The sudden improvement.

[Kikaku21]

Hi-

I have taken 5 practice tests now. I hit 29 on the first one. Then 3 in the low 30s. One was AAMC 3r and the others were all Kaplan FLs. Then, after taking some time for content review, and a vacation.... I hit a 37 on 6r. Any comments on the diagnostic power of 6r?? (Or an AAMC tests for that matter) I'd like to think I've finally had a serious breakthrough here....

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[superwillis]

I don't think 6R is supposed to be an easy test or anything. I think the prep company diags are usually on the harder side, mainly so that they can keep their "higher score guarantee" intact. At least, it would make sense from a prep company perspective to make the diags harder.

You can see from the 4 practice tests I took (in my sig) that i did about 4-5 points worse on both TPR diags than I did on 5r and 6r.

I would say the 37 is legit (but maybe thats cuz I want my 35 on 6r to be legit too ).

 

[seadizzle]

This isn't probably what you want to hear, but I think it is human nature to take low scores and dismiss them as bad performances, then get a good score and conclude you've made a huge improvement.

I believe progress comes slowly with hard work. You study and your expected value steadily rises. As you go, you will still see + and - from it, so I wouldn't be discouraged if you scored a 33 on the next test, I'd guess your hypothetical mean is about 35 right now. From my experience preparing for and taking the test, you can test + or - about 2 points from your hypothetical mean, simply resulting from how the test plays to your strengths and your luck crunching numbers and guessing.

Sorry to be depressing.

I think your hard work will pay off, good luck!

 

[Kikaku21]

This isn't probably what you want to hear, but I think it is human nature to take low scores and dismiss them as bad performances, then get a good score and conclude you've made a huge improvement.

I believe progress comes slowly with hard work. You study and your expected value steadily rises. As you go, you will still see + and - from it, so I wouldn't be discouraged if you scored a 33 on the next test, I'd guess your hypothetical mean is about 35 right now. From my experience preparing for and taking the test, you can test + or - about 2 points from your hypothetical mean, simply resulting from how the test plays to your strengths and your luck crunching numbers and guessing.

Sorry to be depressing.

I think your hard work will pay off, good luck!

You are probably right. I have more or less had steady improvement, but this is the first jump. We'll see what next weeks practice test yields.

 

[Moses MD]

I would say don't give your hopes up. A 37 is really good, but scoring a 37 on one test doesn't mean you will on test day. I'd say, it looks like you are making good improvement, but maybe you hit it lucky on 6R (the format of the test just agreed with you well). Regardless, be proud of the 37, but remember that it is probably not completely indicative of your overall performance given your previous practice tests. Also, I would be skeptical of the diagnostic power for any of the Kaplan or TPR tests.