Scaled Scoring on the new exam?

[lizhorvath]

For what it's worth,
The test consists of 165 questions - 15 of them do not count toward your score - they are apparently for testing future possible questions. The USPAP are mixed in with the other 150. What the program tells you during the tutorial, is that not only do the 15 extra questions not count towards your score, they also do not tick away at your time. You can theoretically figure out which questions they are by watching the minutes and seeing if each minute keeps ticking while you sit on a question. However, with the licensed exam you get 300 minutes, and I don't want to sit on each question watching to see if it's going to tick down my minutes to tell me whether it counts or not.

 

[Couch Potato]

And there were a ton of depreciation questions. Unfortenatly, I did not know how to answer the questions, to calculate the depreciation you have to know if the economic life is TOTAL economic life or REMAINING economic life, I have a lot of questions that said "Effective age X, estimated economic life X." Does anyone know which economic to use in that case?? Is that the TOTAL OR REMAINING, without that there is no way to calculate the deprec. rate. (Am I missing something here??)

If not stated otherwise, one would assume "economic life" would be the total economic life. If it were a portion, that would need to be stated. Obviously the exception would be a poorly written question where the effective age given was larger than the economic life given. Although one could argue the questions should be clearer, I favor the not so clear wording in the case of an appraiser test. Part of the job of an appraiser is to make judgements about unclear situations. Through vague wording questions can test more than simple content; they can test judgement.

Scaling scores and experimental questions are common testing practices. Hopefully when they get enough good questions they will move to adaptive testing, if they have not already.

If I'm using learnappraising.com and reviewing the course books, is Williamson's course necessary? $295 is alot, but if it means I breeze through the test when I couldn't do it otherwise I suppose I would buy it.

For years Steve has created and sold questions to test makers (non-exclusive use.) His online prep is very similar to the actual testing environment, and his questions form an excellent study guide. His course is not necessary, but it is an excellent value.