Here's how I gauge my preparation. Worst-case basis basis

anshultongia

This may not be anything groundbreaking, but to test how ready I am for the exam, I assess myself on the exam having the "worst-case" topic weights relative to how prepared I feel about them.

For example, let's say I feel "poorly" about Derivatives, then I will assume that on the exam, Derivatives will have their maximum weight (i.e. 15%). If say I felt very good about Derivatives, then I assume the exam will have it's minimum weight (5%). If I feel "fairly" about a topic, then I will assign a weight of the average of the min & max.

Using that I build my "worst case" topic weight exam. Luckily on my first try it added up to 100%. If it doesn't you will have to play around with it a bit more. (i.e. if you say that you feel poorly about everything, then it will assign high weights on all topics and give you more than 100%). Up to you how you fix it...

Once I've built my weights, I assign a level of confidence to each topic. This level of confidence is how I think I can score on exam day in that topic. I multiply the confidence factor by the worst case topic weights. I add all of those up to find my exam score in a worst-case weight scenario.

I strongly suggest you be conservative on your "confidence" estimates, as exam day stress or whatever may downward-bias those.

So, this shows me which topics I should master and what the effect on the final score will if I improve by say 10%.

Does that make sense? So for me I'd like to get that score up to 80% of the worst-case scenario.

P.S. i know the model is flawed in the sense that once you get better at a topic it should reduce it's weighting, but I still find it useful for giving me pre-game confidence.

Anybody find value to this?