MCAT content library / CARS reading & reasoning / CARS analogies and application: transferring the author’s principle
Match the reason for an action across different settings. Keep the author’s conditions and exceptions attached to the principle you transfer.
About 16 minutes, including the worked examples and checks.
CARS: from comprehension to transfer · Lesson 4 of 5 · Continue in this path
On this page
- Concept: carry the relationship into the new case
- Original teaching passage: enough intervention
- Pattern: extract the rule without stripping away its conditions
- Application: transfer the principle to a booking system
- Changed case: preserve the exception as well as the preference
- Rule: explain the match in neutral terms
- Check your reasoning
- Continue learning
- Sources
Concept: carry the relationship into the new case
An analogy can match a passage even when its people, objects, and setting are entirely different. What matters is whether the new case preserves the relevant relationship. AAMC’s application guidance explicitly distinguishes this underlying similarity from resemblance in surface details.1 To apply an author’s principle, identify the condition, the recommended response, and any limits on that response.
The passage below is an original fictional essay about conserving a sculpture. Its stated conditions define the exercise; it is not advice about treating an actual artwork. Later examples supply their own facts. Use those facts and the passage’s reasoning, following the CARS boundary that answers come from the passage and question rather than outside subject knowledge.23
Original teaching passage: enough intervention
1. A paper sculpture hangs near an open doorway. Drafts make its loose strips collide, producing small tears. The museum considers coating the strips, permanently fastening their edges, or moving the display away from the doorway. Suppose careful observation establishes that relocation would stop the collisions without reducing the work’s accessibility or changing the intended viewing experience. Under those conditions, an elaborate treatment would answer a problem that a change of location could already solve.
2. The reason for restraint is not that an artwork must never be altered. The question is which response adequately addresses the demonstrated problem while interfering as little as possible with other features. If moving the sculpture failed to stop the damage, repeating the move would not become responsible merely because it looked modest. Refusing an effective intervention can turn restraint into neglect. Adequacy is the first requirement; among adequate responses, avoid unnecessary alteration.
3. If two effective responses make similarly limited changes, prefer the one that can be undone when better information becomes available. Reversibility has value because judgment may later improve, not because every removable measure is good. A removable device that fails to protect the sculpture has not earned preference over a permanent measure that protects it. Nor should reversibility alone justify a much broader disruption when a focused adequate remedy is available.
4. The smallest adequate intervention may require more observation and labor than a familiar, dramatic treatment. Ease, low cost, and visual similarity to previous repairs are therefore unreliable substitutes for the argument. The relevant questions remain: what problem has been established, which actions address it, and which of those actions make the fewest unnecessary changes? A useful comparison carries that ordering of reasons into the next case.
Pattern: extract the rule without stripping away its conditions
The passage supports a sequence of judgments. First establish the problem. Then exclude responses that do not address it adequately. Among the adequate options, prefer the less intrusive response. If those options are similarly limited, reversibility can distinguish them. This order matters because the author expressly permits an effective permanent remedy over an inadequate removable one.
“Always do the smallest thing” loses the adequacy condition. “Always choose the reversible option” promotes a tie-breaker into the first requirement. “Never alter an artwork” contradicts paragraph 2. Each statement sounds related to restraint while changing the rule the author actually defends.
The principle also has a boundary: the comparison needs information about effectiveness and other effects. If a question says only that one treatment is cheaper, it has not established the property the author ranks first. Supply no hidden fact about what a particular material, technology, or institution usually does.
Application: transfer the principle to a booking system
Consider this new, fully specified situation. A community hall repeatedly assigns the same room to two groups at the same time. A shared-calendar check would prevent all such conflicts while leaving other booking procedures intact. Replacing the entire program would also prevent them but would change membership rules and room access. Posting a removable warning would leave the double bookings unchanged.
| Role in the argument | Sculpture case | Hall case |
|---|---|---|
| Demonstrated problem | Draft-driven collisions cause tears | Conflicting room assignments |
| Adequate, focused remedy | Relocate the display under the stated conditions | Check the shared calendar before confirming a booking |
| Broader change | Treat or fasten the sculpture itself | Replace unrelated membership and access procedures |
| Ineffective modest action | A small move that fails to stop damage | A warning that leaves conflicts unchanged |
The shared-calendar check best applies the principle. It meets the stated requirement while avoiding the broader effects. The warning resembles a restrained action, but it fails the first condition. Replacing the whole program is effective, yet the question supplies an equally effective option with fewer unrelated changes. No claim about which plan is cheapest is needed.
Use 5P to test a transfer
- Prioritize: The task is to apply this author’s selection rule, rather than choose your preferred policy for a hall.
- Paraphrase: Address the known problem adequately, limit unrelated changes, and use reversibility to distinguish otherwise similar options.
- Prognose: Expect an effective targeted response; exclude an attractive-looking action that leaves the problem unresolved.
- Pick: Select the shared-calendar check using the effectiveness and scope facts supplied in the new case.
- Post-mortem: Identify why each alternative fails a particular condition. A broad redesign fails the comparison with the narrower remedy; a warning fails adequacy.
Changed case: preserve the exception as well as the preference
Suppose a different hall has conflicts caused by a corrupted calendar, and merely checking it cannot prevent them. The original choice no longer follows, because its adequacy condition has changed. The author’s principle remains the same: compare the options that actually solve the supplied problem. Application is responsive to the new facts rather than attached to the action that happened to win the earlier example.
