Not seeing much improvement....

[Johnny Appleseed]

I have been studying ~6-10 hours a day for the past three or four weeks and I was hoping it would help me improve on my practice test scores. I got a 506 on my last practice test 1 month ago. I got a 502 on the test I took this past Saturday. I'm so discouraged that after all that studying my score dropped by four points! Anyone else have the same thing happen? Sorry... vent post.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

I have been studying ~6-10 hours a day for the past three or four weeks and I was hoping it would help me improve on my practice test scores. I got a 506 on my last practice test 1 month ago. I got a 502 on the test I took this past Saturday. I'm so discouraged that after all that studying my score dropped by four points! Anyone else have the same thing happen? Sorry... vent post.

How do you review your exams? How much time do you spend reviewing the exam and learning from it? I recommend to my students that they consider their scaled and section scores, but not review the exam question by question to see the right answers. Instead, I have them go through every question they missed and, knowing only that they missed it but not which answer was correct, review the passage again and decide which answer was right and why their selected answer was wrong. Only then do they read the solutions. In many cases they get nearly every missed question right when they go back under non-stressed conditions and review it (it also leaves them only 3 possible correct answers).

When they finally do go through the solutions, I make them review the solution for every single question and explain why the right answer was right and why the wrong answer was wrong, even if they got it right the first time through.

These processes really help my students grow in their understanding of AAMC trends and critical thinking, and it DEFINITELY helps them make more improvement exam to exam.

 

[Johnny Appleseed]

I've been reviewing every question one by one... It's pretty time consuming and tedious.

I'm also discouraged because I've been getting around 506 on the tests, but my most recent one I got a 502. I'll try this review method, sounds much more effective. Is there any way to see what questions you missed without seeing the correct answer?

Sent from my Moto G (4) using SDN mobile

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

I've been reviewing every question one by one... It's pretty time consuming and tedious.

I'm also discouraged because I've been getting around 506 on the tests, but my most recent one I got a 502. I'll try this review method, sounds much more effective. Is there any way to see what questions you missed without seeing the correct answer?

Sent from my Moto G (4) using SDN mobile

You either have to review the exam yourself without reading the solutions, or you could have someone else do it. My students usually do it immediately after and they aren't reviewing until the next day, so its not like they are going to remember any of the right answers tomorrow. I also have many of my students select the option to sort their results by "Passage" in the Score Report. This then tells them they answered 4/5 or 3/5, etc., on each passage or stand alone set. Then they review the passage and try to figure out which answers they might want to change. It's kind of like the old Price is Right games where you have to guess the right price and they tell you that you have two digits incorrect but you don't know which ones. Those two approaches kind of do different things, so you might try both.

 

[I'm ugly and I'm proud]

Your score depends on the company that made the test, what subjects were tested, and your condition on testing day. It could simply mean you were tested more on subjects that you aren't familiar with. See what topics you missed, and spend the next week focusing on them.

 

[bears1992]

Assuming your first test was FL#1 and your second test was from FL#2, your scores should not drastically increase/decrease. Most people who post their scores generally have consistent FL scores if taken from the same company. The reason is that those scores are based on how others did on that FL. Obviously most students are going to improve from from FL1 to FL2 so a 506 on FL2 is more impressive than a 506 on FL1. If your scores improve slightly over your FL exams it means you are improving at a faster rate than other students that took that test. If yours scores stay consistent then you are on par with the improvement of the other test takers and if your score drops, it means your improvement is not increasing as quickly as other test takers.

A 4 point drop is fairly large so I would assume that it is a combination of others improving more quickly than you, and also a bit lucky on the first test and bit unlucky with the second test. I think the scores have a confidence interval of +/- 2 points so half of the 4 point drop probably came from the difference in test questions from FL1 to FL2 and the other 2 points from a slower rate of improvement compared to the other test takers.

If FL1 and FL2 were from different companies then the score drop is meaningless.