How accurate is the free MCAT test on AAMC’s website? So far I’ve only taken the biologic sciences & verbal reasoning sections, as I’m still in my first trimester of physics. Considering that I took them with kids in the background chattering at me, I’m not “studied up”, and just went with my first instinct/best guess on much of the questions, I am a bit surprised at the purported scaled scores that they’re giving me.
How’s reality compare with these?
AAMC PT03 is the oldest of all the tests so the material may not be a good representation of the real thing but the style of questions is accurate and the scoring system is in the ballpark. So I’d say it’s not the best test but it is still a good baseline one.
agreed that is good material to work on. I have glanced on various forums that this is the easiest of all.
While the style of questions may be accurate, test 3 in no way reflects the difficulty of the real test (nor do any of the AAMC practice tests). This is the one reality I wish someone had told me because it would have saved me a lot of time and money. The tests can still be used for the question style, just be sure to deduct about 5 points from your total score to get an idea of how you’d score on the real thing. Verbal is the only section that I would say reflects the difficulty of the real thing.
Not even close to the real thing IMHO.
Although it is nowhere close to the real test, it gives you a good baseline where you can continue improving upon.
The problem is, if you do well (>30+) on the first diagnostic and neglect your study, then you could possibly score even less than your first diagnostic. On the contrary, if you don’t score too well but get your act together and study really hard, you are likely to see a big improvement from your baseline score. Best of luck!
Thanks for the feedback…I will definitely not slack in my studies based on the results of this (though I don’t think I could stop worrying/prepping if I tried - in a healthy sense of worry, as in the motivation to study hard and do well, not as a distraction that keeps me from focusing).
Annette
Took a handful of the practice tests, and found the later ones to be a much better representation of what the test is actually like. Test 11 was almost identically difficult as the one I ended up taking.
I don’t specifically remember this one but I bought and took all of the available AAMC tests when I was studying for the MCAT. I took them all under conditions as close to actual testing conditions as I could get (did them at the library, did the essays, etc) and I averaged between 31-34 for the AAMC tests. I ended up scoring 33 on my MCAT so I think that the tests are a pretty good predictor IMO.
The practice tests that I’ve taken are supposedly not close to what the real test is like. I ordered all the practice tests and I am taking one a week until the real test. I am also reviewing more than one test prep to prepare. Because repetition is key, I have started with one test prep, and will go through the others. I found taking the Princeton Review course interesting, but not that helpful. I should have just studied on my own instead of going to the MCAT prep lectures.
Which practice tests did you take?