Originally posted by the boy wonder
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.