exam questions tossed out?

[hisincognito]

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I am not sure if this has been asked before, but is is true that some exam questions are tossed out? And if so, what are the criteria? On a similar note, I am aware that some questions are experimental but is it safe to say that they will be usually discretes b/c it seems to me that throwing out a whole passage doesn't seem right considering the exam is shorter. Then perhaps only some passage questions are experimental? And one last more question, just b/c one person doesn't have a particular passage doesn't mean that the passage is experimental, right?

 

[koopa_troopa]

I doubt a whole passage would be experimental. As you said, there will be a significant reduction in the number of questions and really could shrink the distribution of scores. It is probably a few questions here and there, or possibly only discretes could experimental. I'm just speculating here.

As for questions being tossed out, I think it is very rare. Test takers have the opportunity to complain about questions that did not make sense. There was a case in the January MCAT where the questions of a verbal passage did not match the actual passage, so obviously those had to be tossed.