when your MCAT score doesn't match your practice test scores...

[MeowMix]

I want to add some comments here (from an experienced MCAT teacher).

I know it is very difficult, and hard to accept, when your actual score does not live up to your practice test scores. I have seen this happen to a lot of people, and they were all very miserable. But many of them are now happily enrolled at medical schools across the country. If you truly want to be a doctor, do not give up. There are plenty of inspiring stories in this forum from people who overcame multiple crappy scores.

How could your expectations have been so far off? Well, you looked at your practice test scores, and you were getting 9-12 on VR, so you thought, OK! I got 3 12s in a row! I'm gonna score 12 on VR, or at least an 11! But maybe you were using a very unrealistic Kaplan test for that 12, and a different, more realistic test for the 9.

Similarly with the science sections. On your best tests, the one that did not hit any of your weak areas, you scored an 11 or a 12. But maybe your actual test hit some of those weak areas. Or you made multiple math errors on PS. Or you ended up with timing problems.

Remember, the mean is about 24. A 30 is a very good score. A 35+ is a fantastic score. To score at that level, you really do not have the luxury of making simple mistakes. Sure, some people on here got those kinds of scores and say that they had to guess a whole section, or ran out of time, or whatever; but the truth is, the MCAT is really not very forgiving of that kind of error. Most of us ordinary people cannot get away with those errors. There are a lot of very, very smart people posting on here, and if you compare your score to theirs, it will be very easy to make yourself feel crappy and resentful.

So this is how you turned a 33 into a 27: you were getting 9-11 on your practice tests, and sometimes you hit all 11s and got a 33. On the real thing, you hit all 9s and got a 27. The most important thing now is to not give up. Consider your options; do what makes you feel good; read about what other people did to deal with this challenge.

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[Tinker Creek]

Yea, like someone said in another thread, there's a range of scores for each person, and you might get anywhere within that range on the real deal, as simple as that.

 

[dreambig2night]

I experienced a negative deviation of 8 points on the real thing when compared to the practise tests.
I took around 10 PT's and scored between 27-32, the most common score being a 29.

 

[Saluki]

My scores went up in a linear fashion during the Kaplan course and then one point higher on the real thing, but my score distribution was different on the real one than the practice. I think the Kaplan tests are good predictors, but they're not perfect- I did worse on the BS than on the Kaplan tests because the real one was much more heavy on Organic, but better on the PS section because there were fewer calculations on the practice test so I wasn't mourning the absence of my calculator.

 

[doctorFred]

i would also suspect that most people who went through the kaplan program (i was both a student and, temporarily, an instructor, but quit) would do better on the actual test? i had always assumed that the practice exams overrepresented the difficulty of the real thing, as i scored five points higher on my actual test compared to any of my practice exams. it's hard to call this simply luck, as my practice exam scores were 26, 28, 26, 29, and 27 before hitting a 34 on the real thing.

but maybe it really was just a freak occurence?

 

[MeowMix]

i would also suspect that most people who went through the kaplan program (i was both a student and, temporarily, an instructor, but quit) would do better on the actual test? i had always assumed that the practice exams overrepresented the difficulty of the real thing, as i scored five points higher on my actual test compared to any of my practice exams. it's hard to call this simply luck, as my practice exam scores were 26, 28, 26, 29, and 27 before hitting a 34 on the real thing.

but maybe it really was just a freak occurence?

You worked hard and did well. Maybe you got lucky. I have seen many students from the biggest MCAT prep programs do worse on the real thing than on their practice tests. I am sorry to say that your assumption is incorrect, based on my experience.

Personally, my goal was to go into the MCAT knowing that even on my worst day, being tested on my weakest material, I would still be in my target score range.