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LOL I got a C in Bio 1 - all about that upward trend! 😉
The first exam I took the exam average was a 60. There was no curve. Most people are failing or barely passing. I have an exam Friday. There is no curve. There is 60 multiple choice questions, and I find it physically impossible to get a perfect score. Even if you study 3 to 4 hours a day. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. My adviser told me it's a weed out class. The TA told me, At the end of the year, there is no curve on the final grades either. So I'm at a fine position right now with an 87. But I just don't know what else I can do to prepare even better for this exam. I'm shooting for at least an A-
You're a first semester freshman.I just feel that my grade is crap. I need to be more competitive
You're a first semester freshman.
Seriously, relax.
You don't have to beat yourself up so early on in your undergraduate career. Learn how to approach college positively instead of criticizing your above average performance. You have plenty of time to build up your application, but if you view every 90 as a failure, then you might find yourself burning out.Well I got another 90 :/ I'm just trying to be a really strong applicant. My bad for having a competitive mindset 🙁
Look, if you're getting 87-90 on an exam, you're on the RIGHT track. It's up to you to figure out how to get those few extra points to bump it up to an acceptable grade, but I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. Since you improved from the first and second exam, I don't see how you can't bump it up a few more points in the next exam or the final.
There's only so much tricking you can do with 4-5 answer choices. There was a reason none of the science departments at my school allowed/gave MC-only exams.
No one an exam
Last night, I sat with my son at dinner.
He's gotten 3 exams:
1) 100
2) 100
3) 96
The 96 was yesterday... he is seriously freaked out. AND he gets to drop a test
CHILL THE turduckian out 🙂 If you stress like this through premed/bachelor's degree, how will you learn to cope with real adversity???
you're fine - just keep fine tuning your test taking strategies and study skills!!
a) They could not be MC-only, but there were MC sections on many of them.Look, you said yourself that none of your science classes allowed MC-only exams. So maybe you just don't have experience with how difficult an MC-only exam in a science course can be, hm? Because they can be very difficult.
Multiple choice only test as a weedout? Someone is doing something terribly wrong, then. There's a ceiling on how difficult an MC test can be.
If one is 'fill in your own', why bother making it MC?I had a Biochem professor that would have multiple choice with no "correct" answer and she just wanted us to pick which one was "least wrong"
There was also a professor at my school that would have multiple choice select all (a-f) and then (g) would be fill in your own answer haha
Maybe only this happens at small schools where they have time to make this **** up and grade it haha
If one is 'fill in your own', why bother making it MC?
And the first example is exactly what I meant when I said "Someone is doing something terribly wrong, then".
I mean, I just wouldn't call the 'fill in your own answer' version MC.My point exactly. Those liberal arts teachers really pushing the critical thinking and analyzing... even in MC questions haha
a) They could not be MC-only, but there were MC sections on many of them.
b) I've done a postbacc since then, and they do do MC-only exams.
I'm not saying some aren't harder than others, but there starts to be a ceiling.
Then we simply disagree. I think the ceiling for MC test difficulty is pretty darn low.What is your point? There "starts to be a ceiling" to how hard anything can be. The ceiling for how hard multiple choice test can be is very high. High enough for class averages to be in the 50's and 60's. It's not some freak accident. 🙄
Then we simply disagree. I think the ceiling for MC test difficulty is pretty darn low.
Hey, you're the one who brought up the MCAT on that frontThen either you're a super genius or you haven't taken a really hard MC test yet.
Hey, you're the one who brought up the MCAT on that front![]()
Multiple choice only test as a weedout? Someone is doing something terribly wrong, then. There's a ceiling on how difficult an MC test can be.
its pretty common for 100th percentile scorers to feel the test was shallow/easy
Yes...and so youd expect it from mehcWell, you would expect that from 100th percentile scorers, wouldn't you?
Yes...and so youd expect it from mehc
Did she score in the 100th percentile? I don't know. I asked her if she thought it was easy.She's gotta know that it's not normal to think the MCAT is easy. Just because she had an easy time with it, that certainly does not mean that "someone is doing something terribly wrong" if an all-MC test is used for weeding people out. 😆 That's exactly what the MCAT is supposed to do.
I've taken all-MC tests in undergrad that were less shallow/"harder" than the MCAT, anyway. They just weren't 7 hours long or of life-defining importance. (And we didn't have basically an infinite amount of time to study for them.)
No but it may mean that the weed out comes from selecting for people who prepare correctly rather than selection by difficulty. Mimelim and lawper have this sort of view that 95% of the population can ace the MCAT if they are given a good early education and prepare correctly.Did she score in the 100th percentile? I don't know. I asked her if she thought it was easy.She's gotta know that it's not normal to think the MCAT is easy. Just because she had an easy time with it, that certainly does not mean that "someone is doing something terribly wrong" if an all-MC test is used for weeding people out. 😆 That's exactly what the MCAT is supposed to do.
