Realistically, What do you think you scored on the AUG MCAT?

if i get 10, 11, 11 i'll wet my pants.

 

I'm feeling a 1, 1, 1 M

 

I wonder which is harder to get:

1) 1V, 1B, 1P, and J

or

2) 13V, 13B, 13P, and T

Even if you didn't try/study, one probably will get a 2-3 in most sections (thru guess work). One can also study his/her ass off and never make a 9 (let's not talk of a 13) in most sections.

You must be pretty smart Blitzkrieg to devise a plan to pull off scoring a whopping 3.

 

how is it possible to guess at an exam scored on a curve based on thousands and thousands of other applicants unknown to you?

very bad karma to guess prematurely! i'm keepin my mouff shut!

but if I get 32+ I promise not to masturbate for 3 days

 

BAHAHAHAHA

what about a 32?

 

I'll go along with that, but only if they're not 3 consecutive days and we can count 'time served'....

 

what makes you think you did so well on the writing section, you arrogant bastard!

 

I think that the lowest possible score would be at least a 6. Most of the time, getting none right results in a 2 on each section. But hey, the difference between a 4 and a 6 isn't exactly the same as the difference between a 29 and a 31.......well, if you wanna get technical, it is the same, but you know what I mean.

 

Hey there,
I took the MCAT in April and thought I did ok. Well, a couple of months later I got my scores back (right after having surgery) and they were terrible. It sucked let me tell you. My point is...you never know what you got. You might have thought that a section went well, but in actuality you could have bombed or vice versa. Just try not to think about it.

 

i have to agree with that. i took the damn test in august 02, and my thoughts were that i did better on the PS than the BS, just b/c the PS section was so easy. i guess i made some stupid mistakes b/c i ended up doing much better on the BS. so you never know what's gonna happen, and the curve has a lot to do with that.

 

It's very tough to accurately guess what your score might be.

I thought I CRUISED through the verbal section in April. I finished it with, literally, 30 minutes left over. I had so much time to go over the questions, etc. I felt so confident that I put it in the back of my mind after the test, thinking that it would be the one section that would help the others.

Wrong.

I know it's been 5 months, but I STILL can't believe I got a 6!!!! Someone on this thread said that a 6 is the lowest score! OH MY GOD! It continues to boggle my mind. Unfortunately, I felt even MORE confident concerning the verbal section after the August test! I knew that this was a terrible omen.

I'm going to happy with something like a 28. I'm so confident that my charm, wit and rugged good looks will offset any low MCAT score......

 

I think I could have pulled off a 10 VR, 12 PS, 12 BS. I would love to have a 34. Not too much longer to find out though.

 

Toejam, perhaps you were so confident you decided that your beautiful self couldn't be bothered with filling in the scantron?

 

They meant the lowest total score was 6, not lowest section score. I had a friend who got a 5 on the verbal.

 

I keep seeing a big old 15 .

I'm a wreck!

 

Oh man, a 34 would be sweet. Although I did feel confident on the verbal, and with toejams story . . . well, let's say my stomach was angry when i read that.

 

i don't like people with that kinda attitude, bragging about stuffs especially when s/he doesn't even know the real score.

 

Hmmm.....talk about having an attitude...

 

This is one thing that sometimes leads to surprise when people get their real scores. AAMC V and VI are not real full length MCATs, they are made up of real MCAT passages,though. So it would be very difficult to guess your scaled score based upon a raw number of questions you believe you got right.

 

5 points is atleast 2 standard deviations. I don't know any statistician not willing to take a guess with 95% chance of being correct.

 

Forget the points, just give me >90th percentile in all sections and I will be happy.

 

Toejam... check it the very first time I did the MCAT I got a 5 on verbal NO JOKE! I was so stupid... at that time I had a 3.7 GPA (now a 3.5) and was way overly confident in my abilities... I studied a total of 1 day yes thats 1 day for the verbal section! stupid eh? well anyvayzzzz did better second time around

ha ha ha how can you not? lol

did the MCAT a final time....this August.... (initial stats: 5,11,9,Q)

This time around... my third time... at least 8 on verbal but I might have scored 10, and I'm pretty sure 10-13 on the others....

damn that five fuc*ed me up... I woulda so been in med school... and now my GPA dropped... I'm telling ya....

 

Actually I was somewhat sarcastically using parallel logic to relate to your weatherman remark. Though despite such gratuitous odds, my prediction in April was 8 points off the mark. As much as I may want to muster a guess for the sake of relief, I will hold true to the assertions in my first post to this thread.

You will have my "numbers" come early October and the official online release. Not a moment sooner.

 

i wish you guys the best of luck. hope you get in the vicinity of what you had wanted.

