What are these "experimental" questions on the MCAT? Do they count for marks?

[SuperSaiyan3]

do they still exist these days?

How would you make up for the curve?

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[thebillsfan]

do they still exist these days?

How would you make up for the curve?

no experimentals do not count for any points.
they are question or passages that are on the test but you will not know if its an experimental or not. they are used for future questions or whatever evil plots the mcat test writers are a part of

 

[LostInStudy]

Nobody knows. It is a huge mystery but we have learned to live with it. Please use the search function next time, there have been many threads debating this.

-LIS

 

[AspiringDOC2010]

Just wondering, do you guys think that the experimental passages are most likely those passages that don't appear on all exams? On my exam, I had 6 similar passages to someone else, but we differed in one passage. Could that be the experimental? Just curious. Thanks!

 

[radon222]

There are experimental aspects on the MCAT but it is not like the SAT where an entire section is experimental.

Instead, when a writer writes a question they project out the difficulty of a question. For example, If I were to write a question and I feel 90% of students should get it write but when the test comes back only 10% did then AAMC MIGHT make adjustments. Usually the question was poorly worded and from what I have been told it is thrown out. I was told that entire passages are very very rarely thrown out.

Hope this helps
Radon222

 

[LostInStudy]

There are experimental aspects on the MCAT but it is not like the SAT where an entire section is experimental.

Instead, when a writer writes a question they project out the difficulty of a question. For example, If I were to write a question and I feel 90% of students should get it write but when the test comes back only 10% did then AAMC MIGHT make adjustments. Usually the question was poorly worded and from what I have been told it is thrown out. I was told that entire passages are very very rarely thrown out.

Hope this helps
Radon222

This sounds similar to what I said in another thread. So I guess I agree. It sounds about right.

No, I think it would be much easier for them to determine which passages were easy. Almost everybody should get easy passages right so they might throw in maybe one medium-hard question with all easy ones to get an easy passage. I think they have to experiment with harder passages to see just how hard they are and if the percentages would fit their curves in terms of how many people would get how many questions correct. That's just my opinion.

-LIS

Hope this helped,

-LIS

 

[Hemichordate]

How many of these experimental questions are usually on a test?