MCAT CARS Practice Questions

Getting ready to tackle the MCAT? Let’s talk about the Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS) section – the one that often keeps students up at night. But fear not! We’re diving into MCAT CARS Practice Questions to help you navigate this challenging part of the exam. Let’s break down what to expect, why it matters, and how to tackle it head-on.

What’s the MCAT CARS Section? 

The MCAT CARS (Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills) section is a unique part of the exam that tests your ability to understand and analyze complex written passages. Unlike other sections of the MCAT, it doesn’t focus on specific scientific knowledge but instead emphasizes critical thinking, comprehension, and reasoning.

In this section, you’ll encounter a variety of passages covering topics from humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Each passage is followed by multiple-choice questions designed to assess your ability to identify main ideas, analyze arguments, and draw logical conclusions.

Critical reading is at the core of the MCAT CARS section. It requires actively engaging with the passage, understanding the author’s argument, and evaluating evidence, including tone and biases.

Time management is key in the MCAT CARS section, as you’ll need to read and answer questions for 9 passages within approximately 90 minutes. Practicing with official MCAT CARS materials can help improve your reading speed and comprehension.

To succeed in the MCAT CARS section, consistent practice and familiarity with passage types and question formats are essential. By refining your critical thinking and analytical skills, you’ll be better equipped to excel in the MCAT and in your future medical studies.

MCAT CARS Practice Question #1:

This passage and the questions that follow offer a glimpse into what you can expect from the MCAT CARS section. (Answers are provided at the end for you to test yourself.)

Passage: Seeing color through Homer’s eyes

“For someone used to contemporary academic writing, reading the chapter on color in William Gladstone’s Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age (1858) comes as rather a shock—the shock of meeting an extraordinary mind. It is therefore all the more startling that Gladstone’s nineteenth century tour de force comes to such a strange conclusion: Homer and his contemporaries perceived the world in something closer to black and white than to full Technicolor.

No one would deny that there is a wide gulf between Homer’s world and ours: in the millennia that separate us, empires have risen and fallen, religions and ideologies have come and gone, and science and technology have transformed our intellectual horizons and almost every aspect of daily life beyond all recognition. Surely one aspect that must have remained exactly the same since Homer’s day, even since time immemorial, would be the rich colors of nature: the blue of sky and sea, the glowing red of dawn, the green of fresh leaves.

Gladstone says things are not the same, for many reasons. One, Homer uses the same word to denote colors which, according to us, are essentially different. For example, he describes as “violet” the sea, sheep, and iron. Two, Homer’s similes are so rich with sensible imagery, we expect to find color a frequent and prominent ingredient, and yet his poppies have never so much as a hint of scarlet. 

Three, Gladstone notes, Homer uses “black” about 170 times, “white” 100 times, “red” thirteen, “yellow” ten, “violet” six times, and the other colors even less often. Four, Homer’s color vocabulary is astonishingly small. There doesn’t seem to be anything equivalent to our orange or pink in Homer’s color palette; most striking is the lack of any word that could be taken to mean “blue.”

What is more, Gladstone proves that the oddities in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey could not have stemmed from any problems peculiar to Homer. “Violet-colored hair” was used by Pindar in his poems.

Gladstone is well aware of the utter weirdness of his thesis—nothing less than universal color blindness among the ancient Greeks—so he tries to make it more palatable by evoking an evolutionary explanation for how sensitivity to colors could have increased over the generations. The perception of color, he says, seems natural to us only because humankind as a whole has undergone a progressive “education of the eye” over the last millennia. The eye’s ability to perceive and appreciate differences in color, he suggests, can improve with practice, and these acquired improvements are then passed on to offspring.

But why, one may well ask, should this progressive refinement of color vision not have started much earlier than the Homeric period? Gladstone’s theory is that the appreciation of color as a property independent of a particular material develops only with the capacity to manipulate colors artificially. 

And that capacity, he notes, barely existed in Homer’s day: the art of dyeing was in its infancy, cultivation of flowers was not practiced, and almost all of the brightly colored objects we take for granted were entirely absent. Other than the ocean, people in Homer’s day may have gone through life without ever setting their eyes on a single blue object. 

