AAMC 3 - Should I be happy with my score?

[mmc48]

I just took AAMC 3 as my second practice since content review. I had taken the free TPR CBT on their website and scored a 26. So obviously I was little bummed, especially with the verbal.

So I decided to try a AAMC exam to get a better feel for the real test. I scored a 35 on the AAMC test 3. I was wondering how happy I should be with that score, since I had heard that it was easier than most of the others. I guess I'm just trying to see how good of a gauge it is of my progress.

I know the last 3 AAMC's are the best indicators. I guess I will save those for closer to my test date.

Any comments would be helpful.

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[J ROD]

yes, a 35 is a good score regardless of the test.

 

[sleepy425]

I just took AAMC 3 as my second practice since content review. I had taken the free TPR CBT on their website and scored a 26. So obviously I was little bummed, especially with the verbal.

So I decided to try a AAMC exam to get a better feel for the real test. I scored a 35 on the AAMC test 3. I was wondering how happy I should be with that score, since I had heard that it was easier than most of the others. I guess I'm just trying to see how good of a gauge it is of my progress.

I know the last 3 AAMC's are the best indicators. I guess I will save those for closer to my test date.

Any comments would be helpful.

I never felt AAMC 3 was really that different from the rest of the tests, but either way, it's scaled by AAMC so your score should be a reasonable predictor of your score on the real thing. My AAMC 3 score was 4 pts lower than my real score

 

[PipiChen]

I never felt AAMC 3 was really that different from the rest of the tests, but either way, it's scaled by AAMC so your score should be a reasonable predictor of your score on the real thing. My AAMC 3 score was 4 pts lower than my real score

a question: do the practice tests even match the difficulties on the real test?

I have a much easier time understanding the questions than those on Kaplan subject tests. The kaplan ones were really long in their calculations for PS.

Also, the passages on real MCATare they just as convulted as those on the practice? 7 passages are quite a lot to read especially those humanities ones....

thanks

 

[sleepy425]

a question: do the practice tests even match the difficulties on the real test?

I have a much easier time understanding the questions than those on Kaplan subject tests. The kaplan ones were really long in their calculations for PS.

Also, the passages on real MCATare they just as convulted as those on the practice? 7 passages are quite a lot to read especially those humanities ones....

thanks

well, I'd have to say that the real thing was harder than the practice ones, but the question style was the same. as czhang said, verbal passages are a little longer, but I don't think it affects your performance much. I'm not familiar with kaplan, but let's just say when you take the real thing you'll recognize the approach AAMC uses to ask questions. calculations were so so, nothing too intense.

the passages can be very convoluted on the real thing. however, the thing I want to emphasize is that I see two places where AAMC tests are valuable:

1. they, like I said, are in the same style, but not necessarily the same difficulty, as real MCAT questions, which means that, if you've been doing AAMCs for a while, it's a pretty safe bet to go with your hunch about the right answer if you're not completely sure, i'd say 4/5 times you'll be right.

2. the difficulty of the questions is irrelevant, because, since the questions on the AAMC practices were once real MCAT questions (I think), the scales are very very accurate. remember that when you're taking the real thing. if you get there and the test is a lot harder than your practice tests, that's perfectly ok. for the vast majority of people, the difficulty of the test has pretty much no bearing on your actual score (+/- 2 pts or so I'd say).

 

[sshashid87]

It depends on your skills as well...I did great on AAMC 3 (33), because I felt there was little organic...AAMC 7 I just took, got a 25 (7 BS) because I got 7/18 orgo questions right...did same on physics, a little lower on verbal but I haven't really practice verbal all that much yet, really need to, only 1 month left...the 35 you got is really good, jsut make sure you review concepts that you didn't do well on...i need to obiovusly review orgo and pray that i dont have as much orgo on the real thing...