Assessing and Integrating New Information Questions

00:01 The flip side of reasoning beyond the text questions is drawing outside context back in to the passage.

00:08 This would be like bringing a character from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings into your favorite novel.

00:14 This will involve a lot of the same skills that we've already discussed.

00:18 So we're maybe going to branch outward and just discuss how CARS passages in indeed, all of recently on the text questions can be considered malleable with the immediate context of the question stem.

00:31 Then we're going to examine two CARS question types, known as "what if" questions, and "least amount of change" questions.

00:38 Then we'll wrap this all up with how to take a strategic guess.

00:43 It's really easy to get behind on the CARS section.

00:45 And taking a strategic guess can occasionally help you to get back on track for time.

00:53 When we apply an external scenario to a CARS passage, it's very tempting to get stuck on our understanding of the passage.

01:01 But for the second half of reasoning beyond the text questions, accessing and integrating questions, you may consider the passage to be malleable, able to be reshaped, reformed, viewed in a different light.

01:17 The broadest category of assessing and integrating questions are "what if" questions.

01:23 A hypothetical fact might be introduced, and you would need to determine if it could peacefully coexist with the information in the passage, or if a new paradigm is required.

01:34 If a passage about racecars states that cadmium based catalytic converters were introduced in 1931, but the question stem informs you that a junkyard of pre-1920 cars was recently unearthed with traces of cadmium, you will need to assess whether this was compatible with the passage or whether in fact, the passage was incorrect.

01:57 We have always considered CARS authors to be real life breathing human beings that could make mistakes, right? "What if" questions simply gives you the opportunity to apply an outside citation, the kind of check and balance and existing passage, just like we would be expected to do so when reading real world literature.

02:22 The answer choices too can introduce new information.

02:26 This might come in the form of a least amount of change question stem, which asks you which of the four answer choices would least impact the passage? You can think of the correct answer choice as the one that aligns most with your understanding of the main idea of the particular point in question.

02:47 This opens up a bit of a can of worms.

02:50 You, the pre-med student have been trained to apply your absolute best towards every scenario.

02:57 But across the MCAT as a whole and CARS in particular, you will on occasion need to make a strategic guess to save time.

03:05 I personally recommend one to two across this CARS section as a whole on principle, typically on assessing in integrating least amount of change question types.

03:16 These questions are phrased in the negative and require you to evaluate four specific sections of context.

03:23 Go ahead and practice these question types to stay sharp.

03:27 But when you take time to practice sectionals, try not to spend more than a minute on them for taking your best answer based on your understanding of the passage and moving forward.