I've taken all-MC tests in undergrad that were less shallow/"harder" than the MCAT, anyway. They just weren't 7 hours long or of life-defining importance. (And we didn't have basically an infinite amount of time to study for them.)
She got a 40 and the feeling of the MCAT being easy is unsurprisingly common among those who scored 40+/523+ on the MCAT
No but it may mean that the weed out comes from selecting for people who prepare correctly rather than selection by difficulty. Mimelim and lawper have this sort of view that 95% of the population can ace the MCAT if they are given a good early education and prepare correctly.
Personally I'm on the other end and think that while it could be made a lot harder by moving away from MC (eg generate the product molecule for ochem rather than identify it among 4 options), it is difficult enough as is that it functions as a weed out
Ah, sorry...we had already covered the MCAT in this thread.Did she score in the 100th percentile? I don't know. I asked her if she thought it was easy.She's gotta know that it's not normal to think the MCAT is easy. Just because she had an easy time with it, that certainly does not mean that "someone is doing something terribly wrong" if an all-MC test is used for weeding people out. 😆 That's exactly what the MCAT is supposed to do.
I've taken all-MC tests in undergrad that were less shallow/"harder" than the MCAT, anyway. They just weren't 7 hours long or of life-defining importance. (And we didn't have basically an infinite amount of time to study for them.)
When I say 'someone is doing something terribly wrong' that basically means it sounds like the exams are ****. I've definitely taken exams with questions that are poorly written, with 2 correct answers, or 4 wrong answers but one that sorta kinda could be closer to right if you interpret it exactly how the prof did, hinge on random knowledge not relevant to the course, etc. Not trick questions, those are legit...just bad questions. To me, those things don't make a test 'hard', they make it poorly written.
Right. But the difficulty of those is because all of those missteps lead to potential answers. But there are 4 or 5 of them, and they sit there prompting you about the kinds of answers expected, giving you insight into what the prof expects, and sometimes making calculations easier (you can either trap the mistakes or surround the correct answer choice so they have to close the math out).Well, I'm not talking about tests like that. I'm talking about cleverly written multiple choice tests where you really have to know what you're doing to arrive at the correct answer instead of the other 4 or 5 trap answers that you would come up with if you made certain mistakes. I've been in classes where the multiple choice exams were just like 50 trick questions in a row. And on those, the class averages are very low.
And for what it's worth, I did well on MCAT questions even before I finished my prep for it. I didn't take a full test with zero prep (only assorted individual passages), but I rarely missed questions on them. My score with 25% of the materials completely un-reviewed, with 5-6yrs spacing after learning those subjects, was only 2 points lower than my eventual score. Had I tried to take a non-MC exam on those subjects, I would have failed miserably. There are easier and harder MC exams, but for comparable questions, a non-MC version of the test will be harder than the MC version. There's a limit to how tricky they can be made...only 4 or 5 trick answers to throw in.Sure, maybe she thought the MCAT was easy. But that doesn't mean that MC test can't be hard. It doesn't even mean that the MCAT is actually easy. It just means she was ready for it.
But we're not actually talking about the MCAT here. I just used that as an example of a difficult test that is only multiple choice. It seemed like a good one to use since we've all taken it and most people don't think it's easy.
My point in all of this is that it's arrogant nonsense to say that something's going "horribly wrong" if an all-multiple choice test functions as a weed-out in pre-med. I went to school with a lot of really smart kids and I've seen them eff up some all-MC tests pretty badly. It's all in the way the test is written. They can get very hard. Like I said, class averages in the 50's and 60's.
Right. But the difficulty of those is because all of those missteps lead to potential answers. But there are 4 or 5 of them, and they sit there prompting you about the kinds of answers expected, giving you insight into what the prof expects, and sometimes making calculations easier (you can either trap the mistakes or surround the correct answer choice so they have to close the math out).
Exams that aren't multiple choice? Every possible misstep you could possibly make results in a potential answer. There are not as many cues, and you have to close out your work every time.
So yeah, I'd say the ceiling is lower on MC exams than those that don't provide answer choices. A well-written trick exam increases the difficulty by attempting to imitate the difficulties of an exam where answers aren't provided.
I don't want to misquote mimelim, but iirc he said that pretty much only the mentally handicapped are innately incapable of getting 500+ on the mcat...with all due respect to him I think he must've had a pretty sheltered upbringing surrounded by highly intelligent people to develop such a worldview.No but it may mean that the weed out comes from selecting for people who prepare correctly rather than selection by difficulty. Mimelim and lawper have this sort of view that 95% of the population can ace the MCAT if they are given a good early education and prepare correctly.
Personally I'm on the other end and think that while it could be made a lot harder by moving away from MC (eg generate the product molecule for ochem rather than identify it among 4 options), it is difficult enough as is that it functions as a weed out
that's what I responded at the time. All the way back to middle and high school I recall normal people that had nice lives and worked hard but just couldn't make good grades in honors and AP math/science.I don't want to misquote mimelim, but iirc he said that pretty much only the mentally handicapped are innately incapable of getting 500+ on the mcat...with all due respect to him I think he must've had a pretty sheltered upbringing surrounded by highly intelligent people to develop such a worldview.
