Gold Standard VR

[Guest mitchie41]

I was just doing the Gold Standard VR passages, and i've noticed that the scaling factors given are REALLY unforgiving.

 

Does anyone know if this scheme is representative of the real MCAT?

 

The Kaplan ones seem more forgiving, and I I don't know if they're more representative because it says that these scores were scaled from students who were taking the review course with them(and wrote the exams as part of their course).

 

Thanks so much.

[Guest aneliz]

I never wrote the Kaplan ones... but I found that my scaled score on the Gold standard exams was within 1 point of my actual score on the real thing. You should be aiming for a scaled score.... because raw scores will vary wildly between different exams depending on the 'difficulty' of the version.

[Guest everyoneloveschem]

Yah, today I did a full Gold Standard Test (GS1), and when I went to score them it was like 76-77 was >12, but then what about 13,14,15? Its like that for all the sections, not just VR. I'm a bit nervous. I had done an AAMC (3R) test and done decently, but my GS score was poor!

[Guest T dawg 2004]

The MCAT is marked on a Bell Curve - and since you're writing a mock test, you have nothing to "curve" against. As such, the makers of the book have put together a scale to approximate what a normal distribution would be like on the test you just wrote.

 

In doing so, it is very hard to scale a score to be specific to a 13/14/15 because these scores (esp in verbal) are based on percentile ranges and are usually within the top 5-10% and are hard to discriminate. So, if you are doing >12 you are doing spectacular.

 

The AAMC tests tend to be pretty representative of past MCATs (since, well, they ARE past MCATs). So, don't rely too much on prep materials to approximate your score. Know that any score you are "getting" in practice tests can be vastly different (or exactly the same)... it depends on the test and your peers writing the test with you.