What To Do When You Get Lost in a CARS Passage?

Session 98

As we dive further into CARS prep, this passage is a doozy. We get down and dirty with a philosophical passage and how to breakdown a confusing passage.

As always, I’m joined by Jack Westin from JackWestin.com. Check out all their amazing free resources including a free trial session of Jack’s full course to see how it’s like learning from Jack Westin himself.

Listen to this podcast episode with the player above, or keep reading for the highlights and takeaway points.

Link to the article:

https://reallifemag.com/issue-positivity/

In times that feel like transition, when an enormous growing-up is immanent, when the consequences of aggregate neglect or “disproportionate distribution of concern,” as Ayesha Siddiqi has said, has undone or ruined us and others, we come to the juncture James Baldwin described in New York in 1963, where a person has got to decide “whether to go up and over or down and out.” When a group and not a solitary individual experiencing these ruptures in sync, we often hear calls for positive thinking amid the outrage. In Bright Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich claims such calls are often used as a “palliative, a way of resigning oneself to a negative reality rather than questioning and resisting it.”

Positivity, though, is not necessarily synonymous with self-care sentiments like “blocking out the fakes” and “allowing only good energy in,” or with family values, or with flat nondynamic righteousness, or with any capitulation to capitalism. It may also signal a push for action that relieves a shared burden. It is often confused with optimism, which is predictive and future-oriented, and positivism, which is imperialist, reiterating the hierarchies and biases of the past.

But positivity is neither: It is rooted in the present moment, not a counterpoint to our bleak so-called life but continuous with everything bleak about it. It is not a form of blindness but a politicized way of seeing different possibilities as opportunities emerge and circumstances unfold. The forthcoming high-school student walkout demanding that Congress address U.S. gun laws exemplifies positivity in a time that is extremely wrong, a time when locked-in power structures use the despair generated through surveillance technology, disputed access to medical care, and nuclear brinkmanship to extend their influence.

[04:34] Paragraph 1, Sentence 1

Jack says:

Try to glue together the parts of this that make sense. Remember, you’re not trying to finish every passage in exactly 10 minutes. That’s an average. You never have to hit 10 minutes. Sometimes you’re 11 minutes, sometimes you’re 9 minutes. Sometimes 13 minutes, sometimes 8 minutes. But the average has to add up to 10. But you never have to actually hit 10 minutes per passage.

'Slow down. That doesn't mean you have to give up. That doesn't mean that all is lost. It just means slow down.'Click To Tweet

So if we go through this, there’s one part I think will make a lot of sense. And that’s “whether to go up and go over and over, or down and out.” What does that mean? It means that when things get tough, are you going to stand up, or are you going to run away? That’s it. If you can just get that out of this, you’re ready to move on to the next sentence.

[07:23] It’s All Psychological: Don’t Give Up!

If you gave up after the first couple of lines, you’re just going to read like a robot. That’s what happens if you’re not familiar with this. You are not confident so you’re going to doubt yourself. You will give up mentally. And you need to fight that urge.

It comes down to pure effort so be prepared. If at some point you get lost, you don’t have to restart. Otherwise, this will form a bad habit once the test comes. And you will never get through this.

'When you get lost, stop dwelling about getting lost. Just get back into it. Stop thinking about that because that's your mind trying to drift off and think about something else.'Click To Tweet

Just pay attention as much as possible. The MCAT is trying to intimidate you, scare you, and throw you off. Don’t let that happen and keep going. The moment you start thinking about this passage is the moment you have lost. You cannot start critiquing the passage because you don’t have that luxury. It comes down to your confidence. It comes down to preparing for it and doing a lot of these and realizing it’s never going to change. You can’t just give in when it gets tough.

[12:20] Paragraph 1, Sentence 2

When a group and not a solitary individual experiencing these ruptures in sync, we often hear calls for positive thinking amid the outrage.

Jack says:

It’s saying here when things get tough for a group all at the same time, so in sync, we often hear calls for positive thinking amid the outrage. So there are some voices here and calls for positive thinking. People are saying some good stuff and bringing people together.

