Has anyone ever blindly guessed on the MCAT and do well?

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studentdoctor08

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Just curious. This post-MCAT wait is going to eat me up.
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If you are making random choices on all questions, you are most likely to get a 7 (3PS/2VR/2BS). If you are able to eliminate two of the answers and only guessing between the other two, you'll get 18 (6/6/6). That's based on the raw scores for AAMC9. As expected, it is not exactly a winning strategy. 😉
 
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I'm a bit curious to hear this as well.

If we're talking not even reading the question and literally just checking off random answers, then yea definitely you won't do well, assuming its the majority of the test.

But if we are talking guessing as in reading the question and trying to reason but can't really come up with a definitive answer and then guessing, that's a bit more interesting to hear.
 
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On my MCAT, there were 2 passages I guessed on. One was a bio passage where I couldn't follow what was going on (some convoluted experiment), and guessed on all 7 questions (literally blindly guessed). The other passage was organic and had to do with a reaction I couldn't remember. I probably guessed on all 5 of the questions on that passage, as well. And by guessing, I mean blind guessing, not educated guessing (for both the bio passage and the ochem passage). While not a great score, I still came out with a 10.
 
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TX500 said:
On my MCAT, there were 2 passages I guessed on. One was a bio passage where I couldn't follow what was going on (some convoluted experiment), and guessed on all 7 questions (literally blindly guessed). The other passage was organic and had to do with a reaction I couldn't remember. I probably guessed on all 5 of the questions on that passage, as well. And by guessing, I mean blind guessing, not educated guessing (for both the bio passage and the ochem passage). While not a great score, I still came out with a 10.
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That's actually pretty impressive. Did you have a specific guessing pattern, like C for every answer or ABCDABCD etc.?
 
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cuculici1 said:
That's actually pretty impressive. Did you have a specific guessing pattern, like C for every answer or ABCDABCD etc.?
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Some MCATs have huge curves. i.e., you could probably miss 15 and still get a 10. From those 15 I guessed on, I probably got 4 right (statistically speaking), and if you throw in the fact that a few questions may have been experimental, then it's not all that surprising.
 
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TX500 said:
Some MCATs have huge curves. i.e., you could probably miss 15 and still get a 10. From those 15 I guessed on, I probably got 4 right (statistically speaking), and if you throw in the fact that a few questions may have been experimental, then it's not all that surprising.
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Makes me feel better because I guess/marked 20 questions on the BS section 1/24 But I know I got 10 of them wrong for sure.
 
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A friend of mine just marked a pattern of answers on a full length Kaplan and got >21. I was mad because I actually took it and did worse. That was when we barely started studying.
 
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Gauss44 said:
A friend of mine just marked a pattern of answers on a full length Kaplan and got >21. I was mad because I actually took it and did worse. That was when we barely started studying.
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His score was obviously a statistical fluke.
 
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Gauss44 said:
A friend of mine just marked a pattern of answers on a full length Kaplan and got >21. I was mad because I actually took it and did worse. That was when we barely started studying.
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Sorry, but I have to call BS on this. Your friend was probably pulling your leg, or saw the answers ahead of time.
 
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TX500 said:
Some MCATs have huge curves. i.e., you could probably miss 15 and still get a 10. From those 15 I guessed on, I probably got 4 right (statistically speaking), and if you throw in the fact that a few questions may have been experimental, then it's not all that surprising.
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Wait... can someone confirm that is true? One MCAT test will be scored and curved diferently than another? (Assuming they're obviously two different tests?)
 
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nvm. posted in wrong thread.

To prevent this from being spam, I'll add my favorite smilies:

:slap:
:prof:
:beat:
 
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Clinicall said:
Wait... can someone confirm that is true? One MCAT test will be scored and curved diferently than another? (Assuming they're obviously two different tests?)
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yes they are curved differently depending on how other people do vs. you
 
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So if I got (for instance) half of the questions right on one MCAT and half right on a different test, they could possibly be different scores? This seems...weird to me.
 
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Clinicall said:
So if I got (for instance) half of the questions right on one MCAT and half right on a different test, they could possibly be different scores? This seems...weird to me.
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Some tests have easier questions than others - you'll get less slack on the ones with easy questions and lower score for the same number of errors.

AAMC claims that the "curve" is predetermined before the test starts, based on the questions picked for that test and is not relative to the rest of the test takers.
 
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Hemorrage said:
yes they are curved differently depending on how other people do vs. you
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That's sort of how it works, but you're not exactly in direct competition with others. The scale tends to be fairly set with some wiggle room. They won't give you a 15 if you did poorly but happened to be best of those who did poorly. They'll probably modify the scale a bit to reflect the difficulty of the test, but I'm guessing the MCAT gods have a rough scale in mind ahead of time based on questions of similar difficulty from past exams. If the scale were determined only after administration based only on that set of test takers, it wouldn't really be standardized and it would lessen the value of the test.
 
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If the scale was predetermined why would there be a 30 day delay in the scores? Of course they scale it depending on how everyone does
 
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Hemorrage said:
If the scale was predetermined why would there be a 30 day delay in the scores? Of course they scale it depending on how everyone does
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My understanding is that it used to take so long due to the writing section being scored by human readers.

Now that the WS is gone, your guess is as good as mine.
 
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Hemorrage said:
If the scale was predetermined why would there be a 30 day delay in the scores? Of course they scale it depending on how everyone does
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The scale is predetermine, AAMC said this themselves.

I think it takes this long because:

1. They need to wait for reports of any 'funny' behavior that could of happened. While waiting for the 'funny' reports they probably randomly check that everything want okay in random testing centers. In addition they probably have to check centers where funny behave have occurred in the past. This could take 2-3 weeks because AAMC probably has one to two people on the job.

2. As soon as they get the MCAT tests back they probably do not grade them asap.

3. I think they probably review all the passages and questions over again making sure every thing is okay.
 
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Hemorrage said:
If the scale was predetermined why would there be a 30 day delay in the scores? Of course they scale it depending on how everyone does
Click to expand...

My guess is there is a predetermined scale based on the difficulty of the questions on the test but it is not necessarily set in stone. They probably check the percentiles to make sure it all matches up.
 
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The scaled score is probably a rolling scale and also based on a cumulative rolling difficulty factor. It wouldn't make sense to only base the score on the limited set of data from when the questions were experimental. The month gives them time to do this and it also cuts down on people taking closely dated exams which may allow easier question cycling. Their are a lot of reasons for them to delay scores for a month but it would be nice if they released a tentative score range within the week and then finalized it within a month after they made whatever scaling adjustments and checked with the testing sites for violations.
 
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Chances of getting a raw score of 100 (in the high 20s/low 30s range of scores I'm assuming) by randomly guessing = .25^100 = some ridiculously small number.

Great waste of 270 bucks if you ask me.
 
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I'm not talking about christmas-tree-ing the whole thing, but like blindly guessing on some questions because you are pressed for time (especially on the VR section)
 
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