SC question difficulty distribution in MCAT

[vishalchopra]

Hi ,

I was a student of virtual winter F and completed the course around a month back . I have given GMAT an year back and got a poor score of 640(42V,32Q) because of lack of prep. After studying your course I feel much better.Special thanks to Eric . He is amazing.

After completion of course , I have started taking the MCATs(though against the advice of manhattan gmat :-) ) . My score in recent MCAT is 700(47Q,39V) . Score in earlier MCAT was 670 (46Q,35V) While observing the generated reports , I found some unusual things. You may want to look at them too.

If you see my verbal in second test and the SC questions in it , you will see that the test has thrown in only 1 700-800 level SC question though I have got 70% correct in 600-700 range. I am not able to understand this . Please explain because I feel that if I had harder q on SC , I would have scored more.

Critical Reasoning 14 9 5 0 64% 1:45 2:03 650 710
500 - 600 2 2 0 100% 2:02 NA
600 - 700 7 5 2 71% 1:40 2:44
700 - 800 5 2 3 40% 1:41 1:36
Reading Comprehension 12 6 6 0 50% 2:23 1:43 610 720
300 - 500 1 1 0 100% 4:27 NA
500 - 600 1 1 0 100% 1:02 NA
600 - 700 5 3 2 60% 1:40 1:38
700 - 800 5 1 4 20% 3:48 1:45
Sentence Correction 15 10 5 0 67% 1:19 2:12 660 630
500 - 600 1 0 1 0% NA 2:55
600 - 700 13 9 4 69% 1:26 2:01
700 - 800 1 1 0 100% 0:20 NA


Moreover I read from your past year posts that the SD of your tests is 50 points. Has it improved from that . I am giving gmat in mid june and havent given any gmatprep yet.

your help would be extremly appreciated.

Thanks ,

Vishal

[StaceyKoprince]

What is "MCAT"? Does that mean ManattanGMAT CAT exams? I'll assume it does, though if you're talking about another test, then I can't tell you anything because I don't know how other companies make their algorithms.

The difficulty level of the questions you are given is not held consistently within one question type. If you get a 600-700 level SC right and the test wants to give you a 700-800 level question next, it may give you a 700-800 level CR question. If you then get that one wrong, you may get a 600-700 level SC question next. That's just the way the test works.

That's why it's important to work to improve all question types - don't rely on one strong question type to lift your score because if your performance on other types pulls you down, you may not be offered a lot of very hard questions in your area of strength.

Also, as far as I'm aware, our standard deviation hasn't changed - but I haven't asked lately. I'll check with our curriculum director but, right now, assume it's the same.