Size or curve/scale on real mcat?

[ur2l8]

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I took a recent mcat, was averaging 35 on my aamc's walked out of the real thing thinking I got a 28...max

Was wondering if anyone knows if the curve on real mcats are bigger than the aamc practice tests curves? If so, by how much?

Has anyone taken the real thing, KNOW FOR SURE they missed 10+ questions, but still ended up with an 11+?

Peace

 

[SN2ed]

Unless you skipped sections/questions, don't go off of feeling for how well you did on the MCAT. In regards to your question, no one knows how the MCAT is graded. Furthermore, I doubt anyone really "knows for sure" how many questions they missed. Your memories of the test itself are usually not that reliable. If it's any consolation, there have been posters who almost voided because they "knew" they bombed and ended up with 35+ scores.

 

[ur2l8]

Alright, thanks for the consolation.

Also props for making that schedule. I only had about 3-4 weeks to study for the exam due to work and school, and by the end, almost even pulled a 40 on one of my practice exams...attributable to the fact I used the materials in your guide (albeit I did not follow the schedule due to time restraints). So, thanks. Hopefully the real exam is somewhat close to my real score. The only school I will likely be able to afford to go to is my state school, with a median of a 31 mcat....so hoping for the best.

Peace

 

[Qester]

Alright, thanks for the consolation.

Also props for making that schedule. I only had about 3-4 weeks to study for the exam due to work and school, and by the end, almost even pulled a 40 on one of my practice exams...attributable to the fact I used the materials in your guide (albeit I did not follow the schedule due to time restraints). So, thanks. Hopefully the real exam is somewhat close to my real score. The only school I will likely be able to afford to go to is my state school, with a median of a 31 mcat....so hoping for the best.

Peace

Don't stress if you got a 28 you are only 1 point below each section median for your school (worst case scenario) but many people have the post MCAT anxiety and many end up having done fantastic

 

[Redpancreas]

I took a recent mcat, was averaging 35 on my aamc's walked out of the real thing thinking I got a 28...max

Was wondering if anyone knows if the curve on real mcats are bigger than the aamc practice tests curves? If so, by how much?

Has anyone taken the real thing, KNOW FOR SURE they missed 10+ questions, but still ended up with an 11+?

Peace

Hey, I came out thinking I got a 28 and got a 34. I thought I knew for sure I got 10+ wrong in PS but ended up with an 11 (good enough for me, I was averaging around 28-30 on practice tests). As SN2ed suggested, as long as you didn't skip a passage and put decent thought into each passage (with guesses sprinkled here and there) it should be fine. Even with verbal reasoning, there was one passage I thought I may have completely bombed but I ended up with an 11 again. I checked Thx expecting a 29ish and saw a 34! Don't try predicting your score until you get your results back. As for the curve, no one's been able to give me a definitive answer but it could definitely be a much nicer curve than the AAMCs!

 

[Qester]

Hey, I came out thinking I got a 28 and got a 34. I thought I knew for sure I got 10+ wrong in PS but ended up with an 11 (good enough for me, I was averaging around 28-30 on practice tests). As SN2ed suggested, as long as you didn't skip a passage and put decent thought into each passage (with guesses sprinkled here and there) it should be fine. Even with verbal reasoning, there was one passage I thought I may have completely bombed but I ended up with an 11 again. I checked Thx expecting a 29ish and saw a 34! Don't try predicting your score until you get your results back. As for the curve, no one's been able to give me a definitive answer but it could definitely be a much nicer curve than the AAMCs!

If I recall correctly on the AAMC website under MCAT exam info it states that each exam tests the students on the same material but have different questions. That some exams are more difficult than others and the scoring is different.

If I were to guess I would think that the AAMC would have a database of questions and have them ranked on difficulty. They would then make up an exam from the question bank and the average difficulty rating would reflect the average score.

Depending on how many people get each of the trial questions right/wrong in each section helps them to determine the difficulty of that specific question so that it can be implemented in future tests with a proper curve adjustment.