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Creating a practice set in the QBank
Creating a practice set in the QBank

How do I create an MCAT practice set in the QBank?

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Written by Blueprint
Updated over a week ago

📼 Video explanation:

https://www.loom.com/share/629652dcc8bb4ee3abe27fd7293b9ef3

You can create a practice set in the MCAT Qbank from a couple of places:

  1. From the Qbank page, click the blue + Create Practice Set button:

  2. From the Assignment bank (accessed by clicking the + sign on any calendar day), click the + Create from the Qbank section:

This will launch the Personalized Practice Qbank interface, where you will design your practice set:

*You must complete the Diagnostic Exam to start getting recommendations. If your Diagnostic was completed >2 weeks ago, you must also have answered at least one question in the course during the past 2 weeks (from a Learning Module, Qbank, or Exam). Our algorithm runs nightly, so any activity done during the day would be reflected in tomorrow’s recommendations.

Example: You complete the Diagnostic on Monday. Our algorithm runs that night, and you will see recommendations on Tuesday.

Step 1: Select a Section

Each of the 4 sections of the MCAT exam are represented by a tile that displays your own personal accuracy on that section (within 24 hrs). Accuracy = # answered correctly/# of questions you’ve seen from that section of the exam, expressed as a percentage.

We then use a combination of AI and MCAT experts to Recommend a section to work on. Hover over the Recommended label to see why that particular section has been recommended. It will be one of three reasons:

  • Reason 1: Accuracy: Our recommendation is not simply the section with the lowest accuracy. It is a combination of your accuracy on topics from that section and calculated yield of those topics (based on AAMC exam data). For example: say that Chem/Phys has 45% accuracy and Bio/Biochem has 50% accuracy. Our model may recommend Bio/Biochem since topics within that section are more likely to appear on the MCAT (remember: topics can appear in multiple sections!). TL;DR: our recommendation will likely be the section with the lowest accuracy, but not necessarily.

  • Reason 2: Study Plan: If you have clicked on a prebuilt practice set from the Study Plan, the recommended section will be determined by our MCAT experts. E.g. If you click on the prebuilt “CARS Recommended Practice” set from the Study Plan, CARS will be the Recommended Section:

  • Reason 3: Low Activity: If the number of questions answered for any section comprises less than 13% of total questions answered, it will be Recommended due to Low Activity:

But, you can choose any section to work on, even if not the Recommended section:

Step 2: Select your Topics

For any section selected, our AI engine will pre-select 5 topics. These topics represent what our AI recommends you work on, based on a combination of your personal accuracy and exam yield.

  • Note: CARS is the exception. Since CARS doesn’t really have topics, we are not recommending specific topics. Rather, we are just recommending CARS as a whole to practice on.

  • Note: It is called the Topic Pool because depending on the size of your practice set, you may see all topics represented, a subset of those topics, or these topics plus some additional:

  • You can edit the topics if you wish, but only within the subjects of the selected exam section. E.g. if you have selected the Chem/Phys section to work on, you can only pull in topics from Chem/Phys, not Psych/Soc topics.

Step 3: Adjust your Settings

Finally, you can decide the size, question-type mix, and timing for your practice set:

Question recycle mode: this toggle controls whether you will see a practice question more than once.

  • If toggle is ON: we will recycle questions if, and only if, you’ve run out of unseen (new) questions for the selected topics.

  • If toggle is OFF: we will NOT show questions more than once.

Note: if Question Recycle Mode is OFF and we cannot fulfill your exact practice set request, we will show you this message when you click “Start:”

  • Example scenario 1:

    • Recycle mode is OFF

    • You request 5 passages, but we have 0 new passages (only discretes remain)

    • You will see this message – if you click Proceed, we will generate a practice set with only 5 discretes

  • Example scenario 2:

    • Recycle mode is OFF

    • You request 5 passages, and 5 discretes but we only have 2 new passages and 40 new discretes

    • You will see this message – if you click Proceed, we will generate a practice set with 2 passages and 5 discretes.

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