MCAT Berkeley Review Computer Based Tests

[BerkReviewTeach]

details about the CBTs soon to be posted.

Quick facts:
1) The exams are stored on a bank-security caliber website that is capable of handling over 100 times its typical traffic. The website for the exams is far superior to the company website
2) There are 9 full-length exams available to students in the course and 7 available to home study students.
3) Every question has a detailed explanation that addresses the question and the strategies. Our CBTs are the next best thing to AAMC exams, and perhaps on par with AAMC according to several previous users.

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[bostonmedical]

Would these CBT tests coincide with the Berkley Homestudy books in terms of difficulty? Or are they general CBTs?

 

[Mister T]

details about the CBTs soon to be posted.

Quick facts:
1) The exams are stored on a bank-security caliber website that is capable of handling over 100 times its typical traffic. The website for the exams is far superior to the company website
2) There are 9 full-length exams available to students in the course and 7 available to home study students.
3) Every question has a detailed explanation that addresses the question and the strategies. Our CBTs are the next best thing to AAMC exams, and perhaps on par with AAMC according to several previous users.

Can I take the exams anywhere or just at one computer? What if I move around the country a lot? Does the account get tethered to just one address or something?

When you say that the CBTs are the next best thing to the AAMC exams, do they offer the same "AAMC CBT" format? You know, with teh highlighting feature, cross out, timer, warnings, etc. etc.

 

[ratherberocking]

If we're not ready to take the MCAT, can we extend the subscription to gain access to the MCATs?

Also, can we save the CBTs on pdf?

Thanks!

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Would these CBT tests coincide with the Berkley Homestudy books in terms of difficulty? Or are they general CBTs?

Our practice exams are generally easier than the passages in our workbooks by a little bit. The difference lies in the number of easier questions. In our books, we have very few gimmes. On our exam, in the interest of generating a well shaped bell curve, the range of questions is distributed better.

Our exams are designed with the following goals in mind:
1) Make one section medium difficulty, one section hard, and one section killer. Vary which section is which from test to test.
2) Balance questions evenly between physics and general chemistry on the PS section. Have a good balance between main idea/theme questions and inference questions on the verbal reasoning sections. Have a 5:2 ratio of biology to organic chemistry on the BS section, with an occssional 6:1 and 4:3 exam.
3) Have some recall questions, some extract from the passage questions, and some reason from the concept questions associated with each science passage.
4) Include experiments and unfamiliar machinery in at least half of the passages.
5) Write highly detailed explanations to each question that explain some of the tricks we teach in our course and in our books, in case the person taking the exam hasn't used our books or taken our class.
6) Continually proof read our exams and make small changes based on feedback and statistics.

We have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours building each on of our exams. We started with a pool of roughly 20 to 30 passages for each section and threw away passages until we had the topic balance and difficulty range we wanted. We made sure there were at least three to five ambiguous questions per section as well as five to eight reflex questions. Our hope is that when you finish our exam set, nothing will surprise you on the MCAT. While you will likely see different subjects on your actual MCAT, you will be prepared for the bizarre passages as well as the straight-forward ones. You will be ready for both a PS with tons of calculations as well as one with hardly any. In essense, you'll be ready for everything.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Can I take the exams anywhere or just at one computer? What if I move around the country a lot? Does the account get tethered to just one address or something?

When you say that the CBTs are the next best thing to the AAMC exams, do they offer the same "AAMC CBT" format? You know, with teh highlighting feature, cross out, timer, warnings, etc. etc.

When we first designed our exams, we did it with a classroom course in mind. We put a limit of two computer ID numbers maximum on the exams. Our thought was that they'd use one exam when taking the exam at our center and second satellite one for home use. Needless to say, this approach became obsolete before it ever hit the floor. Our very first class for the Spring 2007 MCAT (when we introduced our CBTs large scale) had 117 students total. Of that 117, seven came in to take the exam in the simulated environment. We had the lockers, desks with privacy boxes, and all the bells and whistles we could muster. SEVEN people took advantage of this. I mentioned this to explain why we have reinvented ourselves over the past three years when it comes to CBTs.

What we learned that day is that we are old farts who haven't got a clue about the habits of the internet generation. Just a year earlier, we packed 200 people into lecture halls for simulated exams eight different times and our stduents ate that crap up. Since then we have varied our restrictions on computer usage, discovering that there was no typical usage pattern. There is a trigger that freezes your CBT account if you use what we deem at the moment to be too many different computers. Right now it is set at three for 2010. In the event an account freezes, a student will email us and we will look into it. We typically unfreeze the account and allow for three more access points. The only time we that definitely don't unfreeze an account is when the exam was accessed by two different computers simultaenously.

So after my longwinded diatribe I guess my answer is that if you use the same computer, it should be fine. While we record both IP addresses and computer ID numbers, we only restrict accounts based on computer ID numbers. If you have a problem, then you should immediately call 800-834-8378. The person who answers (assuming you get a person, which in all honesty is a fifty-fifty proposition most days) can solve the problem instantly. If you get the recording, leave a detailed message and it should unfreeze soon after your message.

As far as the next best thing to AAMC, I'm thinking more along the line of content and range of difficulty and style. I think my previous long winded post explained how the exams are written, which is why I believe people ultimately say our exams are really good.

As far as the features of our exams, we no longer have word search (disabled it years ago) and note-taking. The features we have are minimal. There is crossing out, highlighting, and question starring (for loking back later). These features for some reason have slightly different appearances with different browsers. While we are set up to work with any browser, they do not all work the same. Last year Firefox was the best, but for some reason Internet Explorer is working particularly well this year. Go figure.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

If we're not ready to take the MCAT, can we extend the subscription to gain access to the MCATs?