Good luck!! I got my fingers crossed tight for you all.

 

You guys are freaking me out here!

I was so upset when I walked out of that test site in August I felt like I had been mugged, beaten up violently and then the mugger ran away laughing. Here I'd just spent $1500. and not worked for 2 months to study for this freakin' test and I felt like I ended up guessing because the questions were so &*($#@ hard and the clock kept ticking. My feeling is about the 3 (1, 1, 1 J) that people have described or the 15.

Just reading the posts I thought I was going to gurf my lunch because while I am just drifting along in "I don't know my MCAT scores-Land" the truth is I am petrified I really bombed. Really bombed and then what could I possibly do differently. This sucks big time ... but I guess I have to deal with it.

 

woolie,

Your feelings are normal. It was a long, tough test, and you've prepared well (prep course, time off from work). I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Just remember that many times people score lower than they'd want and equate that low score with the best they can possibly do. Often times, those people take the test again and rock it hard.

 

Sounds right. And remember - the practice tests do not contain the experimental passages that, in some cases, are way out in left field, and could potentially crush your morale, subsequently leading to a decreased performance on the remainder of the test.

 

Sounds right. And remember - the practice tests do not contain the experimental passages that, DO NOT EXIST. Some fellow named Chandler comes strolling in one day informing us that the hardest part of the MCAT goes ungraded, and his legacy carries on for weeks, even months. When will we finally come to terms with the reality that the whole of the MCAT is graded and scaled.

The results might be used in the design and administration of future exams as part of an experiment, but that doesn't mean it's a usesless ungraded fluff section. Come on guys, get real.

Speaking my mind per Solid Gold's request,
Sham

 

Guess I was mistaken and misinformed. Sorry.
But many people believe otherwise - why is this so?

 

I kind of fell for that "ungraded" stuff too. When I read that in the thread it gave me some hope. In my exam, each section had a weird passage with 10 (!) questions and these were the ones I left for last and then just held my breath and plunged in. The physics one was so strange (radiation plus other crap) that I just did my best for the last 5 minutes.

It really doesn't make sense that we would get away with 10 free points. Oh well.

Limit, I do feel ready to get cracking on a second round of review. I think this test is partly "attacking" it in an almost physical way. Just grab the passage and wrestle it down asking: what the H$#@ are you asking? and then pick out the answer and move on.

Be fearless and aggressive ...

 

Well, typically enough I can't find it on the AAMC web site now, but I know I *did* read it there - but this is from the examkrackers site and is reported as quoted direct from the AAMC

"Discrepencies in difficulty are likely to be imagined due to testing anxiety, experimental passages, personal proficiencies at different topics, and accuracy of disciption by individuals.


There is at least one experimental passage in each section of the exam. The amount and content of experimental questions varies with test form."

This information comes from AAMC on September 18th, 2002.

 

Fair enough, but where is it stated, or even implied, that the experimental passages are not graded?

 

yeah, i believe that there is an experimental section, but have a very hard time believing they would nto grade it......this is not the SAT.........thik about it, people have claimed that the 10 question passage in verbal (i.e. the picasso in aamc V) is the experimental so its not graded.....that means there is a total of 55 qs.........you have got to be kidding....lots of kids kick butt on all but one passage......with only 55 questions, they couldn't separate a 12 or 11 from a 15.........just a thought

nero

 

First of all, my response on this thread that experimental sections do exist was in response to the bolded, and capitalized claim that they do not exist. While Shamthis has made some very valuable contributions to this board in other posts, I responded to that one with a rebuttal as it was factually incorrect and the value of these boards is only in the reliability of the information posted. However much we might like (or not I guess...??) eachother we do need to quash misinformation. My response was not to whether the experimental passages are graded or not. However, I have found references to these experimental passages and the notion that they do not contribute to your score on both the Kaplan and Examkrackers sites. The EK site states that this info comes direct from AAMC. If you want to see it for yourself, go to their web site and do a keyword search under 'experimental' and you will see both Jon and Jordan state this. I don't know if they are correct but I do not see much reason for both them and Kaplan to be lying to us about this, and frankly I'm glad they provide the service of putting this kind of information out there, as finding it from the AAMC is nigh on impossible.

I am puzzled by some of the posts in this thread. Shamthis posts something that is not correct. I make a post disagreeing (and hopefully not resulting in hard feeling there...) but specifically stating the source of my information so that (a) people can make their own judgements about the reliability of the source and (b) if they really care they can actually follow up themselves. Instead of the latter a couple of further posts get put up by people who seem to have the attitude of "well, ok, so you proved they exist, but who says they're not graded?". These latter are what I don't understand.

