I've read a lot about the differences between all the AAMC practice tests (mostly unreliable). It's commonly cited that tests 3/4 are easier than 9/10/11. I happened to be in a position that I took tests 3 and 11 with only a week and little studying in between; I thought I'd share my results and maybe help someone else looking to gauge theirs. N=1 of course, and if anyone else has any ceteris paribus AAMC practice test results, please share.
I took AAMC test 11 on a Saturday and AAMC test 3 the following Friday. I read select chapters from Princeton Review Bio in between (maybe 2-3 chapters) and that's it. I will list #11 % correct, #3 % correct, then change in score.
VR: 93% 90% -1
PS: 87% 88% 0
BS: 77% 83% +1
Categorical breakdown:
Physics: 93% 96%
GenChem: 80% 81%
Bio: 79% 92%
Organic: 67% 57%
As you can see, most scores were relatively unchanging except biology (I'll say that's due to my studying 🤔).
I think the difference in organic may have been a bit skewed by my getting an entire passage about acetone...and not remembering what it's structure was🙁
Another note is that the verbal questions seemed less holistic than newer tests FWIW (ie "what does blank mean in this context?" instead of "The author would most agree with...")
Anyway, based on my experience, I think test 3 is very well correlated with scores on more recent tests. I wouldn't worry about it being "easier" than newer tests.
I took AAMC test 11 on a Saturday and AAMC test 3 the following Friday. I read select chapters from Princeton Review Bio in between (maybe 2-3 chapters) and that's it. I will list #11 % correct, #3 % correct, then change in score.
VR: 93% 90% -1
PS: 87% 88% 0
BS: 77% 83% +1
Categorical breakdown:
Physics: 93% 96%
GenChem: 80% 81%
Bio: 79% 92%
Organic: 67% 57%
As you can see, most scores were relatively unchanging except biology (I'll say that's due to my studying 🤔).
I think the difference in organic may have been a bit skewed by my getting an entire passage about acetone...and not remembering what it's structure was🙁
Another note is that the verbal questions seemed less holistic than newer tests FWIW (ie "what does blank mean in this context?" instead of "The author would most agree with...")
Anyway, based on my experience, I think test 3 is very well correlated with scores on more recent tests. I wouldn't worry about it being "easier" than newer tests.
