Pre-medical students would love to have a method to figure out what they would score on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) without actually taking the test. While there is no method to determine what your exact score will be, we can tell you how to predict your MCAT score. The answer is to take the only practice test released by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) that gives you a scaled score.
Why Would Students Want to Predict Their MCAT Score?
An MCAT score prediction is helpful to pre-medical students at any stage along their MCAT studies. Students that have not begun studying can learn how much they will need to study. Students that are in the middle of their studies can figure out how much progress they have made. Most importantly, students that are near the end of their studies can use this information to ask themselves a very important question: am I ready to take the exam? If you recognize that you are insufficiently prepared, you may want to consider pushing back your test date or seek additional study resources. For those of you that decide that you are ready, make sure to check out our last minute MCAT advice!
The Best Method
Imagine that you could take the MCAT exam and get your score report but have no one else know your results or even that you took the test. This is the ideal way for you to predict how well you would do on your actual exam. Believe it or not, you can do this. The AAMC has released two full-length MCAT practice tests. These two exams are the closest any pre-medical students can get to the actual MCAT except on their test day. The unfortunate news is that only one of the two will give you a scaled score. You can visit the AAMC’s website to purchase access to this test as well as learn more about what the scaled score is.
In short, one exam will give you a scaled score for each section between 118 and 132; this is the MCAT score that you will use to apply for medical school. The other exam will only tell you the percentage of the questions you got correct but without a scaled score. What this means is that there is only one AAMC test available to predict your MCAT score so students are generally recommended to save this test for near the end of their studies. The AAMC does plan to release additional practice tests so you may have more exams to work with if you choose to take the MCAT later on. For now, students should take this test as seriously as possible and simulate the testing day conditions as closely as possible. This includes starting the test at the same time, following the timing of each section, and taking all of the breaks between sections.
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