How do the Next Step Exams correlate to the real one.

[Golden-Future]

^^^^^^

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[bigeman101]

Personally I did 5 points worse on the next step exams

 

[Blanky]

CP was very close to my real exam (slightly harder) similar to FL2 but with more physics equations

CARS is weird and NS was ok practice but isnt really the same. AAMC FLs are similar to the real

BB was ok on NS and it will help you to read info from experiments which is huge for BB. My BB was harder than the FLs and very close to the section banks (not q packs)

PS for NS was good for helping to learn the definitions and theory. Real PS was very experimentation oriented and confusing... I guess the section banks are closest but it was tougher on the real deal.

 

[Blanky]

When did you take the NS vs Real? There is lots of data showing NS score deflating sometime last hear and they have since rescaled to be much closer in scaling to AAMC FLs.
I dont have my real score yet so...

 

[BurntFlower]

My Next Step average was exactly what I got on the real thing.

 

[bluemamba7]

^^^^^^

I’ll let you know in 2 weeks BUT for the practice exams on AAMC I was doing at the very least 5 points higher but I heard that this was not the case if you’re scoring in the low 500s

 

[Golden-Future]

I’ll let you know in 2 weeks BUT for the practice exams on AAMC I was doing at the very least 5 points higher but I heard that this was not the case if you’re scoring in the low 500s

Yes let me know how it went!

I've scored in the low 500s for NS's first 2 exams (502, 504). Hopefully I can raise it when I take it end of June.

 

[Reader88]

I consistently scored 5-7 points lower on NS exams than the real thing (or any of my AAMC practice materials). I think B/B my score was closest, and the rest it was usually a few points lower on NS for each section. N=1, obviously. I took the MCAT in January, so I was using NS tests relatively recently.

 

[Golden-Future]

I consistently scored 5-7 points lower on NS exams than the real thing (or any of my AAMC practice materials). I think B/B my score was closest, and the rest it was usually a few points lower on NS for each section. N=1, obviously. I took the MCAT in January, so I was using NS tests relatively recently.

Wow congrats to you!! I hope the same applies to me lol, a 5-7 point increase would be awesome, but for me i doubt it.

 

[Blanky]

Dont expect a 5 point leap.

 

[Reader88]

Wow congrats to you!! I hope the same applies to me lol, a 5-7 point increase would be awesome, but for me i doubt it.

Thanks! Well just keep studying for your last few weeks and my biggest advice is don't let any practice test scores completely freak you out right before your exam. Obviously if you are consistently below where you want to be, that's a problem. For me, I had been scoring around where I wanted on AAMC material and took one last NS exam late in the game. It ended up being my worst and caused a lot of stress and anxiety that I now know was unnecessary.

 

[physiogirl2019]

next step is pretty inflated imo. i scored 506, 506, and a 502, respectively (FL 1, 2, 3) and right after taking those, i moved on to AAMC material and scored a 503 on FL 1. spent about a month and a half working on AAMC section banks/question packs and managed to score a 510 on the real deal. next step is good practice, but definitely has poor predictive power

 

[Golden-Future]

Thanks guys! This info will def help me not freak out about my scores. And yes I plan on doing all the AAMC section banks like 2-3 times, because im the type of person that needs to do stuff multiple times to get it.

 

[Blanky]

Yea do the q packs like twice until those are easy and then work on the section banks. If you are strong on the banks you are prob looking good for FLs

 

[Siromas]

I highly recommend the Next Step practice exams as I relied heavily on them in my own prep.

I scored about 8 points higher on my actual exam than my combined NS 1-6 exam averages. N=1

So while they're good for prepping, they might be poor for estimating your score for the actual exam.

 

[Blanky]

NS 1-4 was awesome NS5 was good/decent and I didn't even bother with NS6 but if you google search it has bad reviews

 

[Blanky]

I highly recommend Uworld, there is a free 90 day link somewhere on sdn and the PS there is very good.

 

[Wahkoon]

NS 1-4 was awesome NS5 was good/decent and I didn't even bother with NS6 but if you google search it has bad reviews

I highly recommend Uworld, there is a free 90 day link somewhere on sdn and the PS there is very good.

Are you me??

I would highly recommend NS 1-3 (skipped 4) and UWorld. As for inflated scores, I actually saw the opposite.
NS: 508, 512, 509
AAMC: 517, 517, 517
Actual: 516

NS and AAMC were taken about 1 month apart. Interpret that however you will... I would just say that all 3rd party tests are poor predictors. Use them for practice and to determine glaring flaws (eg, highly unequal scores, sub 500) and don't try to read too much into it.

 

[Golden-Future]

Never heard of U world, but thanks I'll look into it!

 

[resilience123]

Never heard of U world, but thanks I'll look into it!

U-world's explanations are pure gold! I highly recommend it. Also, it's extremely easy to make flashcards on U-world (You high the sentence/diagram/equation and press the flashcard icon and that's it!).

 

[Fat_Albert]

next step is pretty inflated imo. i scored 506, 506, and a 502, respectively (FL 1, 2, 3) and right after taking those, i moved on to AAMC material and scored a 503 on FL 1. spent about a month and a half working on AAMC section banks/question packs and managed to score a 510 on the real deal. next step is good practice, but definitely has poor predictive power

How did you review them?