We don't even have to go off of anecdotes. There is plenty of data showing that intelligence is largely quantifiable, widely variable, and at least 50% heritable. How very smart, scientifically-literate people can be so oblivious is beyond me.that's what I responded at the time. All the way back to middle and high school I recall normal people that had nice lives and worked hard but just couldn't make good grades in honors and AP math/science.
It'd be one thing to disbelieve that a single person could score poorly on a well-written, difficult, MC test. But since we're talking about the class average, I am skeptical that an MC-only test is difficult enough that the majority of people flat-out fail it. It is far more likely that it is a crappy test than that it's a good one that is also notably harder than the MCAT (not just from anecdotal evidence, but also the raw→scaled score conversion and percentiles).We don't even have to go off of anecdotes. There is a lot of data showing that intelligence is largely quantifiable, widely variable, and at least 50% heritable. How very smart, scientifically-literate people can be so oblivious is beyond me.
It'd be one thing to disbelieve that a single person could score poorly on a well-written, difficult, MC test. But since we're talking about the class average, I am skeptical that an MC-only test is difficult enough that the majority of people flat-out fail it. It is far more likely that it is a crappy test than that it's a good one that is also notably harder than the MCAT (not just from anecdotal evidence, but also the raw→scaled score conversion and percentiles).
I'm not actually saying that the people taking the test OP describes are idiots, or that nobody struggles with MC exams. I'm saying that MC exams generally are not difficult enough to result in what OP described (even the MCAT, and that's not just anecdotal) unless they're done wrong aka poorly made.
Most profs talk about their tests as if they are incredibly difficult proving grounds, and they pretty much never are. It's not that I haven't been in classes with test averages of 50 or 60, it's just that when I have, I've found that it is perfectly possible to get a raw score A on those exams, and when I've talked to classmates afterwards it's generally been more an issue of understanding what the prof wanted for the questions than knowing the material. To me, that's a crummy test, not a hard one. Maybe we've had completely, utterly different experiences, or maybe we are assessing them differently. It's possible that what you are describing is something unlike anything I've encountered at several very differently-styled schools...but I do not automatically trust your assessment of the exams and I remain skeptical. That's all it is...I find it likely that the professor writes crummy tests. I do not understand why this makes you so angry.You. Are. Wrong. You're going off this theoretical "I am skeptical..." but I have lived it, so I know. I have been in classes where it happens. The tests aren't crappy. They're just hard. But it doesn't matter anyway because a 50 or 60, or whatever the average is, on the test is as good as getting a B- after they curve it. And when you ask the professors why they would do such a demoralizing thing, they say, "we like to make the tests very difficult to allow the top students to distinguish themselves."
Most profs talk about their tests as if they are incredibly difficult proving grounds, and they pretty much never are. It's not that I haven't been in classes with test averages of 50 or 60, it's just that when I have, I've found that it is perfectly possible to get a raw score A on those exams, and when I've talked to classmates afterwards it's generally been more an issue of understanding what the prof wanted for the questions than knowing the material. To me, that's a crummy test, not a hard one. Maybe we've had completely, utterly different experiences, or maybe we are assessing them differently. It's possible that what you are describing is something unlike anything I've encountered at several very differently-styled schools...but I do not automatically trust your assessment of the exams and I remain skeptical. That's all it is...I find it likely that the professor writes crummy tests. I do not understand why this makes you so angry.
I'm not the one insisting you must be wrong. I have said that I am skeptical based on my experiences, but that we may have had very different ones. Hell, even my skepticism doesn't point to you being wrong so much as us having different opinions/assessments of the quality of exams.I'm annoyed because you're so unbelievably stubborn about insisting that MC test can't legitimately be that hard when I know from personal experience that you're wrong. I took the tests. Obviously, some people are gonna ace the tests. That's why the 50-60 is the average. I think we must have had very different experiences. That's clear. But what I don't get is why you think I'm wrong about my own testing experience and think that your own assumptions must be correct. It's insulting, actually. Do you think I'm an idiot? Do you think I went to a crappy school?
I'm not the one insisting you must be wrong. I have said that I am skeptical based on my experiences, but that we may have had very different ones. Hell, even my skepticism doesn't point to you being wrong so much as us having different opinions/assessments of the quality of exams.
I did not say anything about you being an idiot, or anyone. I have not mentioned the quality of anyone's school - not OP's, not yours, not my own. The most negative thing I refuse to rule out is the possibility that OP's prof sucks at writing good tests. And the posts in this thread so far seem to be talking about cases where no, some people do not ace the test, period. That is part of what makes me skeptical about the tests being hard vs simply crummy.
YOU are the one being insistent on a black/white, right/wrong outcome here. Seriously, your last post started with "You. Are. Wrong."