MCAT CARS flashcards
MCAT CARS · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Main idea
- The unifying claim that covers the entire passage rather than one paragraph; it must be broad enough to include all sections and specific enough to exclude unrelated true statements.
- Supporting detail
- A specific fact, example, or quotation offered to advance the passage's larger claim; it is true within the text but does not by itself summarize the whole passage.
- Author's tone
- The attitude conveyed through evaluative word choice, hedges, and emphasis; it is inferred from diction rather than from the topic the passage discusses.
- Paragraph function
- The rhetorical role a paragraph plays, such as introducing a claim, providing evidence, conceding an objection, or drawing an implication, independent of its specific content.
- Scope calibration
- Matching an answer choice's quantifiers (all, some, most, only) to the strength of the passage's own wording; a mismatch makes an otherwise true statement wrong.
- Referent tracking
- Identifying what pronouns and phrases like 'this view' or 'such claims' point to, so that detail answers are attributed to the correct entity in the passage.
- Passage structure
- The organizational pattern of a passage, such as claim-then-evidence, problem-then-solution, comparison, or concession-then-rebuttal, which predicts where key claims appear.
- Distinguishing voices
- Separating the author's own position from views the author merely reports or quotes, since attributed views are not endorsed unless the text signals agreement.
- Stated vs. implied
- Stated information appears explicitly in the passage; implied information is forced by the text. Questions differ in which of these the correct answer may rely on.
- Conclusion
- The claim an argument is trying to establish, supported by the other statements; it is usually marked by words like thus, therefore, or clearly.
- Premise
- A statement offered as support for a conclusion, often introduced by because, since, or for example; premises are accepted within the argument rather than argued for.
- Necessary assumption
- A condition that must hold for the argument's conclusion to follow; negating it makes the argument collapse, which is how it is tested.
- Sufficient assumption
- A condition strong enough to guarantee the conclusion when combined with the stated premises; it may be stronger than what the argument actually requires.
- Inference validity
- An inference is valid only when the passage's stated evidence forces it; mere consistency with the passage or real-world plausibility is insufficient.
- Causal overreach
- Treating a correlation reported in the passage as proof of causation without evidence excluding reverse causation or a common cause for both factors.
- Scope shift
- An argument's error of applying evidence about one population, time, or definition to a conclusion about a different one that the evidence does not cover.
- Weaken the argument
- New or highlighted information that undermines the link between the premises and the conclusion, typically by supplying an alternative explanation or a counterexample.
- Strengthen the argument
- Information that makes the conclusion more likely by closing the argument's inferential gap, such as ruling out an alternative cause or confirming a required assumption.
- Circular argument
- An argument whose premise restates the conclusion in different words, so the reasoning provides no independent support for the claim being made.
- Evidence relevance
- The test of whether stated evidence actually bears on the specific conclusion drawn, as opposed to being interesting or true but logically unrelated.
- Out-of-scope trap
- An answer choice that is true in general knowledge but is not supported by any statement in the passage, making it incorrect despite its factual accuracy.
- Overreach trap
- An answer choice that converts hedged passage language such as may or suggests into certainty such as proves or always, exceeding the text's strength.
- Half-right trap
- An answer choice whose first clause is supported but whose second clause adds an unsupported claim; the whole choice must be evaluated.
- Principle application
- A question type requiring extraction of a general rule from the passage and testing each answer choice as an instance of that rule in a new situation.
- Analogy mapping
- Matching the underlying relation in the passage, such as cause, function, or means-to-end, to a choice with the same relation and different content.
- Author agreement prediction
- Determining what position the author would endorse on a new issue by consistently applying the author's stated commitments rather than common sense.
- Minimal assumption rule
- When two choices both seem to apply, prefer the one whose application requires fewer additional premises beyond what the passage states.
- New-evidence application
- Applying a passage's finding to a case it never mentions while preserving the passage's logic, conditions, and stated limits on the finding.
- Gap-targeted evidence
- New evidence that bears on the specific inferential gap already present in the argument; evidence supporting an accepted premise adds nothing.
- Contradiction disqualifier
- An answer choice that conflicts with a stated premise is wrong regardless of how well it fits the passage's general theme or apparent intent.
- Structural similarity
- The criterion for 'most analogous' questions: the choice must share the passage's relational structure, not merely its topic or vocabulary.
- Prediction constraint
- A prediction about a new scenario must follow from the passage plus minimal uncontroversial premises and must respect the passage's stated exceptions.