MCAT Biology Section
Three Key Concepts Tested
The CARS section of the MCAT will assess your critical analysis and reasoning skills in three distinct areas:
Skill 1 (30%): Foundations of Comprehension
- Understanding the basic components of the text.
- Inferring meaning from rhetorical devices, word choice, and text structure.
Skill 2 (30%): Reasoning Within the Text
- Integrating different components of the text to increase comprehension.
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, and 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, and Studies of Diverse Cultures.
