Knowing the difficulty of problem sets

dcdcdcdcdc

Hi all

I searched the forum and turned up some posts about new problem sets from about a year ago, so my apologies if this question is answered elsewhere.

First, I was wondering if there was a way/would it be beneficial to know the supposed difficulty of problem sets before we take them. I understand that the difficulty increases from the first to last problem set of a section, but is it possible, for example, to know that problem set #3 out of 10 is on average a "medium" difficulty? I would like to be know that without having to open up the answer key. Or perhaps there is a reason we only see the relative difficulty after taking the set?

Second, how is the difficulty ranking in the question bank determined? I remember seeing something about it being the results from 7Sage members. How is that data gathered and is it a good indication of general difficulty?

Thanks!

Cant Get Right

@dcdcdcdcdc said:
Second, how is the difficulty ranking in the question bank determined? I remember seeing something about it being the results from 7Sage members. How is that data gathered and is it a good indication of general difficulty?

It’s taken from analytics, I believe. When you enter in your scores for PTs, it uses that data to generate the question difficulties. It’s accuracy depends on sample size. After several years of collecting data, I’d think things have probably stabilized by now into pretty solid numbers.

As far as knowing the difficulty of a problem set, I’m not sure how this would be beneficial. You shouldn’t relax for the easier questions, so it shouldn’t change your approach.

dcdcdcdcdc

Thanks. I agree now that each problem set should be approached with the same mind set, exactly as we would the test. I guess I'll settle for feeling good when I do well on a set after BR and find out the questions were of a higher difficulty.