MCAT- Form EK and Question about Curve

[owcc16]

Anyone have form EK? If so, let's talk about it. I did..Verbal was hhhaaarrddd! PS was not too bad, but the BS had hardly ANY ORGANIC ON IT! I WAS SO MAD! I am the organic king! lol...seriously, it was 80-20 bio

rg.


Is the national curve based on test form, or overall performance? Everyone in my testing center (cept me) thought they bombed the test..hmm..

owcc16

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[Jamier2]

I am hoping like heck that the tests are scaled by each version. That's the only way that seems fair to me.

Hope everyone did well.

 

[Rza]

They are scaled by version because every test form is different. Many forms have the same passages, but different questions.

 

[The Cowboy]

I am told that the "curve" actually isn't based on overall performance on the MCAT, but rather based on which questions the test designers thought were more difficult. In other words, the "curve" is predetermined from the very start, and examinees doing particularly well or poorly has no effect on it. It seems, then, that if this is true the "curve" should vary between test forms. Can anyone out there confirm or deny any of this? I myself haven't been able to verify it, but it sounds plausible.

 

[rxfudd]

Cowboy, that curve wouldn't work very well - that means that if everyone bombs that particular test, everyone receives, say, a 7. That is not curve, but a set scale. Furthermore, that would mean that each question is weighted differently, which is not the case. I can nearly guarantee that this is not the way it is done.

 

[The Cowboy]

Thank you for restating my post in a clearer way. Obviously, you understood what I said, but do you or anyone else have any evidence demonstrating how the curve works? I agree with you that the manner I described is a silly way to "curve" an exam, but, once again, I have read in other posts that this is the method for "curving" it. Like you, I am quite skeptical, but I await some sort of verification or denial (I would like to know the truth myself).

[This message has been edited by The Cowboy (edited April 22, 2001).]

 

[JJJJan]

Hey, about the curve issue, I think people got the idea that it was based on difficulty of the question from the old Practice MCAT I. Instead of translating raw scores into the 1-15 scaled scores, it listed each question and the percentage of students who got it right during a given administration. The chart was just for information and was not supposed to reflect the real way the curve is done--which I think is just a normal bell curve for the raw scores for a given test booklet on a given date. --Jan

ps Anyone out there take test BN? It had the bright frogs and space expt. I thought VR was easy, BS and PS both difficult. Essay about politicians was the same question as the 1992 MCAT that's been released.