PT 38: 176 -- Normally mid160s

Madssssss L.

Hi all!
I just finished PT 38 and scored a 176, BR 179. These are absolutely wild scores for me, as I average around 165. I am studying for a retake in September, after scoring a 161 in June.
I am reminding myself this it is an outlier score, but noting that I am capable of it (somehow). Typically, I struggle with RC, can foolproof LG (though potentially missing 1-3 stupid questions, or a really hard game stumping me), and am I seeing lots of improvement on LR lately (missing 2-5 per section normally).
Thoughts? How should I approach/adjust my attitude after this score?
P.S. Planning another PT tomorrow, so that will be added to the bag-- taking 2-3 per week until Sept.

conrad.p

Either you got lucky or something clicked and you're doing great. Don't be discourage about the former if it happens. Good luck! PS: I had a normal score for 38.

Alex

@"Madeline L." said:
Hi all!
I just finished PT 38 and scored a 176, BR 179. These are absolutely wild scores for me, as I average around 165. I am studying for a retake in September, after scoring a 161 in June.
I am reminding myself this it is an outlier score, but noting that I am capable of it (somehow). Typically, I struggle with RC, can foolproof LG (though potentially missing 1-3 stupid questions, or a really hard game stumping me), and am I seeing lots of improvement on LR lately (missing 2-5 per section normally).
Thoughts? How should I approach/adjust my attitude after this score?
P.S. Planning another PT tomorrow, so that will be added to the bag-- taking 2-3 per week until Sept.

If you just finished a PT, I wouldn't do another one just quite yet. I'm sure there's something you could work on besides just another PT. Doing PTs back to back can lead to burnout and overall just obsessing about your score, instead of actually improving.

I think you're going about this with the right mindset though. Yeah, it might be an outlier, but no one scores those out of luck. So no you know what you're capable of and can continue to have confidence in yourself! Congrats on such an awesome score

Sammie215

Wait this exact same thing happened to me. Like was scoring mid 160s, and also got the same score/ BR score on PT 38. Maybe it's just super easy?

HesusChrist

The core curriculum has material from PT 38, so that may skew scores slightly.

Madssssss L.

@"Alex Divine" said:

@"Madeline L." said:
Hi all!
I just finished PT 38 and scored a 176, BR 179. These are absolutely wild scores for me, as I average around 165. I am studying for a retake in September, after scoring a 161 in June.
I am reminding myself this it is an outlier score, but noting that I am capable of it (somehow). Typically, I struggle with RC, can foolproof LG (though potentially missing 1-3 stupid questions, or a really hard game stumping me), and am I seeing lots of improvement on LR lately (missing 2-5 per section normally).
Thoughts? How should I approach/adjust my attitude after this score?
P.S. Planning another PT tomorrow, so that will be added to the bag-- taking 2-3 per week until Sept.

If you just finished a PT, I wouldn't do another one just quite yet. I'm sure there's something you could work on besides just another PT. Doing PTs back to back can lead to burnout and overall just obsessing about your score, instead of actually improving.

I think you're going about this with the right mindset though. Yeah, it might be an outlier, but no one scores those out of luck. So no you know what you're capable of and can continue to have confidence in yourself! Congrats on such an awesome score

Thank you so much, Alex! So true about taking them back to back, and I actually chose to postpone my next one. I have planned on doing 2-3 PTs/week, but could certainly ease off of that as I have a well-developed idea of the 'test situation'. Other than 7Sage lessons, what would you recommend doing in prep instead?

inactive

@HesusChrist said:
The core curriculum has material from PT 38, so that may skew scores slightly.

It does not. CC has materials from PTs 1-35. The rest are reserved for clean copies.

HesusChrist

@"Dillon A. Wright" said:

@HesusChrist said:
The core curriculum has material from PT 38, so that may skew scores slightly.

It does not. CC has materials from PTs 1-35. The rest are reserved for clean copies.

I stand corrected. Must have been used in other materials I worked through.

conrad.p

@"Alex Divine" said:
Yeah, it might be an outlier, but no one scores those out of luck.

Is a conjecture or educated guess, or did you actually see this in a study?

Alex

@"conrad.p" said:

@"Alex Divine" said:
Yeah, it might be an outlier, but no one scores those out of luck.

