Less than one week left...

[griffey3031]

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Hey, so I am taking the test next Thursday and I have a large discrepancy between my Kaplan and AAMC scores. I scored a 31 on a Kaplan FL the other day and then today, only a 25...This is very disheartening as I thought I was ready and confident. Now, not so much.

Is the real thing somewhere in between with scores and such? As a received 10s and 11s for ~65% on Kaplan and only a 9 for up to 73% on an AAMC? Also, as there are a bunch of AAMC practice tests, which ones are closer to how the MCAT will actually be as I took the PS of Test 3 and the whole of Test 4 and found at least the PS of Test 3 to be much easier although I still received a 9 on each. Also, with less than a week left, should I just concentrate on doing the AAMC tests? Any advice here would help a lot. Thanks.

 

[shaboobly]

Hey, so I am taking the test next Thursday and I have a large discrepancy between my Kaplan and AAMC scores. I scored a 31 on a Kaplan FL the other day and then today, only a 25...This is very disheartening as I thought I was ready and confident. Now, not so much.

Is the real thing somewhere in between with scores and such? As a received 10s and 11s for ~65% on Kaplan and only a 9 for up to 73% on an AAMC? Also, as there are a bunch of AAMC practice tests, which ones are closer to how the MCAT will actually be as I took the PS of Test 3 and the whole of Test 4 and found at least the PS of Test 3 to be much easier although I still received a 9 on each. Also, with less than a week left, should I just concentrate on doing the AAMC tests? Any advice here would help a lot. Thanks.

there isn't a bunch. there's only like 8 of them. the structure are ammc tests are exactly like the real thing because, you know, both are from aamc. however, there was a strong correlation with my kaplan scores, aamc, and the real thing.

 

[sdz7424]

Although I still have three weeks until my actual test and therefore cannot offer you direct advice based on experience, I can tell you what I have read countless times in other posts. Most people who have taken the mcat will tell you that the AAMC FL 9-11 are the most similar to the actual test, with FL 11 being the MOST representative of the real test. FL 3 and 4 are very old and not as indicative of how you'll perform on the test and are nowhere near up to par in terms of difficulty.

Kaplan FLs are considerably more difficult than AAMC FLs but they adjust their scale accordingly, which can sometimes result in score discrepancies between AAMC and Kaplan, due to the fact that you cannot miss nearly the number of questions on a any given AAMC practice test to achieve the same score you received on a Kaplan test.

From what I've read, most people claim that the difficulty level of the actual test is somewhere in between that of the Kaplan FLs and AAMC FLs, but the structure of questions and passages are much more similar to AAMC.

As for scores, most people score within the range of their averages for the AAMC and Kaplan practice tests. So if your average was a 25 on AAMC FLs and a 31 on Kaplan tests, it's likely you'll score within the range of 25-31. Obviously the more full lengths you take, the more accurate your averages will be, and thus indicative of what you will likely score on the real thing. As always, there's statistical outliers - so a few people score well above their average and unfortunately, some well below. Just assume the most probable score outcome will be that within your average, give or take a couple of points. Your best bet is to take the most recent AAMC tests and see how you perform on those.