what percentage of questions is 90th percentile?

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gsinccom

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I've been told the following:
ForcedEntry said:
a composite scaled 435 would be 95th percentile
- I need to acheive at least a 90th percentile to get into the school of my choice! How many questions to I need to get correct in each section?
i.e, Is a 435 the same as getting approximatley 70% of the 58 items on Verbal, Biology, Chemistry, and Quantitative Ability(48 on reading comprehension) correct? If not what percentage is it?
Thanks for your help in my goal setting🙂
 
gsinccom said:
I've been told the following: - I need to acheive at least a 90th percentile to get into the school of my choice! How many questions to I need to get correct in each section?
i.e, Is a 435 the same as getting approximatley 70% of the 58 items on Verbal, Biology, Chemistry, and Quantitative Ability(48 on reading comprehension) correct? If not what percentage is it?
Thanks for your help in my goal setting🙂

No one on this forum knows the exact answer to your question. The best we can do is speculate. I felt very confident in the biology section of the PCAT and ended up with an 84 percentile. I would say i missed 5-6 questions max. In chemistry i thought i missed 2 questions at max and ended up with a 99 percentile.

My guess (again this is just a guess) is that in most sections you can only miss around 8-12% of the questions to earn a 90 percentile. The math section probably has a steeper curve allowing you to miss 15% or so.
 
taloddar2002,

thanks a bunch for your estimate/guess. Anyone else have thoughts on this?
 
No one here knows the magical scaled score calculation, other than it is 200-600 with 400 being 50th percentile. This does not mean that 50% correct = 400.

Based on the grades reported from the June PCAT if you received the following scaled/percentiles for each section:
VA 432 - 90
Bio 434 - 90
RC 432 - 90
QA 432 - 90
Ch 432 - 90

You would receive a scaled composite of 432 and percentile composite of 93-95
(431 - 93/435 - 95/no composite scaled reported for 432)

However, you can do poorly on one or two sections, great on the rest, and still get a high compsite.

The range of scores seen, thus far, was
RC 385 - 27
RC 504 - 99


Additionally, I think you are focusing your efforts incorrectly. Don't think about how many you can afford to get wrong. The answer is NONE.
 
thanks for your help guys. What are the best PCAT prep materials? I have MCAT, OAT, and DAT stuff. Will that help? Where can I find the best PCAT practice tests? Are the two practice tests on the harcourtassessment site good?
 
gsinccom said:
thanks for your help guys. What are the best PCAT prep materials? I have MCAT, OAT, and DAT stuff. Will that help? Where can I find the best PCAT practice tests? Are the two practice tests on the harcourtassessment site good?

Search this forum. It has been covered extensively.
 
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