why switch to August?

[kdburton]

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It seems as though many people are switching to the August date at the last minute (last two weeks actually)... If the test is curved, isn't it reasonable to assume that many of the people taking it in April are in the same situation as you (full load of credits, research, work, volunteer, etc.)? Hypothetically if you were to take it in August with the exam same prepartion you would have for the April administration how much would your score dropped solely based on the curve??? Now take that score difference into consideration when you think about taking the August exam and ask yourself if you think you will be able to improve by that much AS WELL as how much you wanted to improve in the beginning. Unfortunately they don't have a score projection for April and August test takers for the practice exam, but I think you should only consider switching if you think you'll be able to improve enough to beat the curve and beyond....

 

[AWhitehair]

It seems as though many people are switching to the August date at the last minute (last two weeks actually)... If the test is curved, isn't it reasonable to assume that many of the people taking it in April are in the same situation as you (full load of credits, research, work, volunteer, etc.)? Hypothetically if you were to take it in August with the exam same prepartion you would have for the April administration how much would your score dropped solely based on the curve??? Now take that score difference into consideration when you think about taking the August exam and ask yourself if you think you will be able to improve by that much AS WELL as how much you wanted to improve in the beginning. Unfortunately they don't have a score projection for April and August test takers for the practice exam, but I think you should only consider switching if you think you'll be able to improve enough to beat the curve and beyond....

Shhh! You're not supposed to tell them this! They will just make the curve lower for us.

No, in all seriousness the OP is right... that is why I am taking it and I am sitting at a 26. We'll see.

Also, a lot of people take the summer off to study (not recommended) so the scores are usually better in Aug and the curve is not as large.

 

[MediMama23]

It seems as though many people are switching to the August date at the last minute (last two weeks actually)... If the test is curved, isn't it reasonable to assume that many of the people taking it in April are in the same situation as you (full load of credits, research, work, volunteer, etc.)? Hypothetically if you were to take it in August with the exam same prepartion you would have for the April administration how much would your score dropped solely based on the curve??? Now take that score difference into consideration when you think about taking the August exam and ask yourself if you think you will be able to improve by that much AS WELL as how much you wanted to improve in the beginning. Unfortunately they don't have a score projection for April and August test takers for the practice exam, but I think you should only consider switching if you think you'll be able to improve enough to beat the curve and beyond....

Your hypothetical situation doesn't fly, because why would anyone want to enter the August exam with the same prep that they had for the April exam? At that point, yeah, you might as well take the April exam, else you'd be wasting your time. But that's not what those who are switching are trying to do. They're trying to give themselves more time to prepare for the exam, so that they can at least walk into the exam feeling that they've prepared the best they could. Right now, my scores are telling me that I haven't prepared the best that I could. So, given my testing anxiety, I am not going to walk into the April exam and sit down to take it with the feeling and knowledge that I did not prepare myself to the best of my ability. That would be like testing suicide for me. If that works for others, then more power to them. 👍 But in general, I don't think anyone says to themselves, "Realistically, I can only up my score like one more point, so I'm going to wait until August." They probably think to themselves, "I KNOW I can pull this score up...A, B, and X have hindered my ability to get the most that I can out of my studying. I KNOW that with that extra time, I can make great strides in my studying. At least I'll be able to work on areas that I wasn't able to before and cover all of my ground. If after this extra time I'm not able to work it out, then FUK it...I did what I could, and at this point I'll have to roll with the punches unless I'm willing to sacrifice another 8 months of my sanity."

I don't know if you're trying to be encouraging or patronizing or whatever, but I do ask that you respect peoples' decisions. They know themselves a lot better than you do.

 

[DrBowtie]

It really won't matter one bit with the sample size.

 

[AWhitehair]

It really won't matter one bit with the sample size.

I feel stupid, what does that mean?

 

[MediMama23]

I feel stupid, what does that mean?

I think it has to do with the fact that we're on SDN and the sample size (those who post) of students switching is very small compared to the thousands of people who will be sitting (or were planning to sit) for the April exam.

At least, that's my take.

 

[AWhitehair]

I think it has to do with the fact that we're on SDN and the sample size (those who post) of students switching is very small compared to the thousands of people who will be sitting (or were planning to sit) for the April exam.

