how to analyze a practice test

Here's something I wrote in another thread that mostly applies to your question. I'll add some more things to keep in mind so I can round it out to a 10 point plan.



Your tests are fluctuating due to the different topics on the various tests. In other words, you have some glaring weaknesses that when targeted, nail you, badly. You have to find out what those weaknesses are because they are evident by your scores. Do NOT dismiss any wrong answer as a "stupid mistake." You made that error for a reason. Go over your tests again.

Some things to keep in mind when reviewing:

1. Why did you get the question wrong? Why did you get the question right?
2. What question types get you?
3. How is your mindset when facing a particular passage?
4. Are you stressed for time?
5. Where are your mistakes happening the most? Are they front loaded? Are they at the end? All over?
6. What was your thought process for both the questions you got right and the ones you got wrong?
7. For verbal, what was the author's mindset and main idea?
8. Did you eliminate all of the answer choices you could from first glance?
ex. You know an answer should be a positive number so you cross out all of the negative number answer choices.
9. What content areas are you weak in?
10. How can you improve so you don't make the same mistake again?

I'll second SN2ed. Especially with PS and BS, usually the questions you get wrong are due to your weaknesses... so find out what your weaknesses are and brush up on them! Also, see why you got certain questions wrong and how you can prevent that from happening in the future.

Verbal practice tests are a whole nother beast in and of themselves.
It's more difficult, in my opinion, to devise a plan for improvement on verbal tests, but nevertheless, it's important to see why you got verbal questions wrong too. Often, I would find that I got them wrong because I picked the answer that was "too broad" or "too specific". Even general pointers like that can be helpful.

I'm about to go analyze all the AAMCs I took, so I'll def. follow your guide.

My beef is with Kaplan post-game analysis. I read the answers, which make sense, but sometimes I just can't understand the situation as well enough to have figured out some of the questions (some apparatuses are just tough to figure out how they work in the limited time you're given). So although the answers make sense from what I learned through content review, how do you UNDERSTAND passages well enough to understand the questions?

This is only for Kaplan PS really. AAMCs I usually get far clearer understanding. Is it good enough to get just down AAMC post-analysis. I understand Kaplan, just not as well as I'd like to.

SN2ed gives some awesome advice as usual. Here's my personal list. Remember to always be thinking how to correct these problems. Good luck!

Missed info in passage
Concept difficulty
Wrong mindset/attitude
Trouble with question type "X"
Lacked knowledge
Couldn't apply knowledge
Did not understand question
Misread question
Did not understand answer choices
Misread answer choices
Could not see relationships between points
Clicked the wrong answer
Miscalculated
Mis-estimated
Rushed Through
Missed what I was supposed to be tested on
Used inefficient method
Used wrong thought process

Vihsadas said:

SN2ed gives some awesome advice as usual. Here's my personal list. Remember to always be thinking how to correct these problems. Good luck!

Missed info in passage
Concept difficulty
Wrong mindset/attitude
Trouble with question type "X"
Lacked knowledge
Couldn't apply knowledge
Did not understand question
Misread question
Did not understand answer choices
Misread answer choices
Could not see relationships between points
Clicked the wrong answer
Miscalculated
Mis-estimated
Rushed Through
Missed what I was supposed to be tested on
Used inefficient method
Used wrong thought process

Click to expand...

I did that once in a BS section and it put me right into the bracket for 1 pt lower in that section. Was not pleased ...