Regarding Percentile

[mosco]

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I hope someone can answer this question. What does the percentile mean (i.e. 90 percentile for any one of the subsection means 90 percent of the total questions were answered correctly?)? 😕 I would appreciate an answer.

 

[KUMoose]

It doesn't directly related to the percentage of correct answers. Percentiles are used to reference your percentage of correct answers in an ordered sample population.

A high level example is if 100 people all took the PCAT for the first time, and their scores in Chemistry were lined up highest to lowest, the person with the 90th percentile would be the 10th highest score. The 50th percentile is the median score. Thus the 10th highest score could be a 97.5% or a 73.8% of the questions correct.

 

[mosco]

It doesn't directly related to the percentage of correct answers. Percentiles are used to reference your percentage of correct answers in an ordered sample population.

A high level example is if 100 people all took the PCAT for the first time, and their scores in Chemistry were lined up highest to lowest, the person with the 90th percentile would be the 10th highest score. The 50th percentile is the median score. Thus the 10th highest score could be a 97.5% or a 73.8% of the questions correct.

So it is conceivable that someone who took the Biology subsection and got 50% correct could be in the 90th percentile?

 

[KUMoose]

Correct.

 

[beccala33]

Also something to keep in mind is that for every person who gets a 90th%, there is someone who gets a 10th%, for every 99th% there is someone who gets a 1st%. When I was waiting for my results I thought I was going to go out of my mind because I had no idea how I had done at all. It was so frustrating.