later questions harder on AAMC?

[sv3]

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Hi,

I thought i had read somewhere that questions on the Verbal section of the actual MCAT increase in order of difficulty for each passage. So for example, if Passage 1 had 7 questions, question 7 would be the hardest.

Firstly, is that true?
Secondly, if so, is it also applicable to the science sections?

thanks
sv3

 

[loveoforganic]

I've only heard things to the contrary - completely random difficulty.

 

[sv3]

good to know thanks. i knew passage difficulty was random, and wasn't sure on the question difficulty.

thanks

 

[sv3]

i got this right off aamc's site:

"
Sets of questions in the Verbal Reasoning section are presented in order from easiest to hardest. This order is based on the average difficulty of the questions in each set. However, a given set of questions contains both easier and more difficult sections."

Still not sure what this all means b/c i don't think a set is the same as a passage according to the above statement

 

[loveoforganic]

It sounds like they're calling a passage a set to me, and they're saying that the passages are in order from easiest to hardest. That's not what I've heard though, so I want to say I'm misinterpreting.

 

[sv3]

yeah at first i thought it meant questions within a passage get harder, and the passages themselves can come in any order.

i ask because I'm doing a little practice and noticed that i tend to get the last question wrong often in a passage and if i know its the hardest, then i should probably give it a bit more thought and be suspicious of my first choice in this instance. Just something i noticed and then remembered reading the above AAMC statement and now am looking to confirm it

 

[starbaduk]

yeah at first i thought it meant questions within a passage get harder, and the passages themselves can come in any order.

i ask because I'm doing a little practice and noticed that i tend to get the last question wrong often in a passage and if i know its the hardest, then i should probably give it a bit more thought and be suspicious of my first choice in this instance. Just something i noticed and then remembered reading the above AAMC statement and now am looking to confirm it

If you have access to AAMC CBT's, you can select questions that are marked as difficult, medium, or easy. In my experience with the AAMC practice tests, distribution of questions marked as difficult seemed to be pretty random. Like some passage would have 4 questions marked as difficult and 4 of the other passages have no question attributed as difficult.

In terms of the difficulty of the passage itself, I disagree with AAMC's claim. I took the MCAT May 28th. I gave up after the first 3 passages: Englightment, Chinese Porcealin, and Dodo passage. They were difficult. As far as what I've heard, later passages were easier.

 

[sv3]

If you have access to AAMC CBT's, you can select questions that are marked as difficult, medium, or easy. In my experience with the AAMC practice tests, distribution of questions marked as difficult seemed to be pretty random. Like some passage would have 4 questions marked as difficult and 4 of the other passages have no question attributed as difficult.

In terms of the difficulty of the passage itself, I disagree with AAMC's claim. I took the MCAT May 28th. I gave up after the first 3 passages: Englightment, Chinese Porcealin, and Dodo passage. They were difficult. As far as what I've heard, later passages were easier.

Hey thanks very much, and sorry to hear about the Dodo passage - was that about the bird? Or just a bad passage?

Anyhow I'll check out an AAMC later on to see what they are talking about. What I was wondering was within one single passage, are the harder questions at the end? For instance, if there are 7 questions in a given passage, will questions 6 and 7 be much harder than 1 or 2?

but I'm sure once i use these CBTs it'll clarify it all. You make a great point though, i may get an answer and still not agree with the AAMC's version of difficulty.

Great point about later passages being easier. The only quirky thing i do with VR is start with the last passage. I just think if i was making a test i wouldnt leave the hardest last as it doesn't hurt people who are slow (as generally more people get the hard ones wrong compared to the easy-moderates)