So we’re talking about groups here that are in some sort of turmoil. What the author is suggesting is when you see a group go through this, not necessarily individuals, they’re told to stay positive. And we don’t know if that’s good or if that’s bad. We don’t know anything. That’s just what’s happening.

[13:53] Paragraph 1, Sentence 3

In Bright Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich claims such calls are often used as a “palliative, a way of resigning oneself to a negative reality rather than questioning and resisting it.”

Jack says:

Positive thinking is a negative reality. This is the hard, conceptual part. Because if you bring in your bias about what positive thinking is, you are changing the author’s rationale or reasoning. You’re changing the author’s opinion.

“The reason why this is so hard to read is that you have a very strong definition of positive thinking. And here's the author, basically upending it saying that positive thinking is garbage.” Click To Tweet

And the author is suggesting that you are succumbing to a negative reality, rather than questioning and resisting it. And if you do that, then in essence, you’re just giving up.

The author’s basically saying that in some ways, this idea of staying positive is actually sabotaging you. It’s actually hurting you in some way. And that’s the idea the author is really trying to get out in this paragraph.

[17:03] Paragraph 2, Sentence 1

Jack says:

The author is saying that just because you have this positive thinking kind of vibe, doesn’t mean that it’s actually good. It doesn’t actually mean that it’s defined in this way. It doesn’t mean that you’re blocking out bad things and you’re only allowing good energy in.

This is the common definition of positive thinking. It’s to stay positive. But the author’s saying it’s actually not synonymous with those things. The author’s changing the definition of positive thinking, as we read. And it seems like the author doesn’t like it, But we don’t know entirely yet.

[18:31] Paragraph 2, Sentence 2

It may also signal a push for action that relieves a shared burden.

Jack says:

The author is changing the definition. It’s saying it should actually be defined in another way. Let’s keep reading and see where the author is going.

[19:29] Paragraph 2, Sentence 3

It is often confused with optimism, which is predictive and future-oriented, and positivism, which is imperialist, reiterating the hierarchies and biases of the past.

Jack says:

The author is saying that positivism is not necessarily the same thing as optimism. And optimism is defined as being hopeful for the future. In positivity, it doesn’t even mean you’re going to let the good things in. It just means you succumb to whatever is happening. You accept whatever is happening.

It says “It’s imperialist. It’s reiterating the hierarchies and biases of the past it.” It’s definitely giving a negative connotation to the word. So the author doesn’t like this idea of being positive, or the idea of saying to just be positive when bad things happen to you, at least when you’re in a group.

[21:13] Paragraph 3, Sentence 1

But positivity is neither: It is rooted in the present moment, not a counterpoint to our bleak so-called life but continuous with everything bleak about it.

Jack says:

It definitely goes back to what we said in the first paragraph, which is, ultimately, you’re accepting this bleak kind of situation. It’s suggesting that it’s not a counterpoint to our bleak, so-called life. So it’s not like countering. It’s not challenging, but instead, it’s continuous. It’s just going along with everything that’s bleak.

[22:17] Paragraph 3, Sentence 2

It is not a form of blindness but a politicized way of seeing different possibilities as opportunities emerge and circumstances unfold.

Jack says:

The author is saying that you’re not doing anything about it. It’s politicized, which the author seems to not like. The author is still trying to help us understand the definition of positivity.

[23:01] Paragraph 3, Sentence 3

The forthcoming high-school student walkout demanding that Congress address U.S. gun laws exemplifies positivity in a time that is extremely wrong, a time when locked-in power structures use the despair generated through surveillance technology, disputed access to medical care, and nuclear brinkmanship to extend their influence.

Jack says:

The author is changing the definition of positivity. Positivity is not necessarily just giving in and, and letting everything happen to you. The author is trying to argue that it should change and that it should be defined as a way of using positivity to create change in the world. And this is the shift the author’s trying to make with the word.

[25:22] Main Idea

It’s not entirely clear how the author ends up defining positivity. But at this point, the author is changing the meaning and trying to make you see it in a different light. And that’s all that matters.