The MPRE
That test was one of the most irritating, crappily worded things I've ever seen in my life. I don't know how so many people finished so early into it, when I was on like number 25 out of 60. They gave us a full two hours and five minutes to finish it, and I was in there up until fifteen minutes before the deadline, and then just decided to fuck it and fill in random bubbles for the last 15 questions.
I had been somewhat confident for the past couple of days since I heard you only need to get like 60% of the questions correct to pass, but now I see how truly groundless that confidence was. I had only taken one full practice test in preparation -- untimed -- and checked my results after every four questions. With each successive batch, my success rate remained at a constant, remarkably low rate.
But even those practice questions could never have prepared me for the abomination that was the actual MPRE. The questions were unreasonably lengthy, and all the names were fucking "Able" and "Baker," or "Alpha," "Beta," and "Gamma," or "Plaint" and "Deft," which made me the most murderous. The fact patterns were way too long and rambling, and the answer choices couldn't just simply be "Yes, because..." or "No, because..."; they also had to involve "Yes, but only if..." or "No, unless..." which in effect negated the whole yes/no distinction! Oh, and I caught a typo, too; there was one question that consistently employed "Able" and "Baker," but at the end of the question they randomly threw in a mention of "Beta" when they meant to say "Baker." Careless oafs!!
My only consolation while taking the exam was the seemingly low 60% passing figure, which I consistently kept planted in the forefront of my mind. After question #24, I thought, "OK, Leena, you've taken your 40% of freebies; now focus." Every few questions, I calculated what percentage of the test had been completed, and then computed the prorated figure of how many I could have gotten away with missing to that point. "OK, I am now 26.7% done, and it's even OK if I missed 10.6 questions!" If anything, the experience solidified my algebraic skills. :P
I am not looking forward to taking this again in March. ;(
I had been somewhat confident for the past couple of days since I heard you only need to get like 60% of the questions correct to pass, but now I see how truly groundless that confidence was. I had only taken one full practice test in preparation -- untimed -- and checked my results after every four questions. With each successive batch, my success rate remained at a constant, remarkably low rate.
But even those practice questions could never have prepared me for the abomination that was the actual MPRE. The questions were unreasonably lengthy, and all the names were fucking "Able" and "Baker," or "Alpha," "Beta," and "Gamma," or "Plaint" and "Deft," which made me the most murderous. The fact patterns were way too long and rambling, and the answer choices couldn't just simply be "Yes, because..." or "No, because..."; they also had to involve "Yes, but only if..." or "No, unless..." which in effect negated the whole yes/no distinction! Oh, and I caught a typo, too; there was one question that consistently employed "Able" and "Baker," but at the end of the question they randomly threw in a mention of "Beta" when they meant to say "Baker." Careless oafs!!
My only consolation while taking the exam was the seemingly low 60% passing figure, which I consistently kept planted in the forefront of my mind. After question #24, I thought, "OK, Leena, you've taken your 40% of freebies; now focus." Every few questions, I calculated what percentage of the test had been completed, and then computed the prorated figure of how many I could have gotten away with missing to that point. "OK, I am now 26.7% done, and it's even OK if I missed 10.6 questions!" If anything, the experience solidified my algebraic skills. :P
I am not looking forward to taking this again in March. ;(
posted by Leena @ 4:15 PM
2 Comments:
At 11:54 PM,
Anonymous said…
That is the funniest f'n thing I've ever read! You are hilarious!
At 12:03 AM,
Anonymous said…
I literally had tears streaming down my face reading this. You are hilarious. I was searching the web for some way to translate "scaled score" into a %. I'm so glad I found your post. That's the hardest I've laughed in years.
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