problem with this book is just their answer options. The passages and question stems are pretty representative, but the answers and the explanations provided in their solutions are not. The AAMC will not ask you to speculate the way that these questions/answers do. The Princeton Review and Kaplan offer superior practice material. If you purchase this book for CARS practice, use it for timing, and passage mapping, but don't freak out if your score is much, much, lower than it typically has been with other practice materials, and don't sweat it if the solutions seem far fetched to you. It's not you! It's the material.

Personally, the passages were a little tricky, but practice is practice, and the more practice you do, the better you'll get, so you might as well get the book.

Great passages

Perfect condition.