Number of passages

[silkworm]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Have a question for the people who have taken the official MCAT recently.

I just found out that it is possible on the real MCAT to have 11 science passages and 10 verbal passages, instead of the normal 10 and 9. I know this is suppose to be infrequent and the curve should at least partially compensate for it. But it still strikes me as big morale killer on test day. Did any of you get the 11 and 10 passages on your form?

 

[willthatsall]

Have a question for the people who have taken the official MCAT recently.

I just found out that it is possible on the real MCAT to have 11 science passages and 10 verbal passages, instead of the normal 10 and 9. I know this is suppose to be infrequent and the curve should at least partially compensate for it. But it still strikes me as big morale killer on test day. Did any of you get the 11 and 10 passages on your form?

Yeah, the Kaplan stuff all has 11 passages. No wonder it's so hard to get through. I'm pretty sure the real thing is always 10, 9, 10 though. And you're right, if it does turn out to be 11, the curve will take care of it.

 

[silkworm]

One person in my Kaplan class said on April MCAT he got a 10 passage verbal section.

Especially on a section like verbal, where the scoring is more stringent, a extra passage can really wreck havoc with your pacing and destroy your confidence.

Plus, I don't know how curve can really take care of it. First, the above psychological effect is hard to quanticize. Second, since it's so infrequent, how can the AAMC have a sizeable data pool to base a curve on?

 

[willthatsall]

They must make them a little shorter if you get 10. But in any case, I guess it is worth checking how many you have before you start so you know what you are pacing for. It wouldn't be good to finish 9 and then realize you have 10 as time runs out.

 

[synapse lapse]

That's such BS. Man I will be soo upset if I get an extra passage, especially on verbal. The curve is tooo stringent in that section to handle that. I would almost want to void my score. I hope they make the last verbal the experimental one, if that's why they do it. In any case, does the aamc say anything on their site about this?

 

[Jack Swift]

so are there 10 passages on verbal or what?

 

[MoosePilot]

I don't think I did, but I'm not 100% sure I would have noticed.

 

[CanIMakeIt]

Well I thought 11(PS)/9/11 was normal ....because that is what I got on the real MCAT.

Do you mean to say I had to strugle extra hard ...... 😡

well Thank God it is over for now......... Good luck to you Aug MCATers

 

[JDAD]

11/9/11 is normal. That is how EK preaches it, and every practice test I have ever had is the same.

 

[bella_dottoressa]

11/9/11 is normal. That is how EK preaches it, and every practice test I have ever had is the same.

agreed.

 

[liverotcod]

I never counted them - just kept going until they were all done. I think it might have induced a little unnecessary panic for me if I knew how much was left. But, I could see on the answer sheet how many questions were left in the section, so it's not like I had no idea where I was in the section.