FL 2 curve way off?

[fldoctorgirl]

Does anyone have any insight to the curve on FL 2 from AAMC? It seems to be way off, and I've found general consensus on other threads (both on SDN and reddit) talking about how crazy the P/S curve is.

For instance, in P/S I got 53/59 questions (90% correct, 91st percentile) for a 129. This seems a bit low to me considering I only missed 6 questions. Same thing for CARS: Got 46/53 questions (87% correct, 95th percentile!!!) but only scored a 129. It seems to me that both these scores should be at least 130.

I found the same for C/P and B/B. These are usually my worst sections, but I scored around the same percent correct as I usually do. However, my scaled scores tanked.

Just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and/or has any insight about this!

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[Altius Premier Tutor]

I think the AAMC 2 curve is probably the more accurate version of what to expect on a moderate-to-easy exam form, while AAMC 1 is slightly too generous. There are definitely live exam forms out there that are much harder than AAMC2, and those will have more lenient curves.

 

[NarutoMD]

Does anyone have any insight to the curve on FL 2 from AAMC? It seems to be way off, and I've found general consensus on other threads (both on SDN and reddit) talking about how crazy the P/S curve is.

For instance, in P/S I got 53/59 questions (90% correct, 91st percentile) for a 129. This seems a bit low to me considering I only missed 6 questions. Same thing for CARS: Got 46/53 questions (87% correct, 95th percentile!!!) but only scored a 129. It seems to me that both these scores should be at least 130.

I found the same for C/P and B/B. These are usually my worst sections, but I scored around the same percent correct as I usually do. However, my scaled scores tanked.

Just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and/or has any insight about this!

If you look at the scaled percentiles posted by AAMC on their website, you will see that for CARS, a 129 is 95th percentile and for PS, a 129 is 91st percentile. So I think they are scaling the practice tests based on these official scales to make them more of a better predictor. However, you could get a higher score on the real MCAT with the same number of corrects though.

 

[aldol16]

The number of raw answers correct corresponding to some scaled score will vary based on exam difficulty. If it's an easy exam, you're going to need to get more right to get a higher score. If it's a difficult exam, you need to get fewer right to get the same high score. That's how scoring on the actual thing works and it's based on how many people (percentiles) have gotten that raw score for a given scaled score.

 

[CJhooper123]

I think the AAMC 2 curve is probably the more accurate version of what to expect on a moderate-to-easy exam form, while AAMC 1 is slightly too generous. There are definitely live exam forms out there that are much harder than AAMC2, and those will have more lenient curves.

The AAMC recently re-scaled the Practice Exam 1.

 

[DameJulie]

Does anyone have any insight to the curve on FL 2 from AAMC? It seems to be way off, and I've found general consensus on other threads (both on SDN and reddit) talking about how crazy the P/S curve is.

For instance, in P/S I got 53/59 questions (90% correct, 91st percentile) for a 129. This seems a bit low to me considering I only missed 6 questions. Same thing for CARS: Got 46/53 questions (87% correct, 95th percentile!!!) but only scored a 129. It seems to me that both these scores should be at least 130.

I found the same for C/P and B/B. These are usually my worst sections, but I scored around the same percent correct as I usually do. However, my scaled scores tanked.

Just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and/or has any insight about this!

That's pretty awesome %correct! what's your study secret?

 

[fldoctorgirl]

That's pretty awesome %correct! what's your study secret?

Thank you! For CARS, I try to make sure I'm truly answering the question instead of just picking an option that sounds good. A lot of times, they'll try to trick you with word play. If you're stuck, make sure you really re-examine the question stem and the answer choices and make sure you know what you're looking for.

For P/S, I've just been building on my vocabulary knowledge from all of the practice FLs. I find it similar to CARS other than that. You kind of just have to reason your way to the right answer, making sure you're actually answering the question and not making assumptions.

I made silly mistakes for both of these sections that could have easily been correct answers though, so I'm hoping to do even better on test day! I'll let everyone know how it goes though.

 

[tekkenman11]

This is probably the closest scale to the real thing. The only way you would get a more forgiving scale is if you got dealt a harder-than-normal MCAT test the day of. Which is entirely possible but don't go into it thinking you'll get that.

It's safer to assume you'll get an average MCAT so you want to make sure you're a prepared as possible.