Old PACKRATS

[DWayne14]

Hey everyone,

 

I'll be taking the PANCE here in a few weeks and I have pretty much exhausted all of my question banks. If anyone has any old PACKRATs and wouldn't mind sharing them I would greatly appreciate it. My email is DLandes14@yahoo.com. For some reason they don't give you a copy of it anymore after you take it. On a side note, I scored a 181 on the PACKRAT. Does anyone know if there is some sort of conversion formula out there to see how this may equate to my PANCE score. Thanks.

[Megs631]

I am not sure of the exact formula, but I am pretty sure that is a high score on the packrat. There was a thread on here that breaks it down if you search. I believe it said 146 correlated to passing. Did you take the pre-test/post-test questions from Babcock book? There pretty good. I was running into that problem because I probably started the question banks too soon and when it came time to use them I was unsure if true score as I had seen many before. Another good free resource is the blog"teaching to the test". Also, "the palife" is not as refined as the big ones like Kaplan, but a fraction of the price and well worth it. Not sure if that helps. Good luck!

 

Hopefully, one of the more experienced PAs on the site can give a more concrete explanation regarding the packrat scores than I was able to provide.

[DWayne14]

Thanks for your reply! Yes I have used the Babcock book and I like those questions a lot. I've also used Lange and Kaplan. I'll have to check out those other sources you mentioned.

[gbrothers98]

Old packrats are on scribd, search for packrat.

PAEA stopped letting programs hand out old exams several years ago.

Now it is all done online, get feedback similar to PANCE and PANRE.

Helps protect the test bank they choose questions from. Also they have different versions of PackRat now and each program gets them randomly. PackRat exams floating around are now several years old and could actually contain information that is in error.

Study done early 2000s said PackRat score of 111 was equal to PANCE score 350.

1 point increase in PackRat score above that equaled 5.74 point increase in PANCE score.

Next study done 2013 noted PackRat score of 124 or above had 77% sensitivity and 83% specificity in passing PANCE.

That study also looked at PackRat and 2 summative exams given during clinical year and doing well also correlated with doing well on PANCE but no magic # nor formula.

That's because there are students whom do OK on PackRat and other exams but manage to fail the PANCE for a variety of reasons including lack of study focus and test anxiety.

So while PackRat scores can be helpful, nothing is more anxiety alleviating than taking the exam and passing.

You can find all these studies by googling correlate PackRat PANCE scores.

What I got out of all these studies is that the tests are good at identifying those who may do poorly on the PANCE and try to get them up to passing rather than reassuring a good student they had studied enough.

Last, have you asked for any advice from your program concerning your score? While especially at the end of your PA education you will develop a love/hate relationship with your PA program, it is likely they have shepherded many prior classes through this process and can provide you with reasonable advice.

Good luck.

G Brothers PA-C