How accurate/comparable are EK 30-min exams?

[YossarianLives]

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This isn't THAT important of a question lol, but I'm curious. I've finished my first 6 EK 30-minute exams from a few of the books. As a non-traditional student really worried about my content prep, I've been pleasantly surprised by my results up to this point (~19-21/23 usually).

They provide their "scaled" scores, which I don't put a lot of stock in, and obviously there is a built-in advantage of just reading the content then having passages that only test THAT content. But I'm curious for those of you that have taken them and also taken the actual MCAT, how comparable do you feel the passages are?

Do you feel that doing decently on the 30-min exams is a good indicator of preparation on that material?

 

[AnotherLawyer]

You must be using old versions of the book. The two editions released so far for the new MCAT do not include a raw-to-scale conversion. Obviously you're doing well, and that's a lot better than doing not well. But the new MCAT is much different than the old MCAT so your performance on old materials is going to be less relevant.

As a single point of comparison, I averaged about 75% on those exams in the 10th edition, taking them strictly timed. My AAMC SB averages were a little over 70% untimed, and my AAMC FL1 score was 515 under test conditions. Taking the real thing on January 28th.

 

[YossarianLives]

You must be using old versions of the book. The two editions released so far for the new MCAT do not include a raw-to-scale conversion. Obviously you're doing well, and that's a lot better than doing not well. But the new MCAT is much different than the old MCAT so your performance on old materials is going to be less relevant.

As a single point of comparison, I averaged about 75% on those exams in the 10th edition, taking them strictly timed. My AAMC SB averages were a little over 70% untimed, and my AAMC FL1 score was 515 under test conditions. Taking the real thing on January 28th.

Thanks for the reply! And good luck on the 28th! I have the 9th edition, and there is an estimated scaled score chart on the "Answers to the 30-minute exams" page in the back of the book (before the explanations).

 

[AnotherLawyer]

Thanks for the reply! And good luck on the 28th! I have the 9th edition, and there is an estimated scaled score chart on the "Answers to the 30-minute exams" page in the back of the book (before the explanations).

Hmm, they must have taken it out for the 10th. My books explicitly say that it would be futile to try to guess your score based on the 30 minute exams. I would say you're in great shape then. However, EK skimps over or completely omits lots of stuff that comes up repeatedly on the AAMC material, particularly in B/B and P/S. So don't wait too long to work through the SB. That will give you a sense of where you need to supplement.