Blue eyes, Gladstone explains, were in short supply; blue dyes, which are very difficult to manufacture, were practically unknown; and natural flowers that are truly blue are rare.

Gladstone’s analysis was brilliant, but completely off course. Indeed, philologists, anthropologists, and even natural scientists would need decades to free themselves from the error of underestimating the power of culture.”

Adapted from G. Deutscher, Through the language glass: why the world looks different in other languages. ©2010 Metropolitan Books.

Multiple-Choice-Questions

Q1: Based on the passage, which of the following best summarizes Gladstone’s conclusion regarding Homer and his contemporaries’ perception of color?

A) Homer’s works are rich in colorful descriptions, reflecting a keen awareness of different hues.

B) Homer and his contemporaries perceived the world in colors similar to those in modern times.

C) Gladstone argues that Homer’s color vocabulary was limited, suggesting a perception closer to black and white.

D) Gladstone’s analysis supports the idea that Homer’s descriptions of color were influenced by cultural factors.

Q2: What does Gladstone attribute as a reason for the limited color vocabulary in Homer’s works?

A) The absence of brightly colored objects in Homer’s environment.

B) The lack of appreciation for color as an independent property.

C) The scarcity of blue dyes and natural flowers in Homer’s time.

D) The prevalence of universal color blindness among ancient Greeks.

Q3: How does Gladstone attempt to reconcile his theory of color perception with the apparent richness of Homer’s similes?

A) By suggesting that Homer intentionally avoided colorful descriptions in his similes.

B) By arguing that Homer’s similes reflect a different cultural understanding of color.

C) By proposing an evolutionary explanation for the improvement of color vision over generations.

D) By claiming that Homer’s similes were misinterpreted by later generations.

Q4: Which of the following statements best describes Gladstone’s perspective on the perception of color in Homer’s time?

A) Gladstone believes that Homer’s contemporaries had a sophisticated understanding of color.

B) Gladstone argues that Homer’s descriptions of color were influenced by cultural and technological limitations.

C) Gladstone suggests that Homer’s contemporaries were inherently less sensitive to color than modern humans.

D) Gladstone contends that Homer’s descriptions of color were accurate representations of his environment.

Q5: How does Gladstone address the potential criticism of his theory regarding color perception in Homer’s time?

A) By providing evidence of similar color perceptions in other ancient cultures.

B) By acknowledging the limitations of his theory and proposing alternative explanations.

C) By emphasizing the importance of cultural factors in shaping perceptions of color.

D) By dismissing the idea that Homer’s descriptions of color were influenced by cultural factors.

Solutions:

1. Correct Answer: C) Gladstone argues that Homer’s color vocabulary was limited, suggesting a perception closer to black and white.

Explanation: Gladstone’s conclusion, as stated in the passage, is that Homer and his contemporaries perceived the world in something closer to black and white than to full Technicolor. He supports this by highlighting Homer’s limited color vocabulary and the absence of certain colors in his descriptions, indicating a perception different from modern times.

2. Correct Answer: C) The scarcity of blue dyes and natural flowers in Homer’s time.

Explanation: Gladstone attributes the limited color vocabulary in Homer’s works to the lack of certain colors in his environment. He specifically mentions the scarcity of blue dyes and natural flowers in Homer’s time, suggesting that the absence of these colorful objects influenced Homer’s descriptions.

3. Correct Answer: B) By arguing that Homer’s similes reflect a different cultural understanding of color.

Explanation: Gladstone attempts to reconcile his theory of color perception by suggesting that Homer’s similes reflect a different cultural understanding of color. He acknowledges that Homer’s similes are rich with sensible imagery but argues that they do not necessarily indicate a perception of color as understood in modern times.

4. Correct Answer: B) Gladstone argues that Homer’s descriptions of color were influenced by cultural and technological limitations.

Explanation: Gladstone’s perspective, as presented in the passage, is that Homer’s descriptions of color were influenced by cultural and technological limitations of his time. He argues that the absence of certain colors in Homer’s vocabulary and descriptions can be attributed to these limitations.

5. Correct Answer: B) By acknowledging the limitations of his theory and proposing alternative explanations.

Explanation: Gladstone addresses potential criticism of his theory by acknowledging its limitations and proposing alternative explanations. While he presents his theory of color perception in Homer’s time, he also acknowledges the complexity of the issue and the possibility of alternative interpretations.

