496 on official practice

[pinkprincess246]

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got a 496 on official practice exam. can i get higher on the actual?

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Need more details, like: is this your first test? How long have you been studying for? What does "official" mean, like is it the AAMC scored test? What is your target score?

 

[To be MD]

got a 496 on official practice exam. can i get higher on the actual?

I'm going to answer you directly: you are not ready to take the MCAT exam. Do not take it anytime soon.

Study the content. Watch the Khan videos and do their practice questions. Take full length exams once or twice a week under full testing conditions.

I can't say when you'll be ready, but it's not now. Good luck.

 

[ayothen]

I agree that you aren't ready yet. The time until you'll be ready depends. How much have you reviewed before taking that test? WHEN is your actual? Did you make silly mistakes? Or were the mistakes from you not getting to that information yet in your studies? Take different FL from different companies and see if there's a pattern in the questions you've missed because easy mistakes will be easier/faster to fix. Good luck!

 

[Goro]

Just to make sure that you get he message, OP, do NOT take the MCAT until you are 100% ready for it. This is, after all, a high stakes, career-deciding exam.

got a 496 on official practice exam. can i get higher on the actual?

 

[efle]

got a 496 on official practice exam. can i get higher on the actual?

Did you feel fully prepared / have you spent a couple months studying up?

 

[neekzg]

yea could be lower too though

 

[pinkprincess246]

I have been studying since January, so I'm not sure what else to do. I took a TPR course. I think I mostly have problems with the question types and it's not always the basic material. So maybe just work on more practice problems. Honestly, I have had so many life events come up that made me push med school back that I really want to go for it this time. If there is a chance I can do better i will take it.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

If you have been studying since January and only got a 496 then you are not ready to take it. Was this a company practice test or a AAMC? Find a company that sells practice tests, like maybe Altius or Kaplan and buy a bunch of those. You need to practice and become very comfortable with he way questions are asked. Don't take the real think until you are scoring consistently on practice tests what you are aiming to get on the real thing.

 

[nwts]

I have been studying since January, so I'm not sure what else to do. I took a TPR course. I think I mostly have problems with the question types and it's not always the basic material. So maybe just work on more practice problems. Honestly, I have had so many life events come up that made me push med school back that I really want to go for it this time. If there is a chance I can do better i will take it.

I wouldn't go by simply whether or not there is a chance that you'll do better. There's always a chance. Theoretically, there is a chance that you could randomly guess on all of the questions without reading any of them and score a 528. However, the odds of that happening are very low.

What you need to determine is if there are good odds that you'll do better on the actual test. This is impossible to determine with just 1 practice test, especially when you've been studying for a while. You need to take more practice tests and see what you score on those. If you take 5 more and all of your scores are, say, 505+, then there are probably good odds that you'll score above 496 on the actual test. However, if you take 5 more and your score range is 495-498, you probably don't have great odds of scoring much better on the actual test.

 

[Monkey.King]

"Can I get higher on the actual exam?"

 

[Lucca]

I have been studying since January, so I'm not sure what else to do. I took a TPR course. I think I mostly have problems with the question types and it's not always the basic material. So maybe just work on more practice problems. Honestly, I have had so many life events come up that made me push med school back that I really want to go for it this time. If there is a chance I can do better i will take it.

I understand your frustration, at least sympathetically. I have several friends in your shoes right now. For whatever reason, mostly thanks to things outside of their control or because they decided to do medicine later on than most, have had to push back their timeline to applying. That being said....

Don't take the exam until you are ready, and you are not ready. Could you score higher on the real thing? Maybe. But not too much higher. The AAMC reports a confidence interval of +\- 2 points with your MCAT score. Given your practice exam score - which, by the way, I thought was significantly easier than my real exam - I would say you have a realistic **AND EQUAL*** chance of scoring 2 points above or below 496. My advice is if you are not scoring within 3 points of your target score on the AAMC scored exam, you are not ready. I would consider a 510 a reasonable target score for MD, maybe a little lower for DO, and a bit higher for MD/PhD.

Don't take the exam. If anything, the stress and unpredictability of the real test day has a stronger chance of lowering your score than magically raising it because of anxiety, testing delays, power outages, arriving late, or any of many regular things that happen to people on the day of.

 

[candbgirl]

I suppose anything can happen on test day but remember it can go both ways. A 496~23 on the old MCAT. You need around a 510 to be competitive for MD(~31). It is very doubtful that you would improve that much. That's just crazy thinking. You aren't ready to take this test. As @Goro and other ADCOMS state over and over do no take the test until you are scoring regularly at or near your target goal. Is 496-500 your target goal? And remember your score will be with you and your records forever.


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