Throw out Kaplan Full Length 10 and 11 exams?

I've been taking both the AAMCs and Kaplans exams, pretty much in order. Today I had Kaplan 10 and 11 left. I've been doing decently on both AAMC and Kaplan exams, but got a score lower even than the first exam we're supposed to take (kaplan full length 1). I was looking through the kaplan threads and read twice to "throw out 10 and 11" or don't bother. I just wanted to make sure that that's the consensus before I waste kaplan 11. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

I JUST took kaplan 11 and HAD NO IDEA how hard it was. actually my physics and bio were pretty much normal scores but I ran out of time on physics and had to guess SOOO MUCH on bio.

I got a 5 on verbal!!

---I haven't had the courage to look over them. It was a confidence killer and i feel really stupid....

I was about 6 points off my average score..
Let me know how u do if you take it!

no, throw it out. this late in the game it is not helping you practice and it is not representative of your actual score. it's just a confidence killer for no reason and no one needs that close to the actual exam. just throw it out.

Originally Posted by purple pearl

I got a 5 on verbal!!

Same here. My overall composite was about 10 points lower than my average. I actually took my FL 11 about a week before my real test date. By that point, I was so burned out by practice exams that I wasn't even upset; I just burst out laughing over how comically low the score was .

For the record, my score on the real MCAT was right around my average of the practice tests (throwing out FLs 10 and 11) so don't let them get you down. They are not accurate at all.

Originally Posted by vandyam

no, throw it out. this late in the game it is not helping you practice and it is not representative of your actual score. it's just a confidence killer for no reason and no one needs that close to the actual exam. just throw it out.

Agree with this. You need to go in and take it with confidence.

Hah I just took FL #11, and if you are looking for a good wake up call I would recommend taking it, but other than that, it's a complete confidence killer.

The PS section was ridiculously long, and while I usually end up with 5-10 minutes at the end to review, I had to put all C's for the last 2 passages and some of the discretes because I had 6 minutes left and barely 60% of the way through (it also didn't help that my test didn't pause when I wanted it to so I lost like 8 minutes off my time).


The VR was probably the hardest/most off base; I scored 5 points below my average on that section alone

The Bio wasn't too bad, but still harder than most other exams I've seen.

Not sure how helpful this exam will be in terms of MCAT preparation; I was thinking of taking FL #10 two days from now, but after seeing #11 I'm not so sure I shouldn't just skip it.

Definately throw it out. I did 10 points lower on Kaplan FL 10 and 11 than I did on all the other Kaplan and AAMC tests. It really threw me for a loop and destroyed my confidence.

So seriously, skip it. You won't be missing anything.

I got more than 10 points below my usual average on fl 10. Prob I wasn't use to take the exam in morning.

Just took it and it was AWFUL. I normally score between 10s and 11s on AAMCs and Kaplans, even EKs, and I scored 7s and 8s on this one. I wasn't in a particularly off mood either. So don't take it unless you want to feel like complete crap afterwards!

I'm not even going to bother with 10. Ugh.. Kaplan why do you do this to us!!!!! Who WRITES these things????

DO NOT take Kaplan 10. I already took my real MCAT and got a decent score on it. Thought, id renew my kaplan subscription and take some of the full lenghts. Unfortunately picked kaplan 10. Straight up got a 20 on it- definitely a confidence killer. The verbal was wayy too hard. The physics at times was irrelevant of what is expected of the real MCAT.

Anyone know where I can find the score conversion chart for Kaplan FL 10?

So 10 and 11 are harder than the real MCAT? Or just not realistic to the way the real MCAT tests? Because I've heard the real MCAT is harder than the AAMC's...

@haydninvictus

Even though Kaplan may seem harder, their raw score conversion scale is ridiculously generous. Seriously sometimes id get bored from doing an exam and just skip in the middle of the final biology section and id be able to pull of a 9 on a said half assed section. try doing that with an aamc exam (lol).

And its not that exams 10 and 11 are harder than the reall aamc, but compared to Kaplan FL 1 through 9, these 2 in particular are brutally hard and im nt sure if a different scale was used to convert these two exams. I remember averaging 33 on the others and i got 29 on these two.

Anyways i dont advise anyone to take these two exams, there nothing like the real mcat, the passages are too convoluted and the passage based questions are a waste of time.
Gd luck

i just finished Kaplan FL 10 and got

PS 11 VR 7 BS 11 = 29

on Kaplan FL 9 i got 40, and on AAMC 10 and 11 I got 38 and 39


Kaplan 10 felt more like what the real MCAT would be like, similar to what I remember in '92 and '93. but AAMC scores are supposed to be better predictors of real score. so i don't know what that means. maybe real MCAT is somewhere in between Kaplan 10 and AAMC in difficulty.

i definitely think it is a good idea to take Kaplan FL 10 and 11, because you will get to see how a difficult exam will feel like, and you won't get shocked if the real test is also difficult. the worst thing that could happen on the real test is if you panic when you see difficult questions. you need to practice your emotional response to a difficult test.

plus, you get to learn from the mistakes you made in answering the questions. In reviewing the test, I see that I made some conceptual errors on the passages, so I'm definitely learning from it.

