Sports fan? Careful, your background knowledge can hurt you in CARS. In this Reading Skills Workshop, Molly and Jack walk through the Oct 1 Jack Westin Daily (“Soccer Fans”) and show how to read a familiar topic without injecting assumptions. You’ll learn to spot the author’s claim, track competing themes (losing yourself vs. rationality/good citizenship), and use clear sentences as anchors, fast.

What you’ll learn

Don’t fill in the blanks: How to stop your outside knowledge from hijacking the passage.

Anchor on clarity: If a point is important, there’s usually a clear sentence you can cling to.

Author stance vs. trivia: Track how the author uses Critchley (support) and pushes back on Orwell.

Two coexisting themes:

Fandom can make us lose ourselves / escalate aggression

Fandom can foster fairness, rational analysis, and identity

When language gets flowery: Keep reading to the next testable, explicit claim

Referenced ideas & examples

Simon Critchley on phenomenology & soccer experience

“Lose yourself” vs. “best selves” (fair play, rationality)

Liverpool as a case study (extremes, yet desire for fairness)

Orwell’s “war minus the shooting” — why the author says he missed the point

Try the passage:

Read the Oct 1 “Soccer Fans” then do the questions to stress-test your reasoning: https://jackwestin.com/daily/mcat-practice-passages/cars-practice-passages/soccer-fans

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