Why does the CARS section percentile 'stretch' the lowest for applicants?

[TheBiologist]

I notice on the MSAR that for a lot of schools the range of scores for CARS is wider in the lower direction compared to the other sections, which are about even

for instance, say the median chem/phys is a 127, then the 25-75 percentile might be 125-129. pretty even both ways

but for CARS it might be something like 123-128, skewed in the lower direction

I also notice the opposite seems to be true for biological, where the scores seem skewed up

is there a reason for this?

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[efle]

It was the same with the old Verbal. It's just less important, you're more likely to have a weaker Verbal/CARS overlooked than a weaker bio section.

This is somewhat justified from studies about predictive power of the subsections. BS and PS were both much better predictors than Verbal was.

 

[Goro]

A lot of ESL or 1ts gen. Americans are tripped up by CARS/VR.

 

[md-2020]

unless you're Canadian, where they basically only care about CARS

 

[efle]

unless you're Canadian, where they basically only care about CARS

Which interestingly again is backed up by studies. Verbal correlated best with the Canadian clinical exams. Guess they test for very different things there.

 

[Frogger27]

CARS is stupid and should be removed from that test. I shouldn't have questions on a test about the titanic where my mind wonders if Jack could have fit on the door instead of focusing on what is actually being asked

 

[cactusman]

Which interestingly again is backed up by studies. Verbal correlated best with the Canadian clinical exams. Guess they test for very different things there.

I'd be interested to know which exams correlate better with clinical performance.

 

[Lawpy]

Which interestingly again is backed up by studies. Verbal correlated best with the Canadian clinical exams. Guess they test for very different things there.

I'd be interested to know which exams correlate better with clinical performance.

Going to guess Step 2.

 

[Lucca]

I'd be interested to know which exams correlate better with clinical performance.

MMIs and Verbal.