To answer your question, BR Exam 7 is one of the three toughest in the collection. That's why the curve is as lenient as it is. So despite the difficulty, you should get a reasonably accurate normalized score using the curve. The other tough exams are 3 and 5.
This might be a good place to share an overall opinion about practice exams in general. Most of us want them to be diagnostic in nature and can't help but think every exam we take (be it from AAMC or TBR) has this ability to give us a precise measure of how we will perform numerically on the actual exam. While this should be true to some extent, on an exam with 52 questions covering all of organic chemistry and all of biology, there will never be a
real MCAT that measures the same topics and logic as another. They do their best, but if you read the feedback following any given MCAT you'll get a very different feel. People who take the MCAT more than once will say how much better or worse the latest test was compared to their previous exam(s). Scores on the real MCAT vary for people with similar preparation, so practice exams will naturally generate a range of scores too.
Which comes back to the purpose of practice exams. The purpose is not solely to give you a number to anchor your selfworth to. We all want a good number and a collective set of practice scores can certainly tell you whether you are ready to get a score that will move your application forward in the process. But your practice test has to do more than generate a number. Or more correctly, you have to do more with your practice test. I have read several brilliant posts from the likes of SN2ed, LoveofOrganic, Apumic, Erskine, LostinStudy, and so on that keep mentioning postgame analysis. That is the biggest part of taking a practice exam.
Sitting for a practice exam may simulate the real experience slightly, but there's no way to create an environment that will match the adrenaline rush of the real exam. There is no practice exam that will be exactly like your actual exam, although some may be close. What you need to get from a practice exam is insights about how
you take the test. From this, you need to determine how you will do better on similar passages and questions you see in the future.
A good postgame analysis should include the following:
- An analysis of timing. Figure out where you could save time. Whether it's doing a question five second faster, doing less work on a calculation, not reading a paragraph a second time, or being more organized when you annotate (if you do this), figure out how to save time. Saving a little time here and there will allow you to spend more time on the two or three wth questions on the exam.
- Summarize the material. Figure out what you knew well, what you need to lightly gloss over, and what you need to review. This is the point where you need to make flashcards, not during your review. Making or using flashcards on what you already know is probably the biggest waste of time when studying. On the other hand, making flashcards of what you didn't know well during a test situation is essential.
- Analyze the type of errors you made. Figure out which errors stemmed from lack of focus (mind drifting or stress driven lapses), which ones were the result of answering a question in your mind and not the question they asked (were careless), which ones were from the passage that you failed to process well, and which ones were from being rushed. This is best served by trying questions you missed a second time, before reading through the answer explanation. If you get the question correct after the exam is over when the clock is not running, then you need to find out why you didn't do it under timed conditions. If you can find a way to eliminate five to ten errors after each practice exam, you'll see a score improvement in the end. Practice testing is not about measuring where you are, but figuring out how to get where you want to be!
- Modify your approach to the exam on the whole. Figuring out what went wrong is one thing, but the real skill is making the changes in your approach that will help you on future exams. Determining what you can do better within your approach is essential. Sometimes an answer explanation will present a great trick for getting through a question, but if it's not innate for you, then the trick will not help. Build a strategy that works for you.
It's all about getting better and getting ready for anything they might throw. You have to be prepared for their full range of PS exams, VR exams, and BS exams. You might get a calculation heavy PS section that emphasizes physics one day but a purely concenptual exam favoring general chemistry the next. You have to be ready for both of them. Practice tests followed by a thorough postgame analysis will help you to do this.
The point I'm hoping to make here is that you really shouldn't be asking others whether a practice exam was hard or easy as much as you should be asking yourself how you'll do better next time. We all want to get feedback to know we weren't alone in being run over by that semi, but once you get that confirmation from others make sure you've learned how to get out of its way next time.