Also, can we save the CBTs on pdf?

Thanks!

The rules of extensions are despotic according to the man who enters all the CBT data into the homestudy file. Extensions are done on a case-by-case basis. He generally extends accounts if they have been lightly used or unused, as long as you contact him at a reasonably early time. I can think of only a few cases where someone wasn't extended, so my best advice is to contact the office by phone if you foresee the need.

As far as having exams on pdf, that is something we don't do. First, the program we wrote to operate our exams would not allow for it to be easily done. We'd have to rewrite our exams into another program, which would be way too time consumming. Second, just look on Craigslist for the pleathora of honest souls selling all sorts of illegal materials. Big companies have such a mark up on things, that losing money this way is built into their accounting. Because of our small size, our unit costs are markedly higher, so if we get hit by that sort of activity, we are screwed.

BTW, our company policy has been to reward anyone who reports when they see someone selling something of ours illegally with the items they were considering buying. Despite the fact that we don't advertise this policy, there have been plenty of people who have been kind enough to inform us when they see questionable activity. I have been truly inspired by the number of honest premeds out there who let us know purely because they are moralistic and honorable. I can't tell you how much we want to go out of our way to help these people, because medicine is the ultimate in noble professions and they will make the profession better.

 

[apumic]

You said your exams are "second to the AAMC's." I am curious as to whether any sort of correlative data have been collected? If I scored, say, a 33 on a TBR exam (assuming controlled simulation conditions) could I expect a 33±X (where X is, for instance, 3 or 4) on the actual test (with some level of confidence)? Do you believe your tests are harder or easier than the AAMC's?

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

You said your exams are "second to the AAMC's." I am curious as to whether any sort of correlative data have been collected? If I scored, say, a 33 on a TBR exam (assuming controlled simulation conditions) could I expect a 33±X (where X is, for instance, 3 or 4) on the actual test (with some level of confidence)? Do you believe your tests are harder or easier than the AAMC's?

As far as data goes, we have collected piles of it since starting the CBTs in 2007. We have found a good correlation between scores on our exams and the actual MCAT, but let me explain the data so you can decide for yourself how valid it is.

We take student scores on our practice exams and throw away the first two they take, assuming that they are more of a learning experience than anything else. From there, we take their average score on the remaining BR exams that they took and find that it matches their MCAT score within ±2 in about 80% of the cases.

How good that is in terms of predictability is open to debate (as any conclusion about data may be). First off, only about two thirds of the students who take our class report their scores to us. They typically range from 23 to 41 in terms of scores on the real MCAT, with the bulk of our students in the 30-35 range. A ±2 in a range of 18 points may or may not be good depending on your perspective. In addition, our average student only takes 5.3 of our CBTs, so we have better curves for some of our exams than for others.

So to answer your question about what score I'd predict for you if you got a 33 average on our exams, I'd put you in the 31-35 range, which based on our data pool was a safe placement without knowing your average score on our exams.

As for the difficulty, student feedback is that our exams are more difficult than the AAMC practice exams and the real MCAT.

 

[beckhunter116]

So you have to buy the class to get the tests? How much are the tests? How long can we access them after they have been taken?

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

So you have to buy the class to get the tests? How much are the tests? How long can we access them after they have been taken?

Seven of the BR CBTs can be purchased independent of the course itself. You can buy 3 for $100, 5 for $150, or 7 for $200. With the course, you get nine full length CBTs and fourteen sectional exams, which we administer and review near the end of our course.

The accounts for students in the class are open until they inform us they have taken the MCAT, which can extend over a year. For homestudy access, it is from 45 days prior to your designated MCAT date until your MCAT date, although there are cases where people postponed their MCAT and extended their account based on their revised test date.

 

[Simran1031]

in terms of the actual mcat, verses the CBTs your company provides, what is the average score discrepancy among the actual scores and the test scores?

 

[Lunkerpike]

Are the tests that you administer during the course paper-based, or are they given in a manner similar to the actual testing center (computer) ?

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

in terms of the actual mcat, verses the CBTs your company provides, what is the average score discrepancy among the actual scores and the test scores?

The average discrepency looks to be around two points.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Are the tests that you administer during the course paper-based, or are they given in a manner similar to the actual testing center (computer) ?

The CBTs are taken on a computer via a website that is activated for students. As far as where a student chooses to take the practice, that is up to them. Depending on the location, some students take them at our center, but the majority choose to take them either on campus at a computer lab, in their dorm room, or at home.

We do have review exams available in a paper format which are actually a combination of a review sheet and an all-encompassing review exam on the subject. These are provided with the class, but not available for home study.

 

[chutzpah]

Do you also provide essay topics in your CBTs?

Mostly asking if it simulates real testing conditions, time for essay. time for breaks etc.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Do you also provide essay topics in your CBTs?

Mostly asking if it simulates real testing conditions, time for essay. time for breaks etc.

Yeah, there are two essay prompts. I agree with the simulation, but I'd say less than 10% of the students taking our test do the essay. I think once you do a couple simulated exams and you know you can finish on time, then the hour spent on the practice essays is thought to be wasted and better spent studying.

 

[252238]

If i order cbts, how long to receive them?

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

If i order cbts, how long to receive them?

You choose your period of access. On the day your account is activated, you'll receive and email with the URL, your username, your password, and the details about accessing the exams and the answer explanations. The exams are designed in a way that you must complete the entire exam before you can access the answer explanations. This eliminates the temptation to grade it as you go.