Similarly, if two repairs are equally adequate and equally limited but only one can be reversed, the passage favors the reversible one. If the reversible repair instead disrupts many unrelated features, paragraph 3 prevents treating reversibility as an automatic trump. A faithful transfer retains both the preference and the circumstances in which that preference applies.
AAMC distinguishes applying a passage’s ideas in a new situation from integrating new information that changes how the original passage is interpreted.2 In this lesson’s changed cases, use the new facts to determine which option satisfies the existing principle. Do not silently replace that principle with a stronger rule of your own.
Rule: explain the match in neutral terms
Before committing to an analogy, replace the surface nouns with their roles: a problem, a sufficient response, an unnecessary additional change, and a condition for choosing between options. If that neutral description no longer fits, shared vocabulary cannot rescue the analogy. A second museum scenario may be a poor match; a transit or record-keeping scenario may be a good one.
The conclusion is bounded by the question. A matching analogy identifies how this author would reason from the supplied facts. It does not independently prove that the hypothetical intervention would work in the world. Keeping that distinction lets you transfer the argument without importing either outside expertise or an unsupported guarantee.
ACTIVE PRACTICE · CARS TRANSFER
Apply the Author’s Rule in the Right Order
In the lesson’s original sculpture passage, the author requires an intervention that adequately solves the demonstrated problem, then prefers fewer unrelated changes among adequate options. Reversibility distinguishes similarly limited adequate options.
Reveal the Decision Sequence
- Establish the specific observed problem and relevant constraints.
- Reject actions that do not adequately solve it.
- Among adequate solutions, prefer fewer unrelated changes.
- Use reversibility to distinguish options that are similarly adequate and limited.
Check your reasoning
Choose an answer before opening its feedback. Each option explains the reasoning behind that choice.
Check 1
Which scenario most closely matches the passage’s argument for relocating the sculpture under the conditions stated in paragraph 1?
A. A building manager changes every room assignment to resolve one conflict, although changing a single assignment would resolve it equally well.
Review this choice. The action addresses the problem but makes unnecessary additional changes. It matches the broader treatment the passage rejects when an adequate focused alternative is available.
B. A museum places removable covers over several objects because one frame is loose, even though the covers cannot secure that frame.
Review this choice. The art setting and removability are superficial matches. The proposed action does not address the demonstrated problem, so it fails adequacy.
C. A transit service changes one unclear announcement after confirming that this resolves the confusion, while keeping its other procedures intact.
Correct. The established problem has an adequate, focused remedy that leaves unrelated features alone. That preserves the relevant relationship despite changing the setting from a museum to transit.
D. A publisher leaves a recurring printing defect unchanged because any correction would alter the published object in some respect.
Review this choice. This treats nonintervention as an absolute rule. Paragraph 2 permits and sometimes requires an effective intervention when continued restraint leaves the problem unresolved.
The principle to carry forward
A strong analogy preserves the reason for the action. Shared subject matter, modest appearance, or reversibility alone is insufficient.
Check 2
In a new hypothetical archive, a filing failure repeatedly loses images. A removable warning does not prevent the losses. A targeted permanent correction prevents them without changing other functions. A reversible redesign also prevents them but changes all cataloguing procedures. These effectiveness claims are established, and delay allows the losses to continue. Which response best follows the author’s principle?
A. Choose the removable warning because it preserves the current functions and can be withdrawn later.
Review this choice. The warning is limited and reversible but leaves the known problem unresolved. The passage makes adequacy a requirement before comparing those secondary properties.
B. Choose the reversible redesign because the possibility of undoing a change takes priority over its breadth.
Review this choice. Paragraph 3 explicitly rejects letting reversibility alone justify a much broader disruption when a focused adequate remedy exists.
C. Choose the targeted permanent correction because it prevents the losses with fewer unrelated changes.
Correct. Both corrective changes are adequate, but the targeted correction is less intrusive. The passage uses reversibility to distinguish similarly limited effective options, not to overrule a large difference in unnecessary change.
D. Delay intervention until a targeted reversible correction becomes available, preserving the present arrangement meanwhile.
Review this choice. The prompt states that delay allows the losses to continue. The passage does not require a reversible solution when the available adequate focused remedy is permanent.
The principle to carry forward
Preserve the priority of the conditions. A qualified preference for reversibility does not become an unconditional ban on permanent remedies.
Continue learning
CARS: from comprehension to transfer
Lesson 4 of 5.
- Previous in CARS: from comprehension to transfer: CARS argument structure: paragraph roles and organization
- Next in CARS: from comprehension to transfer: CARS passage walkthrough: restoration and originality
- Return to this path’s overview
See every step in CARS: from comprehension to transfer
CARS: from comprehension to transfer
Identify a position, test its structure, and transfer its principle to a new text.
- CARS main idea: finding the claim and its limits
- CARS Argument Analysis: Follow the Author’s Position
- CARS argument structure: paragraph roles and organization
- CARS analogies and application: transferring the author’s principle · You are here
- CARS passage walkthrough: restoration and originality
Related lessons
- CARS main idea: finding the claim and its limits
- CARS Argument Analysis: Follow the Author’s Position
- CARS argument structure: paragraph roles and organization
- CARS passage walkthrough: restoration and originality
Browse cars reading & reasoning · MCAT content library
MCAT preparation and roadmap · Aim High, Score Higher
Sources
1. AAMC — Applying or Extrapolating Ideas from the Passage to New Contexts
2. AAMC — CARS Skill 3: Reasoning Beyond the Text
3. AAMC — Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills Section Overview