After agonizing for days over my NAPLEX (the pharmacy licensing exam that I was pretty sure I failed) I got my results back: Not only did I pass, I made an almost perfect score.
Ok, I'm confused! Grateful and giddy, yes, but also confused. How does one take a test and leave persuaded they failed, then get a sky-high score back? I think it has to do with the "Computer adaptive test" format. That is, the computer responds to how well you answer by giving you harder and harder questions for correct answers, or easier questions when you get things wrong. Your score is based on not just how many questions you got right, but also how difficult the questions were. Frankly I think this is dumb. It punishes you for getting questions right. I think when you get hard questions right you should get an easier question as a reward. In fact maybe you should get an easier question, and a chocolate truffle should pop out of the wall for you. Once you get 50% of the difficult questions right, you get a shot.
Seriously though this format is dreadful. You can't assess your performance at all, and you feel like an idiot because you just keep getting tough questions. I was sitting there thinking, "I can't believe I have another question that I really have to think about here...can't they give me a super easy one like 'which of the following medications is used to treat asthma?'" It just wears on your confidence.
But hurray, that's over with, no I just have to take the law portion. Which reminds me to scoot off and start studying for that! Let you know how that goes down this Thursday!
Congrats! That's great!
ReplyDeleteThat does sound like a REALLY silly format for a test, I would be DRAINED by the end of that!
I'm usually the opposite, I leave tests/exams feeling like I did pretty darn good on them and then find out I did not do as well as I'd hoped!!
1. How cool is it that your name is Amber and you have red hair?!
ReplyDelete2. Yes I was drained after the NAPLEX! And I have another adaptive test Thursday! :(
What freaked me out is that I have historically been very good as predicting my test performance. I would leave a test and say, "I think I made a 92" and that's exactly what I made. So I was scared to death because I felt like I did so poorly!