Understanding Your AAMC PREview® Professional Readiness Exam Scores

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How Exams Are Scored

The AAMC collaborated with subject matter experts to develop the scoring key for the AAMC PREview® professional readiness exam (i.e., the key effectiveness rating for each response). The group of subject matter experts included admissions officers, faculty, student affairs representatives, and others who work closely with and understand the expectations and responsibilities of students. 

Your PREview® exam score is based on the extent to which the effectiveness ratings of your responses (items) align with medical educators’ consensus ratings. Full credit is awarded for an item if your rating matches the medical educators’ consensus rating. Half credit is awarded if your rating is one rating away from the medical educators’ consensus rating but still on the same side of the scale (i.e., Effective/Very Effective responses or Ineffective/Very Ineffective responses). 

For example, if an item is keyed “Effective” and you rate it “Very Effective,” you receive half credit. If you rate the same item “Ineffective,” you do not receive credit as the item key is on the opposite side of the scale. 

Higher scores suggest that your ratings align more closely with medical educators' consensus ratings, whereas lower scores suggest your ratings align less closely with medical educators' consensus ratings.  

Why Your Raw Score is Converted to a Scaled Score

Every test form of the AAMC PREview exam measures your understanding of effective pre-professional behaviors. However, each form is different in the specific items it presents. While care is taken to ensure each form is about equivalent in difficulty, one form may be slightly more or less difficult than another. 

The conversion of raw scores to scaled scores, through a process called equating, compensates for small variations in difficulty between sets of items. This conversion minimizes variability in the meaning of test scores across different forms, a score of 6, for example, has the same meaning regardless of when you take the exam and regardless of which form you receive.

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