Serious question

[BurghStudent]

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I've been reading this forum a lot, being the neurotic MS1 you were a year ago. It seems that with enough planning and practice, a score of 240 is achievable for anyone (hell, some here claim that number to be 250). My question is, why are school averages lower in comparison? I think my school's average is a 230 or thereabouts. We can't all be Baylor. But, from the impression I get from my classmates, everyone wants to do well, and they are all excellent students. What gives?

 

[J ROD]

Not everyone in med school is on SDN and especially in this forum. SDN seems to attract the higher talent. Also, if you do badly, who is going to tell?

Everyone that gets a 250+ is gonna be talking all day. Those that make a 200 are not so much.

Personally, I would be grateful to get a 230. But, I am one of the rare average folks on here. I know I am not defined by a test. Patients are not multiple choice answers and I shine much brighter when in real life in the clinics. I just suck at standardized tests. I always seem to pick the wrong answer. In fact, I actually did a case study on myself. I picked the wrong answer 78% of the time. lol

But, it is a long process and we all have to grind it the best we can with our own strengths and weaknesses.

I do believe this test has more room for improvement with hardwork than the MCAT.

 

[thehundredthone]

It seems that with enough planning and practice...

Relative to being in medical school. You have to realise that like you said, all your classmates are excellent students, that's how they are in medical school. But that's relative to the general population. You're now talking about an "average student" relative to this subpopulation, so of course there's going to be a bell curve of sorts within this group.

Enough means being able to honestly and objectively appraise where you stand when it comes to performance on stnadardised tests in the USMLE style, and then taking the time and measures to bring yourself up to the level of scoring 240.