At least, that's my take.

Oh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

[DrBowtie]

Oh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Exactly...the number of students who will be taking the exam anyways will counterbalance any strategy for switching. In the end there will be people who study years to study for just a week.

 

[kdburton]

Exactly...the number of students who will be taking the exam anyways will counterbalance any strategy for switching. In the end there will be people who study years to study for just a week.

I guess if you could cite some references about that it would be helpful. Based on everything I've read it seems that the curve on the August exam would be a bit harder, so the time that you spend to "fully prepare yourself for the MCAT in August" now has to compensate not only for your poor current preparation, but also the difference the curve will make. Maybe its not a big difference... but then one also has to take into consideration that they will be applying much later than the April MCATers which puts them at a disadvantage as well. Maybe I'm saying all of this to convince myself that I'm prepared for the April administration as well I rocked the hell out of all the prerequisite classes all in the last year (at least 20% above average) and have been doing well on practice exams with little preparation in comparison to other people I know, so thats how I justify taking it in April.

 

[DrBowtie]

I guess if you could cite some references about that it would be helpful. Based on everything I've read it seems that the curve on the August exam would be a bit harder, so the time that you spend to "fully prepare yourself for the MCAT in August" now has to compensate not only for your poor current preparation, but also the difference the curve will make. Maybe its not a big difference... but then one also has to take into consideration that they will be applying much later than the April MCATers which puts them at a disadvantage as well. Maybe I'm saying all of this to convince myself that I'm prepared for the April administration as well I rocked the hell out of all the prerequisite classes all in the last year (at least 20% above average) and have been doing well on practice exams with little preparation in comparison to other people I know, so thats how I justify taking it in April.

Can I point you to these:
August: http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/sumaug05.pdf
April: http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/sumapr05.pdf

April has less testers and a higher average score.

The more testers the more "normal" the distribution will be no matter how much people study. As can be seen by the retesters data most people are +/- 3 points so it leads me to believe that studying would have a marginal effect in the grand scheme of things. It is a mostly logic test.

 

[notdeadyet]

is 25.0 and 24.6, I think we can probably agree that the difference is pretty marginal.

One point that I'm curious about that I haven't really seen addressed is what the numbers are going to be like in August of people who are rushing into the test to NOT take the CBT based test later. Curious to see if there's a bump in test-takers and how that affects the scores.

 

[DrBowtie]

is 25.0 and 24.6, I think we can probably agree that the difference is pretty marginal.

One point that I'm curious about that I haven't really seen addressed is what the numbers are going to be like in August of people who are rushing into the test to NOT take the CBT based test later. Curious to see if there's a bump in test-takers and how that affects the scores.

Like I said before, I have the opinion that the average is a function of the # of test takers. I think the average will be closer to 24.0. Also, with more people taking I think my score will better reflect where I am at since there will be less tinkering with the normal distribution.

 

[AWhitehair]

Can I point you to these:
August: http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/sumaug05.pdf
April: http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/sumapr05.pdf

April has less testers and a higher average score.

The more testers the more "normal" the distribution will be no matter how much people study. As can be seen by the retesters data most people are +/- 3 points so it leads me to believe that studying would have a marginal effect in the grand scheme of things. It is a mostly logic test.

This really doesn't disprove what I said earlier... in fact, it kinda supports it. The raw scores are not shown on the website, which could mean that the curve was higher in April since the scores were a bit higher??? 😕

 

[DrBowtie]

What I was saying is that there is more of a curve period in April. Remember, the test can be curved DOWN as well.

In the end the tests are normalized such that you can compare results across April and August so the differences are negligible.

If you look on e-mcat all of the curves are very similar.

Believe what you want.

 

[AWhitehair]

What I was saying is that there is more of a curve period in April. Remember, the test can be curved DOWN as well.

In the end the tests are normalized such that you can compare results across April and August so the differences are negligible.

If you look on e-mcat all of the curves are very similar.

Believe what you want.

Where is this infor found on e-mcat?

 

[DrBowtie]

Where is this infor found on e-mcat?

e-mcat.com > log in > how its scored or something of that nature and you can scroll through all of the tests 3-9.

 

[j-med]

*deleted*

moved to: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=3556230#post3556230