Originally Posted by startoverat40

i definitely think it is a good idea to take Kaplan FL 10 and 11, because you will get to see how a difficult exam will feel like, and you won't get shocked if the real test is also difficult. the worst thing that could happen on the real test is if you panic when you see difficult questions. you need to practice your emotional response to a difficult test.

plus, you get to learn from the mistakes you made in answering the questions. In reviewing the test, I see that I made some conceptual errors on the passages, so I'm definitely learning from it.

startoverat40 has some real pearls of wisdom to share on this topic!

[When I took Kaplan 10 as a student, I got my score and promptly burst into tears - my score was LOWER than my diagnostic exam and nowhere near what I actually scored on the official test!]

BUT...What I didn't realize at the time, and what startoverat40 shares with us, was the most important part of the exam: allowing us to improve upon what we didn't do well on the first time around by post-phrasing and letting us practice our crisis-prevention strategies during the test Now THAT'S a worthwhile reason to take this practice exam!

Happy studying, friends! Keep your chin up!

- Lauren

Originally Posted by LaurenMCAT

startoverat40 has some real pearls of wisdom to share on this topic!

[When I took Kaplan 10 as a student, I got my score and promptly burst into tears - my score was LOWER than my diagnostic exam and nowhere near what I actually scored on the official test!]

BUT...What I didn't realize at the time, and what startoverat40 shares with us, was the most important part of the exam: allowing us to improve upon what we didn't do well on the first time around by post-phrasing and letting us practice our crisis-prevention strategies during the test Now THAT'S a worthwhile reason to take this practice exam!

Happy studying, friends! Keep your chin up!

- Lauren

When should we take these KP FL 10 and 11 exams? like 2-3 weeks before our real exam or like 1 month before? I'm assuming taking it a week before the exam could really kill your confidence and possibly hurt you on the real deal. Since subconsciously you would feel like you got PWNed and lose self confidence no matter how you try to play it off with tears or laughs. Please correct me if I'm wrong

No correction needed flodhi

If you do choose to take these exams, do so long before the test so that it doesn't undermine your confidence!

I took Kaplan #10 and found it to be extremely difficult. However, I scored the same on this exam as I did on the real MCAT so it might be a good score predictor.

Originally Posted by Nexus007

I took Kaplan #10 and found it to be extremely difficult. However, I scored the same on this exam as I did on the real MCAT so it might be a good score predictor.

Wow, well I sincerely hope that is not the case for me! I went down from 32 average on Kaplan/AAMCs to a 25!!!! Thank God I am taking this 3 weeks before my exam...

holy mother f'er.

I knew this would be bad but...wow.

Originally Posted by LLB2MD

Wow, well I sincerely hope that is not the case for me! I went down from 32 average on Kaplan/AAMCs to a 25!!!! Thank God I am taking this 3 weeks before my exam...

holy mother f'er.

I knew this would be bad but...wow.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by tman5890

Good luck!

Thanks . I know the overwhelming consensus on FL 10 & 11 is that they are crazy and my results are fairly typical (the drop) but I guess you always hope that you somehow are one of the atypical few who manage to do well. That would have been a giant confidence boost.

Oh well...

I am so glad to have found this thread. In fact, I made an account just so I could respond and rejoice with you all!

I took 10 and 11 this week and I've been preparing for the August 6th MCAT. Prior to these two tests, my score breakdown was PS12/VR14/BS13. My averages for 10 and 11 were 8/6/8. Because of the drop, I became ridiculously beaten down and decided to push my test date to August 19th.

That being said, the experience has definitely made me buckle down and force myself to address my weaknesses directly.

Good luck to everyone; hopefully these two killer exams haven't deterred you from going into the MCAT with a kickbutt mentality!

I also just registered to post on this forum. I have taken 8 practice exams and averaged 31 with my VR always over a 10, did the Kap Full #11 just now and got a 17 with a 5 on VR. Scared the @#$% out of me until I saw this thread.

Thanks

same here got a 5 on vr on 10 and 6 on 11. Should i ignore this?

ASCG and JohnP

Yes, you can generally take much less of weight in the scores from Kaplan 10 and 11 which are more difficult exams.

I always explain those exams to my students with an analogy. Think about them as running with a weighted vest on. It is going to be REALLY hard to run, however, when you take the weighted vest off (taking the AAMC exams) the exams will be a bit easier and you will increase your confidence!

Let me know if you have more questions!

Patrick

PS was as usual, then on VR I had no idea that I had skipped a passage, do I guessed on it when I realized, and the bio, I had NO IDEA WHAT HIT ME. I felt like so much of it was contradicting itself and the content I knew.

When I saw the 40, I was pleased. Then I realized that was the PERCENTILE!!!!!

AHHHH!! I got a 10PS, 6VR, 8BS!!! My exam is 9 days away!

Should I review the BS section or just ignore it altogether? Are the strategies these questions require going to helpful in the actual exam? B/c I'm sure the real mcat will be more coherent...

ok, i too just created an account to reply to this thread.
THANK YOU.
and it is good to see kaplan instructors here so i know it's legit (we all know how varying in credibility sdn posts can be...).
I was running low on tests so I took FL9 ~10 days ago, did fine, and then took 10 and 11 the last two days and did 3-6 points lower per section! horrifying!!! i wish someone had told me not to take these close to my test date before i did...i guess i can relax a little now.

Originally Posted by MeMyselfandI

Anyone know where I can find the score conversion chart for Kaplan FL 10?

Bump.


I no longer have a valid log-in for kaplan.com but would like this conversion chart as well.....