MCAT Strategy YouTube Channel

[MCATStrategy]

It has been a while since I have posted and the moderators used to allow me to post links to the new videos I released so I hope this post is okay.

 

I just wanted to post a link to my YouTube channel:

 

http://www.youtube.com/mcatstrategy

 

I hope this is fine because I do not represent any company, this is just a hobby for me. The videos are completely free and I hope they are of some use to the students on this forum.

 

Thanks.

[bpatient]

Nice video about the changes and it's implications. I originally didn't think about how it will be more difficult to score well due to everybody spending more time on the other 3 sections and weaknesses being magnified, but rather only that there would be no WS Great job showing how these changes can affect admissions.

[Prof.A.DumbleDore]

I would disagree. The majority of test takers are American or interested in American Medical Schools, most of which don't put much if any emphasis on the WS, so most applicants don't even bother to study the WS.

 

Also you are not evaluated against people who wrote the exam with you. You are scaled against people who answered the questions before (hidden in a real exam or 'experimental' as AAMC calls them). Also note, AAMC may mix and match passages to create variations of section and a complete exam.

This is the whole idea of the voluntary new section. The people who are writing the exam in 2013 and 2014 are probably setting the curve for the people who write the exam in 2015 and afterwards. People who actually get above a certain % corrected (statistically better than guessing and actually demonstrating effort) are the ones who will be compensated.

[bpatient]

I never understood the mcat curving part even after reading it on sdn :/ I know the scale is predetermined months/years ahead before you even write the exam. Also the average score you get on one test should be the same whether you take it on one day or any other day. So scary when you think about it, the 50 percentile range is about a 25 on the mcat.

[MCATStrategy]

I would disagree. The majority of test takers are American or interested in American Medical Schools, most of which don't put much if any emphasis on the WS, so most applicants don't even bother to study the WS.

 

Also you are not evaluated against people who wrote the exam with you. You are scaled against people who answered the questions before (hidden in a real exam or 'experimental' as AAMC calls them). Also note, AAMC may mix and match passages to create variations of section and a complete exam.

This is the whole idea of the voluntary new section. The people who are writing the exam in 2013 and 2014 are probably setting the curve for the people who write the exam in 2015 and afterwards. People who actually get above a certain % corrected (statistically better than guessing and actually demonstrating effort) are the ones who will be compensated.

 

You do have some strong points. However, in the United States, there is still time spent on the writing sample since a poor score does affect competitiveness at the higher tier schools.

 

When it comes to scaling, there is no guarantee that the experimental questions in 2013-2014 will come exclusively from previous years where there was a WS section.

 

In this time of transition, the AAMC may tweak things or have modifications already in place to keep the distribution of scores even from year to year. This is speculation of course but is a reasonable proposition.