Experimental Passages

[fun8stuff]

I have a hard time believing that they put in actual experimental passages. On the website it says "field tests questions". So maybe they reuse passages but change questions? If they throughout an entire passage and it just happened to be one that you did very well on compared to everyone else (or did much worse) it would throw scores off. It seems it would make more sense to have experimental questions.

edit: One would also think that they could use some questions in other passages as well. As long as the passages are similar.

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[txguy]

Goto e-mcat.com, dicussion boards, General Q&A, thread entitled "Test DK" and you'll see some correspondence from MCAT staff. This person identified themself in the thread entitled "Discussing Specific Questions".

MCAT Staff


Posts Posted - 04/20/2004 : 2:33:53 PM
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Yes, there are experimental items/passages on each form of the MCAT. This is not a secret.
Yes, items/passages are reused. That is how we keep the score scale constant across time. We do make sure that no one sees the same items/passages twice. That is why repeaters are sometimes assigned to particular seats by the proctors.


MCAT Staff


Posts Posted - 04/20/2004 : 09:42:45 AM
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I have deleted some entire threads because the discussion went into detail about specific question content and answer options. "Censoring" discussion boards is never done lightly, but questions may be reused in future tests and discussing them in detail now could provide an unfair advantage to those who see these questions in the future. This isn't even taking into account the copyright issues. Please restrain yourselves.
Thank you,
Ellen Julian
Director, MCAT

 

[fun8stuff]

Interesting... now wonder there are people who are out there to memorize the tests!

Goto e-mcat.com, dicussion boards, General Q&A, thread entitled "Test DK" and you'll see some correspondence from MCAT staff. This person identified themself in the thread entitled "Discussing Specific Questions".

MCAT Staff


Posts Posted - 04/20/2004 : 2:33:53 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, there are experimental items/passages on each form of the MCAT. This is not a secret.
Yes, items/passages are reused. That is how we keep the score scale constant across time. We do make sure that no one sees the same items/passages twice. That is why repeaters are sometimes assigned to particular seats by the proctors.


MCAT Staff


Posts Posted - 04/20/2004 : 09:42:45 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have deleted some entire threads because the discussion went into detail about specific question content and answer options. "Censoring" discussion boards is never done lightly, but questions may be reused in future tests and discussing them in detail now could provide an unfair advantage to those who see these questions in the future. This isn't even taking into account the copyright issues. Please restrain yourselves.
Thank you,
Ellen Julian
Director, MCAT

 

[blz]

wow get over it people...there are experimental passages and yes they redo passages/questions...