Pearson Practice Composite Score report- Confused

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Ace41690

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2011
Messages
83
Reaction score
39
I have been studying with the Kaplan book. I have just taken the Pearson Practice Test #1 (apparently pearson is better). I am so confused by the score report.

I BOMBED the Quantitative ability section. I am so pissed at Kaplan, their math review is horrendous. It was like i was reading a foreign language on the Pearson test. So now I am freaking out that I will do very bad in the math section on the real test.

What I don't understand is that my composite score on the score report was firmly in the dark green "80-99" area, but how is that possible when my score in QA was like 30%-50%??? It just doesnt seem to add up to me. The rest of my scores were

70-80 Verbal
80-99 Bio
60-80 Chem
80-99 Reading

Is it possible to really fail so horribly at an entire section like that and then still have a good composite score on the real PCAT? Am I freaking out for no reason?
 
Yes it is possible to bomb one section and get a decent score.

However the first pearson test is also the easiest so your 30-50 might actually be lower.
 
I have been studying with the Kaplan book. I have just taken the Pearson Practice Test #1 (apparently pearson is better). I am so confused by the score report.

I BOMBED the Quantitative ability section. I am so pissed at Kaplan, their math review is horrendous. It was like i was reading a foreign language on the Pearson test. So now I am freaking out that I will do very bad in the math section on the real test.

What I don't understand is that my composite score on the score report was firmly in the dark green "80-99" area, but how is that possible when my score in QA was like 30%-50%??? It just doesnt seem to add up to me. The rest of my scores were

70-80 Verbal
80-99 Bio
60-80 Chem
80-99 Reading

Is it possible to really fail so horribly at an entire section like that and then still have a good composite score on the real PCAT? Am I freaking out for no reason?

It is very possible to bomb one section, and kill the rest. I've seen MANY scores that the individual subtest is low (for exam RC is 25) and the rest is high, and they still get a 90+ on the composite. It all depends how you perform on each section, so it is up in the air.

Don't worry though, from now until your exam, focus on the pearson exams...Maybe practice from PT#4 since that is the most difficult of the 3 and most realistic to the real exam.

Good luck!!!!!

PS. Don't stress, I'm sure kaplan couldn't have been that bad, it's probably just the way the question is formatted, but still asking the same thing.🙂
 
I have been studying with the Kaplan book. I have just taken the Pearson Practice Test #1 (apparently pearson is better). I am so confused by the score report.

I BOMBED the Quantitative ability section. I am so pissed at Kaplan, their math review is horrendous. It was like i was reading a foreign language on the Pearson test. So now I am freaking out that I will do very bad in the math section on the real test.

What I don't understand is that my composite score on the score report was firmly in the dark green "80-99" area, but how is that possible when my score in QA was like 30%-50%??? It just doesnt seem to add up to me. The rest of my scores were

70-80 Verbal
80-99 Bio
60-80 Chem
80-99 Reading

Is it possible to really fail so horribly at an entire section like that and then still have a good composite score on the real PCAT? Am I freaking out for no reason?


i bombed both VA (53) and RC (17) but still ended up with 95% composite. so dont need to stress out too much about it and use the time to improve since you still have couple days
 
i bombed both VA (53) and RC (17) but still ended up with 95% composite. so dont need to stress out too much about it and use the time to improve since you still have couple days

Wow thats crazy. I guess they weight bio and chem more or something? Jeez whats the point of even trying in the other sections lol.

I feel better now. I also realized 90% of my problem was that I didn't remember anything about derivatives or integrals (which believe it or not doesn't seem like its a big problem if you are only using Kaplan to study!)
 
I have been studying with the Kaplan book. I have just taken the Pearson Practice Test #1 (apparently pearson is better). I am so confused by the score report.

I BOMBED the Quantitative ability section. I am so pissed at Kaplan, their math review is horrendous. It was like i was reading a foreign language on the Pearson test. So now I am freaking out that I will do very bad in the math section on the real test.

What I don't understand is that my composite score on the score report was firmly in the dark green "80-99" area, but how is that possible when my score in QA was like 30%-50%??? It just doesnt seem to add up to me. The rest of my scores were

70-80 Verbal
80-99 Bio
60-80 Chem
80-99 Reading

Is it possible to really fail so horribly at an entire section like that and then still have a good composite score on the real PCAT? Am I freaking out for no reason?

It's possible........ ur mark at an 80 - 99 composite range doesn't mean that u'll get a 99% composite lol. it prob just mid-80s.. and look at all of ur other section scores... they're all in a high range. No doubt that u get an 80-99 composite range. if all of ur other scores are lower and u'd get a 80-99 range then that would be a concern.
 
Wow thats crazy. I guess they weight bio and chem more or something? Jeez whats the point of even trying in the other sections lol.

I feel better now. I also realized 90% of my problem was that I didn't remember anything about derivatives or integrals (which believe it or not doesn't seem like its a big problem if you are only using Kaplan to study!)


i would skip those derivative and integral problems during the actual PCAT bc those are time consuming and just try to do the easier ones first

and no, i used dr collin's. i highly suggest their material for chem section
 
For me... I skipped math questions that I could not solve or questions that required more than 3 minutes to solve. Then I went back to solve the ones that I can and guessed on few due to time crunch.
 
Yea, I think the skipping hard questions is problem the most important part. I did better on the real PCAT than the practice. I looked at a question and if I had no idea how to approach it in like ten seconds I skipped it and moved on. When time ran out I still had three questions left so I just guessed on all those in the last 20 seconds. lol
 
Top