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MCAT CARS Practice Question #2:

This passage and the questions that follow offer a glimpse into what you can expect from the MCAT CARS section. Remember, this is just an excerpt; a full passage would be lengthier and typically include five to seven associated questions.(Answers are provided at the end for you to test yourself.)

Passage: Does Free Will Exist?

“Is there such a thing as free will? Perhaps the philosopher who has gotten closest to a sensible understanding of free will is Daniel C. Dennett, who thinks of the phenomenon as “the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes . . . the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures.”

Over the last few decades, science has made small but significant advances in understanding the relationship between conscious and unconscious thought, and the data are beginning to paint a picture that seems to validate Dennett’s views. 

In the 1970s, Benjamin Libet wired people to an electroencephalogram and measured when they reported having a particular conscious thought about an action and when the nerve impulses corresponding to the initiation of the actual action started. Astoundingly, the subjects had actually made (unconsciously) the decision to act measurably earlier than when they became aware of it consciously. The conscious awareness, in a sense, was a “story” that the higher cognitive parts of the brain told to account for the action.

So science may be showing us that free will is more a feeling than a real manifestation of independent will. As psychologist Dan Wegner put it, “We see two tips of the iceberg, the thought and the action, and we draw a connection.” Libet’s position is a bit more moderate and is akin to Dennett’s. Libet says that free will is a form of veto power, filtering and sometimes blocking decisions provisionally made at the unconscious level.

Quantum mechanics is sometimes brought into discussions of free will by supporters of pseudoscience because it is very technical and, more important, incomprehensible enough to lend that aura of scientific credibility without committing one to specific details. 

Some philosophers and scientists suggest that perhaps free will can be explained by occasional quantum fluctuations that, by interfering with subcellular phenomena in the brain, create a partial decoupling of our decision-making processes from the standard macroscopic laws of causality. 

This is nonsense, not only because we have absolutely no evidence of “quantum fluctuations” (whatever they are) at the brain level, but because, even if they did happen, they would—at most—generate random, not free, will. And random will is not one of those varieties of free will that is, in Dennett’s words, “worth having.”

Another source of confusion between science and philosophy when it comes to free will is to be found in the rather vague concept of “emergent properties,” for example, the notion of free will being an emergent property of the higher brain’s functions. Even though some scientists are predisposed to reject emergent properties, “emergence” can actually be studied scientifically and is a rather common phenomenon. 

For example, when hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water, the resulting molecule has emergent physical–chemical properties, in the sense that the temperatures marking transition states are not simple functions of the properties of the individual atoms.

Some philosophers have argued that emergence restricts the limits of reductionism, not because it isn’t “physics all the way down,” but because, frankly, a quantum mechanical description of, say, the Brooklyn Bridge isn’t going to be very helpful. Emergence entails that certain phenomena are best studied, and understood, at some levels of analysis rather than others, and free will may well fall into this category. 

To say that it is an emergent property of the brain is not a call for magic or pseudoscience, just the realization that neurobiology and psychology are better positioned than quantum mechanics to understand it.”

Adapted from M. Pigliucci, Can there be a science of free will? ©2007 the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Multiple-Choice-Questions

Q1. Based on the information provided, what does Daniel C. Dennett consider to be the essence of free will?

A) The ability to predict future actions consciously

B) The ability to control unconscious urges

C) The power of imagination to envision different outcomes

D) The ability to consciously make decisions independently of unconscious processes

Q2. Which of the following best summarizes the main argument against the role of quantum mechanics in explaining free will?

A) Quantum mechanics is too complex to comprehend and therefore cannot be applied to philosophical concepts like free will.

B) Quantum fluctuations may influence brain processes, but they would only result in random, not truly free, decisions.

C) Quantum mechanics lacks empirical evidence to support its relevance in understanding human decision-making.

D) Quantum mechanics only applies to physical phenomena and cannot account for abstract concepts like free will.

Q3. What is the primary implication of Libet’s research findings regarding the timing of conscious decisions?

A) Conscious decisions precede unconscious impulses.

B) Unconscious decisions precede conscious awareness.

C) Conscious decisions and unconscious impulses occur simultaneously.

