Scores between April vs August mcat

[Research3r]

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Quote:
Originally Posted by dumbadum on PREMED 101
From personal experience (granted I don't have many), I feel that MCAT in April may yield the best results if you prepare well--simply because MCAT is based on how well you do compared to others, and well... not many people write the MCAT in April, most super smart people are going to write in August/September.
Then again, maybe there is some merit in writing in the summer (e.g. better preparation) =S

Is it true that August mcat is harder to receive a better mark than April?

 

[Ismet]

Is it true that August mcat is harder to receive a better mark than April?

I have no idea what logic dumbadum was following, but it was definitely dumb. Don't pay attention to that.

Straight from AAMC:

Is the exam graded on a curve?
Examinees often ask if earning a high score or higher percentile is easier or harder at different times of the testing year. They ask whether they have a better chance of earning a higher score in April or in August, for example. The question is based on an assumption that the exam is scored on a curve, and that a final score is dependent on how an individual performed in comparison to other examinees from the same test day or same time of year.

While there may be small differences in the MCAT exam you took compared to another examinee, the scoring process accounts for these differences so that an 8 earned on physical sciences on one exam means the same thing as an 8 earned on any other exam. The percentile provided on your score report simply indicates what percentage of examinees from the previous testing year scored the same as you did on the MCAT exam.

How you score on the MCAT exam, therefore, is not reflective of the particular exam you took--including the time of day, the test date, or the time of year--since any difference in difficulty level is accounted for when calculating your scale scores (see above for information about scaling).

 

[Research3r]

Is it possible to rule out the following logic, and I hope it is not so:
In previous test years mcat exam writers who wrote in Jan-mid summer wrote a final exam at the end of August or beginning of September for their strongest test score and thus these exams have the toughest curve based on previous years.

Perhaps
Jan = easy curve based on previous years;
April = moderate difficulty because people who wrote in Jan studied more and re wrote in April;
August = most difficult curve because of rewriters and the summer break study groups;

So at any given test date, Jan, April, August it is based on the above logical curve distributions from previous testing years..?

Although, thanks Ismet, this logic is refuted by the AAMC's FAQ section which can be found here:
https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mcat/preparing/85436/preparing_understandingscores.html

 

[FuturePharm21]

I heard Aug/September have the biggest curves because that's when MOST applicants take it for first or retake it....however I did hear people do really bad in April/May I don't know why....you can't think about this at all because it's pointless as they won't give any records of that and I have enough to stress about :/