Percentiles

[lolopop20020]

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So I got back my printout scores for the january PCAT, and what I dont understand is how percentiles are calculated.
I made a 400 on the chemistry part but ended up with a very low percentile. Can someone explain why?
Thanks!

 

[Sugoi Travis]

That pretty much means your 400 scaled score isn't very high with respect to the other test-takers. Even though 400 is considered "average," it is only a numerical average; it does not take into account how well the other people are doing.

A 400 at one point in time could be the cutoff for the 99th percentile, provided that people did awful in chemistry and got 300s and 350s as their scaled scores. A 400 could very well be the cutoff for the 30th percentile if people were scoring in the 430s and 450s. I pulled these numbers out of my ass, but the whole point is to just demonstrate that a 400 scaled doesn't mean anything on the PCAT unless if you compare it to other people.

 

[jerbearox]

So I got back my printout scores for the january PCAT, and what I dont understand is how percentiles are calculated.
I made a 400 on the chemistry part but ended up with a very low percentile. Can someone explain why?
Thanks!

for the most part, we all took stats right?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--DGSsF-JBIM/UCnAM0Eq_gI/AAAAAAAAAHA/C-hgWemxq2I/s1600/Bell-Curve.gif