D) Conscious awareness influences the timing of unconscious impulses.

Solutions:

1. Correct Answer: B) Unconscious decisions precede conscious awareness.

Explanation: Benjamin Libet’s research indicates that the brain makes decisions unconsciously before individuals are consciously aware of them. This suggests that our conscious awareness of decision-making might be more of a retrospective narrative created by the brain to explain actions that have already been initiated at an unconscious level.

2. Correct Answer: D) Emergence entails that certain phenomena are best studied at some levels of analysis rather than others, and free will may well fall into this category.

Explanation: The passage discusses emergence as a concept in both science and philosophy. It suggests that free will might be better understood through disciplines like neurobiology and psychology, rather than through quantum mechanics. This implies that while reductionism is valuable in some contexts, emergent properties like free will might require different levels of analysis for comprehensive understanding.

3. Correct Answer: C) Emergence can be studied scientifically and is a common phenomenon, but it doesn’t imply a mystical or pseudoscientific explanation.

Explanation: The passage discusses emergence as a concept that is not necessarily mystical or pseudoscientific. Instead, it suggests that emergence can be scientifically studied and is a common occurrence in various phenomena, such as the combination of hydrogen and oxygen to form water. This option accurately reflects the passage’s discussion of emergence and its relationship to scientific inquiry without resorting to mystical or pseudoscientific explanations.

Key Takeaways

In conclusion, understanding the MCAT CARS section is crucial for success. With practice and strategic preparation, you can improve your critical thinking and reasoning skills. Remember to analyze passages carefully, identify key ideas, and answer questions effectively. 

For personalized guidance and support, consider Medic Mind’s MCAT tutors. Our experienced team can provide the assistance you need to excel in the CARS section and achieve your goals. 

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FAQs:

What is the best way to improve my performance in the MCAT CARS section?

Improving in the MCAT CARS section requires consistent practice and strategic preparation. Start by familiarizing yourself with the question types and passage structures commonly seen on the exam. Dedicate regular study sessions to reading challenging texts and practicing critical thinking and reasoning skills. Additionally, consider seeking guidance from experienced tutors or joining study groups to gain insights and feedback on your performance. 

How can I manage my time effectively during the MCAT CARS section?

Answer: Time management is crucial for success in the MCAT CARS section. Begin by allocating a set amount of time to read each passage and answer the accompanying questions. Practice pacing yourself during timed practice sessions to ensure that you can complete each passage within the allotted time frame. Additionally, consider implementing strategies such as skimming passages for main ideas, prioritizing questions based on difficulty, and avoiding spending too much time on individual questions. 

Is there a recommended approach for tackling difficult passages in the MCAT CARS section?

When faced with challenging passages in the MCAT CARS section, it’s essential to remain calm and focused. Start by skimming the passage to grasp its main ideas and structure before delving into the details. Pay attention to keywords and transitional phrases that signal shifts in the author’s argument or perspective. Break down complex sentences into smaller segments to enhance comprehension, and take brief notes to capture key points as you read. Additionally, prioritize answering questions that focus on main ideas and author’s tone before addressing more detail-oriented inquiries. 

How important is the MCAT CARS section compared to other sections of the exam?

While every section of the MCAT is important, the MCAT CARS section holds particular significance for medical school admissions committees. This section assesses critical thinking, reasoning, and comprehension skills, which are essential for success in medical school and beyond. 

Admissions committees use MCAT CARS scores as indicators of an applicant’s ability to analyze complex texts, draw logical conclusions, and communicate effectively—skills that are vital for medical professionals. Therefore, it’s essential to dedicate sufficient time and effort to prepare for the MCAT CARS section and strive for a competitive score to strengthen your overall medical school application.

Can I improve my performance in the MCAT CARS section if English is not my first language?

Yes, it is possible to improve your performance in the MCAT CARS section even if English is not your first language. Start by immersing yourself in English-language materials such as books, articles, and academic texts to enhance your reading comprehension and vocabulary skills. Consider enrolling in English language courses or working with tutors to strengthen your grammar and language proficiency. 

Additionally, practice regularly with MCAT CARS-style passages and questions to familiarize yourself with the exam format and improve your critical thinking and reasoning abilities.