Ability to predict test grades

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ViergeEnnuyeuse

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How is your ability to predict test grades? Back in undergrad, if I had a good feeling after taking a test, my score usually reflected it. The opposite was true, too. However, it seems like I can't trust my feelings anymore in med school. There have been many occasions where I felt like I bombed an exam but I actually end up doing much better than I expected. For instance, I seriously thought I had horribly failed my histology final due to lack of studying for personal reasons, yet I got an 80. On the other hand, there have been times when I thought that I had performed quite well on an exam, but then find out that I did much worse than I had expected. I once thought that I had gotten at least an 80 on an anatomy practical but I ended up failing miserably. Does this happen to anyone else?

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Same for me, except my grades don't fluctuate. No matter how I think I did, I always get the exact same grade within a few points.
 
+/- 4%. Seriously--I go through most exams and assign a "+" sign to the ones I'm positive on (I get almost all these right since they only get a plus if I can bank them). The ones I'm less sure get a dot symbol (these I get about 75-80%). The other's I have no idea I go at a 25% clip. Then I do the calculations--yes I'm an analytical dork, I know
 
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Does this happen to anyone else?

Yea - I had one class last term that I was sure I did well in. It was my worst class of the term. Another class I realized I had missed at least 5 questions and I was CERTAIN I had done poorly. Turns out those were the only 5 I missed. The last class I thought I did ok in and it turns out I did.

My ability to predict my performance in med school is crap-tacular ;)
 
i wish i had the magic touch i had back in high school.
everything i touched turned to gold.

not so after college.
 
Everyone needs to remember that undergrad is nothing like med school.
 
Yah undergrad was a lot harder than this

Lol - I agree in the sense that I spent a large amount of time in undergrad learning how to study effectively.

I know (or at least think) you're being serious, but this post still made me chuckle :laugh:
 
I actually agree that undergrad was harder. The science classes we took there were geared to prepare us for becoming PhDs, not MDs. Yes, there are lots of details in medical school, but a lot of what we learn has clinical applications, whereas in undergrad a lot of the details were purely academic and pertained to research settings and labwork. Granted, I'm only a first year, but our biochem, genetics and cell bio class only skimmed the surface on some of the topics that we learned in more depth in undergrad. Not that I'm complaining.. research is not for me and I'm glad that some of what we're learning now has clinical applications.

Oh, and as for the topic of the thread, I'm like one of the posters above in that I can never tell how I did, but always hover around the class average.
 
I did well predicting first two years, but I can't predict my third year shelf exam scores for crap.
 
+/- 4%. Seriously--I go through most exams and assign a "+" sign to the ones I'm positive on (I get almost all these right since they only get a plus if I can bank them). The ones I'm less sure get a dot symbol (these I get about 75-80%). The other's I have no idea I go at a 25% clip. Then I do the calculations--yes I'm an analytical dork, I know

Heh. I did this too. I thought I was uniquely dorky.
 
I always score below average on the midterm and top 10% on the final... no matter how I feel after the test or how much time I put in to studying. :confused:
 
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It's interesting because immediately after our computer exams we can click "get prelim score?" I can usually peg this within about 15% points. However, following appeals your grade can go up as much as 10% in some classes.
 
I mark all questions where I was essentially making an educated guess with a check, and mark all where I narrowed it down to two choices (even if I was strongly favoring one over the other) as 50/50. Counting checks plus half of the 50/50 usually gets me within a few questions of the final grade... usually a little worse than I actually scored (I suppose my educated guesses are a little better than random, and my 50/50 is a little better than a coin flip).
 
I quickly skim through my exams and do the easy questions first. Usually I can answer 70-75% of the questions in less than 30 minutes, leaving ample time for the remaining 25-30% of the questions. It definitely reduces the stress level when you figure 3-4 minutes per question.

The uncertain questions I might take a good 10 minutes to think through pathways and processes. Mostly process of elimination thinking. I like to leave little hash-marks next to questions I'm not totally sure of. Then go through the list of hash-marks over and over again until I can figure it out or exam is over. As I said earlier, I always underestimate my scores because I use the hash-marks as a rough guide of my test performance. Usually, I get at least 5% higher test scores than I expect.
 
Maybe it's our tests but my feelings are still pretty accurate. For some reason I'm a horrible guesser so any question where I'm not 100% sure is one I usually miss.
 
Nice blog btw... love the comics.
haha thanks. i have more of them floating around in my head but I can't seem to find the time/motivation to draw them
 
I write after each question one of the following:

A "0" if I know I answered the question correctly.
A "1/4" if I am pretty sure it is right.
A "1/2" if I was between two answers.
A "3/4" if I was pretty much guessing.
A "1" if I had no frickin' clue.

I then write the total on the bottom of the page and total them all up at the end of the test to get an idea of how many I probably got wrong. It is usually pretty close but tends to error slightly on the side of saying I got more wrong than I actually did.
 
I just gave up on trying to predict my test grades:

1) Block exam: I was a bit behind with the lectures, had the "winter blues", and I ended up not studying like 5 lectures out of 30-something. Thought I was going to fail. Grade: upper 80's
2) Another block exam: I was horribly behind lectures after a full blown pneumonia w/sepsis over the break. Again couldn't even read about 8 lectures out of 40-some, I was seriously freaking out that I was going to fail miserably. Grade: 80
3) Some random exam during MSI: studied pretty well, kept up with the material, had time to review, make summaries, charts, even go through the stupid power points, etc. I thought I was going to ace the exam. Grade: average.

So......I just learned not to stress anymore about it, it preserves your sanity

I also mark the questions on the exams:
1) Circle answer: + I got it
2) +/- : not quite sure
3) ? : less than sure
4) WTF: I have no f***** idea and I'm making a pseudo-educated guess

If only I went to the review sessions for the exams I could verify how well my system of marking the questions works :rolleyes: :idea:

So basically you're not alone :)
 
How is your ability to predict test grades?


After the exam, horrible. Before I sit down to take the exam I can usually peg my letter grade based on how well I prepared. For some reason the exam itself just confuses my predictive ability.

And seriously, who marks the questions during an exam? It's not that long 'til you get your grade, anyway.
 
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