Is a conjecture or educated guess, or did you actually see this in a study?

Just simple probability, I guess... I mean a 176 means you got, what, ~5 wrong or so out of 100 questions. Don't really see that being because of luck. That's not to say outlier scores don't happen, but even so, scoring a 176 timed requires great skill.

Alex

@"Madeline L." said:

@"Alex Divine" said:

@"Madeline L." said:
Hi all!
I just finished PT 38 and scored a 176, BR 179. These are absolutely wild scores for me, as I average around 165. I am studying for a retake in September, after scoring a 161 in June.
I am reminding myself this it is an outlier score, but noting that I am capable of it (somehow). Typically, I struggle with RC, can foolproof LG (though potentially missing 1-3 stupid questions, or a really hard game stumping me), and am I seeing lots of improvement on LR lately (missing 2-5 per section normally).
Thoughts? How should I approach/adjust my attitude after this score?
P.S. Planning another PT tomorrow, so that will be added to the bag-- taking 2-3 per week until Sept.

If you just finished a PT, I wouldn't do another one just quite yet. I'm sure there's something you could work on besides just another PT. Doing PTs back to back can lead to burnout and overall just obsessing about your score, instead of actually improving.

I think you're going about this with the right mindset though. Yeah, it might be an outlier, but no one scores those out of luck. So no you know what you're capable of and can continue to have confidence in yourself! Congrats on such an awesome score

Thank you so much, Alex! So true about taking them back to back, and I actually chose to postpone my next one. I have planned on doing 2-3 PTs/week, but could certainly ease off of that as I have a well-developed idea of the 'test situation'. Other than 7Sage lessons, what would you recommend doing in prep instead?

Great! Happy to hear that! 2 a week might be fine, but it all depends on where you're at in your prep and where your actual scores are in relation to your BR scores. For you, I would spend time making sure your LG skills are sharp so you can be more consistent here. So you may want to fool proof the older games. Also for LR/RC, if you already know you need some work here, then spend what time you need improving. I also think timed sections are also a great way to improve. You can take these intermittently during the week and it's nice to not have to dedicate 4 hours to doing a full PT while still getting in some timed practice.

Once you feel like you've done what you can to improve on where you know you need work, then take another PT.

Again, congrats on such a great score. Remember now you KNOW you are capable!

conrad.p

@"Alex Divine" said:

@"conrad.p" said:

@"Alex Divine" said:
Yeah, it might be an outlier, but no one scores those out of luck.

Is a conjecture or educated guess, or did you actually see this in a study?

Just simple probability, I guess... I mean a 176 means you got, what, ~5 wrong or so out of 100 questions. Don't really see that being because of luck. That's not to say outlier scores don't happen, but even so, scoring a 176 timed requires great skill.

@"Alex Divine" said:

@"conrad.p" said:

@"Alex Divine" said:
Yeah, it might be an outlier, but no one scores those out of luck.

Is a conjecture or educated guess, or did you actually see this in a study?

Just simple probability, I guess... I mean a 176 means you got, what, ~5 wrong or so out of 100 questions. Don't really see that being because of luck. That's not to say outlier scores don't happen, but even so, scoring a 176 timed requires great skill.

@"Alex Divine" said:

@"conrad.p" said:

@"Alex Divine" said:
Yeah, it might be an outlier, but no one scores those out of luck.

Is a conjecture or educated guess, or did you actually see this in a study?

Just simple probability, I guess... I mean a 176 means you got, what, ~5 wrong or so out of 100 questions. Don't really see that being because of luck. That's not to say outlier scores don't happen, but even so, scoring a 176 timed requires great skill.

It is certainly possible that one can get a 176 by having the skill to get, say, a 172 and just having a lucky test or a good day. My average was a 172 for a while and I had gotten a unicorn 178 as an outlier and that's just how it can go. When someone makes an outlying 11 point gain, you cannot exclude the possibility of luck playing its part in 1–6 of those questions. So, to reiterate, I think we can both agree that what happened for the OP was most likely some (possibly equal) combination of both luck and improvement. And I think we can both agree that if either of us implied that this one outlier was probably mostly luck or probably mostly improvement, then we were probably talking out of our ***.