amc practice test fluke

[bruceleehiiiyaa]

any of you guys experience flukes where one practice test is significantly higher than the others?

i've consistently been getting 33s-34s...and then today i got a 39 on AMC 8, which most people say is much harder than the others.


wtf!? anyone care to share experiences?

 

[zempa]

any of you guys experience flukes where one practice test is significantly higher than the others?

i've consistently been getting 33s-34s...and then today i got a 39 on AMC 8, which most people say is much harder than the others.


wtf!? anyone care to share experiences?

depends on how u got that - if u go back and see it was mostly stuff that u guessed correctly then its prob not too significant however if its because you knew everything and figured/thought things through carefully you might be hitting the next level

 

[Naijaba]

Though the MCAT has well-defined content that it tests, an individual administration may be lopsided towards certain topics and not even touch others. I took the MCAT once and voided it (didn't know 1/2 of the PS or 2 VR passages) and took it again and got a 37. I'm very strong at certain chemistry topics that are hard (titrations, buffers, reaction rates, biochemistry) but I am weak when it comes to other hard topics (electrochemistry, VSEPR models, nuclear chemistry). In the end I could have spent another year studying and gotten that extra 3 points for a 40, but I would merely be overcoming the hit-or-miss aspect of the MCAT.

 

[movax]

MCATs are weird, and pretty luck-dependent; I was lucky enough not to get much fluids and orgo and optics, but I was "unlucky" enough to not get much Phys2, my strong point.

 

[BigEast55]

Well, if you are getting higher scores you will certainly have a higher range of practice test scores. The difference between a 10 and an 11 in a category is 4-5 questions, an 11-12 is 3 or 4, and a 12 to 13 is 3, so just a few questions can make a big deal, a huge deal at high score ranges, so statistically, if you average a 34 getting a 39 isnt significantly less wild than if you were averaging a 30 and got a 35.

PS. I was averaging right around you and got a 34 on the actual test... so good luck

 

[RogueUnicorn]

any of you guys experience flukes where one practice test is significantly higher than the others?

i've consistently been getting 33s-34s...and then today i got a 39 on AMC 8, which most people say is much harder than the others.


wtf!? anyone care to share experiences?

hey maybe you finally broke through the plateau. build on it.

 

[RogueUnicorn]

MCATs are weird, and pretty luck-dependent; I was lucky enough not to get much fluids and orgo and optics, but I was "unlucky" enough to not get much Phys2, my strong point.

your post imo is an example of my point which is nearly opposite yours - luck only plays a factor to the un/less prepared. if you understand all the material then luck is nonexistent

 

[BigEast55]

your post imo is an example of my point which is nearly opposite yours - luck only plays a factor to the un/less prepared. if you understand all the material then luck is nonexistent

I tend to agree with you, but to some extent certainly luck plays a factor, it is impossible to be perfectly prepared. I got a 34R (12/11/R/11), which is in the 92.0 - 94.3 percentile on that test, and it is possible that I got 35 questions wrong. Certainly, I could have been on the cusp either way in every section and been 3 questions away from a 31 or 3 questions away from a 37, that is a pretty big range that reasonably a good deal of luck. There was only one question I had to totally guess on, but if that was a hard question on cell bio, which i knew well, I could have gotten a 35 maybe.

Furthermore, I will agree that verbal is nearly no luck, but PS and BS have some luck effect. Lets say I take Gen Chem/Gen Bio Year 1 of college, and Physics/Orgo Year 2 of college, which is common at my school, then many at my school take the MCAT after sophomore year so they have time to retake if needed (this is what I did). If you study, no matter how hard, you will not be 100% at both. Let's say you get 90% and physics and orgo and 80% at gen chem and gen bio. You get 9 passages on BS and PS, if you get 5 of orgo/physics and 4 of gen chem/gen bio you "know" 85.6% of the questions, if you get the other way, which is sheer luck, its a 50-50 chance, you know 84.4%. That difference may seem minuscule, but on AAMC 9R (whose curve I used as reference for this) that is the difference between an 11 and a 12 in both PS and BS.

 

[RogueUnicorn]

I tend to agree with you, but to some extent certainly luck plays a factor, it is impossible to be perfectly prepared. I got a 34R (12/11/R/11), which is in the 92.0 - 94.3 percentile on that test, and it is possible that I got 35 questions wrong. Certainly, I could have been on the cusp either way in every section and been 3 questions away from a 31 or 3 questions away from a 37, that is a pretty big range that reasonably a good deal of luck. There was only one question I had to totally guess on, but if that was a hard question on cell bio, which i knew well, I could have gotten a 35 maybe.

Furthermore, I will agree that verbal is nearly no luck, but PS and BS have some luck effect. Lets say I take Gen Chem/Gen Bio Year 1 of college, and Physics/Orgo Year 2 of college, which is common at my school, then many at my school take the MCAT after sophomore year so they have time to retake if needed (this is what I did). If you study, no matter how hard, you will not be 100% at both. Let's say you get 90% and physics and orgo and 80% at gen chem and gen bio. You get 9 passages on BS and PS, if you get 5 of orgo/physics and 4 of gen chem/gen bio you "know" 85.6% of the questions, if you get the other way, which is sheer luck, its a 50-50 chance, you know 84.4%. That difference may seem minuscule, but on AAMC 9R (whose curve I used as reference for this) that is the difference between an 11 and a 12 in both PS and BS.

STRONGLY disagree. you can prepare yourself enough to know 100% of both PS and BS. without question. i did this precisely because otherwise you indeed are subject to luck in the manner you described.

 

[Vihsadas]

I think it is definitely possible to learn 100% of the required material for both PS and BS. I'd even go so far as to say that it's what everyone should aim to do, and it's requisite to learning how to attack the test itself. I really feel that I learned 100% of PS and BS. My practice tests and real test shows that.

 

[RogueUnicorn]

thank you.

 

[BigEast55]

Okay, well clearly you knew almost 100%, given that you got a 15 and a 14 in the sciences sections, but most people simply can't or won't learn 100% of the material, otherwise 15s on sections would be as common as 800s on the Math GRE or either of the SAT sections or 36s on the ACTs, and the simple fact is that they aren't.

 

[LostInStudy]

A great score on an AAMC can never be a fluke. It just means that you know that material pretty well. Trying concentrating on and eliminating even other/more weaknesses.

-LIS

 

[RogueUnicorn]

Okay, well clearly you knew almost 100%, given that you got a 15 and a 14 in the sciences sections, but most people simply can't or won't learn 100% of the material, otherwise 15s on sections would be as common as 800s on the Math GRE or either of the SAT sections or 36s on the ACTs, and the simple fact is that they aren't.

then it's their fault, not luck. which has been our point all along