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Students at all skill levels can usually eliminate one answer choice on every CARS question within 5-10 seconds of looking at the answer choices. Sounds crazy but it's a pretty consistent trend among the thousands of students we have worked with.

If you have tested previously you probably also know the feeling of eliminating one or even two answer choices easily and then running into the dreaded 50/50 decision. But have you ever wondered why that first answer choice gets knocked off so easily?

Is the AAMC stupid? They are mean, love to manipulate the grading curve, and ruin our lives on test day. But stupid? Not at all.

Giving us a free answer choice elimination is the MOST

consistent way to trick us into spending more

time on any given question.

We went pretty in depth into the psychology behind how AAMC rigs the 50/50 questions in CARS and a huge part of their strategy relies on making you believe you have a higher chance of getting a question correct than you actually do.

 For example, do you feel like you have a better chance on:

an easy question that you couldn’t eliminate any answer choices on?

or a hard question you eliminated 1 answer choice on?

Regardless of how difficult the AAMC has rated the question, during an exam we subjectively perceive difficulty depending on how much trouble a question is personally giving us. 

We are going to believe we have a much greater chance of getting a question correct when the odds are 1/3 vs 1/4. This belief makes us spend more time on the question despite the fact that it could be rated as a hard or ultra-hard by the AAMC and impossible to consistently solve unless you are a very high level test taker. 

Now imagine instead of having 1/3 odds you are down to only 2 answer choices remaining and you feel like you almost have the evidence needed to answer the question. 

It's really tempting to spend just an “extra minute” on this question right?  

That’s exactly the mentality that the AAMC wants to foster. If you break down their answer choices across hundreds of practice questions(we did it so you don’t have to) you can see a very clear trend emerge.

AAMC test writers love placing the 4 answer choices into certain categories(columns) and using each of the columns on most of the questions on the exam.

This is how the four column theory looks:

1. Question about the passage that gives you very little detail and expects you to be a genius.

1. One false (contradicts passage) or irrelevant(not related to question)answer choice [this is the one students typically eliminate first]

2. One answer choice that is true to the passage but does a poor job of answering the question

3. One answer choice that is true to the passage and answers the question to some degree possibly with a little passage evidence

4. One answer choice that is true to the passage and answers the question more than other answer choices while being supported by passage evidence

On easier questions you may have 2 false answer choices and on hard questions you may have none, but this general format holds for the vast majority of questions students will see. 

If you notice how the structure is built, AAMC is basically egging you on to eliminate one answer choice quickly and make your way up to the 50/50 situation where they know you will spend lots of time. 

This basic format is what we teach to students in order to decipher all the crazy question styles they will see on test day. If you think the AAMC practice tests are bad, just wait till the real exam when AAMC basically makes an entire batch of brand new question styles.

While these styles may look and sound different, if you are familiar with the four column theory it is easy to focus on the answers and start working your way up by eliminating the false and irrelevant answers first.

Deciding between answers in a 50/50 situation is also very challenging and often makes the difference between a 126 and a 128-130. Having a good answering strategy for CARS is often key to getting the question correct more consistently in these situations. 

So while the four column theory won’t explain the structure of every AAMC CARS question ever, it will help students rapidly decipher questions, especially on test day when you are forced to look at large groups of unfamiliar questions. 

Hopefully this explanation helps and if you would like to learn more about CARS or any other section, feel free to take a look at all our Free Strategy Courses. Best of luck on the exam!