1. I never said they weren't graded
2. 10 seconds of further research using the exact sources I stated would show you that those same sources state that they are not included in your score.

Did either of you go to the AAMC site or EK or Kaplan site to check before posting that I should prove the next thing to you?

Sorry, while I did bother to do the follow up, my job is not to run around for you.

As to the notion that reducing the number of questions to 55 would make it even more impossible to distinguish grades (ie an 11 from a 12) evidently the AAMC disagrees with you. They currently cannot distinguish a 13 from a 14 from a 15 in the verbal section. What are they doing to remedy this and enable them to give individual rather than score ranges? They're reducing the number of questions in the verbal section.

 

I will be really thankful for a 30

 

boy wonder,

i was not attacking you or anybody else on ths forum, i was simply stating my opinion on the topic.....i do not dislike you, on the contrary, i enjoy your posts and find them very informative............anyway, as far as aamc reducing the qs to 60, yes you are correct, however, they are adding a few extra hard ones so that will separate 13,14,15........i guess they are making only 60 cause poeple were not finishing........i took the mcat in august, and if one of the 10 qs passages were not graded, i would love it, however, i'm skeptical as to believing it........since you did search, and i did not, i will take your word for it and believe that you read it from examcrackers, and i know you are only restating, what they said.......................either way, we'll never know, we'll just get our scores and contiue applying...

best of luck with mcats and applications............

nero

 

I'm not much of a drinker, but I fear my August scores may change all of that.

 

Very nicely put, you adress several key issues. I realize that shamthis is only interested in substantiated proof, an explicit statement describing exactly what happens with experimental passages. However, in this case we must take a step back and look at this logically - what is the purpose of an "experimental" passage?

The AAMC is having enough trouble as it is distinguishing the top scores (12-15) in virtually every section. By grading an "experimental" section, they are statistically making it more difficult to distinguish the top scorers, because the differentiation would inevitably be a result of the experimental section, and that could not possibly be their intention. Think about it, the whole purpose of an experimental passage is to determine whether or not it can be used for statistical analysis in the future. If there is some discrepancy between this and other passages, and if the statistical breakdown of test takers' scores on these experimental passages do not fit an expectation, then the passage needs to be either dropped or revamped.

 

What I have heard over the years is that AAMC throws out questions (and passages) that contain factual flaws and/or generate a correct percentage less than a pre-determined value (likely around 30% or so, given that 25% is random guessing). And while quoting Kaplan and EK's websites may sound like proof to some, I don't consider either to be a solid source of fact. Unless it comes directly from AAMC, the test writers, I don't trust the information. Anyone sans AAMC that is making a proift from premedical students has an inherent bias and desire to impact the way a potential customer thinks.

That said, I have to agree with limit on this. Why would AAMC waste time with experimental passages when there are so few questions to get a distribution? Perhaps Kaplan has referred to passages as experimental as their chosen description of a passage that was eliminated. But it makes no sense that it would be the intention of the test writers to purposely ask questions that are not meant to be evaluated.

 

Hi guys check out this hypothetical situation....

What happens if someone applies in mid-November.... do they still stand a chance...?

 

I've heard the same. I've also heard that they sometimes make that decision after some preliminary grading, but that was not from a very good source.

Also, for whoever predicted that the 10-q verbal passages would be the experimental ones: I kept this prediction in mind during the test and the 10-q passages turned out to be the most straightforward passages I've seen in some time. One of the 10-q passages was a science passage dealing with neutrinos and atomic particles. Several 6-q passages battled it out for the toughest spot, these were the socio and lit passages (monk passage).

 

It's a standard test validation procedure to analyze the questions based on a) how many people got them wrong, and b) which testers got them wrong--the otherwise high-scorers, or the otherwise low-scorers. If a lot of people got a question wrong, and only the low-scorers got it right, then it's considered statistically valid to throw that question out.

I personally think that's a load of crap, but I have yet to figure out how to formulate that opinion in more scientific terms.

But normally for a standardized test, the questions are pre-validated, so nothing that was intended to be scored gets thrown out. The only way to do that is either to have an entire experimental section, or to intersperse experimental questions and passages throughout the exam. ETS does the former, and many of us are speculating that AAMC does the latter.

However, it is possible for AAMC to validate their exam AND use all the questions to determine your score, and that's by using the procedure I described in the first paragraph. Although it's normally used only by people who don't have the time or resources to validate their exam beforehand, such as college professors. (and I think many times their samples are too small to make such validation appropriate--they're validating their own teaching rather than their students' knowledge. But that's another issue entirely.)

What I'm saying is, short of AAMC telling us what they do, there's no way for us to know just by analyzing the test ourselves.