Please keep this handy in case you have a problem during your MCAT!  Even if your complaint is about a test you took months ago you should review this information and act accordingly.  

 

There are two ways that students can register complaints about the conditions of their test administration:

 

(1)  Students who feel that testing conditions may have disadvantaged them on the test    day are invited to file a test center complaint (called Center Problem Reports or ‘CPRs’) before they leave the center.  The test center administrators will submit the CPRs to Prometric and AAMC.  These reports are used for general monitoring of test center conditions and as background for further investigation.  Please tell your students to file these reports as they are vital to correcting procedural, room, equipment and any other issues.

 

(2)  If students decide after they leave the testing center but before they receive their scores, that their testing conditions were problematic, they are instructed to write to AAMC about their complaints.  Instructions for students who want to file complaints to the AAMC are provided in the MCAT Essentials document and on the MCAT Website at http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/about/regulations.htm.  You may want to include this URL in instructions to your students.

 

AAMC and Prometric staffs review complaints. Students are rescheduled/ retested when the conditions are deemed likely to have effected test scores.  AAMC also prepares letters for the medical schools to which students apply that describe the testing conditions and their likely impact on student performance. 

 

Michelle and Karen have been looking into concerns expressed by advisors on about the testing monitors.  They have learned that while some centers have newer monitors – small percentages even have flat-screens – all sites that support MCAT testing have 17" monitors.  The image resolution for the MCAT is set at 1024 x 768, which is also the default setting in these sites.  When the exams are packaged for deployment, there is a test script within the exam package that automatically dictates the screen resolution when the exam renders itself on the monitor.  All of this means that the exam is automatically set to display the same at every workstation across the network, and no examinee receiving the same test will scroll more or less than examinees at another center.

 

Monitors are due for replacement every three years, but recent reports of old and flickering monitors have raised concern and are therefore under investigation.  Karen and Michelle will provide us with further information as soon as possible.