Pattern?

[kae51202]

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I took the test in April and it seems as if the AAMC really flipped the script this August. Did anyone take the exams in April and August of last year and notice the same pattern? Are the August exams always more difficult? I had form BK and found the physical section extremely different from that in April.

 

[silkworm]

If that were true it may go some ways to explain why August takers on the average score lower than April takers. But I doubt the MCAT people would endorse this kind of systematic bias.

 

[Chang10is]

People score lower on average in August compared to April? Is this for real--are we talking about a negligible difference like 0.1 points lower on average, or almost a whole point and higher?

 

[silkworm]

That's what the official AAMC people said, but I believe the margin is pretty small, yet consistent throughout the years.

Just checked AAMC website:
mean std dev
April 2004 25 6.4
August 2003 24.7 6.2
April 2003 24.8 6.3
August 2002 23.8
April 2002 25.4

 

[Chang10is]

Dang, what's up with that 1.6 point difference between April and August 2002?? I'm glad the other scores seem to be fairly consistent though...

Anybody know the official word on how the sections are curved? Some people that each passage/question is "graded" on difficulty, and that this is compositely added together to give a numerical conversion chart from raw score to scaled score. Some people even say that past performance on passages/questions that are reused is factored into the scoring of newer tests. Other people say that each form is curved in exclusion from every other form, even if some of the questions overlap. Does anybody really know how the scoring is done?