Matt@VeritasPrep wrote:
if you're currently at the 50th percentile in math, the questions you need to sweat are the ones from the 45th percentile to the 60th, not the ones above the 85th.
this is a dangerous game to play, because it's pretty much impossible to detect the "percentile" of a question (and, more importantly, because thinking about that kind of thing
at all is nothing but a distraction from the things that actually matter).
in fact, it's often hard even to tell whether a question is in the top or bottom
half of the difficulty spectrum, let alone which approximate "percentile" it's in.
e.g., the DS problems labeled #53 and #58 in OG13 were labeled #165 and #171, respectively, in OG12. Quick! Are they in percentile 50-99 (as the OG12 rankings would seem to indicate) or in percentile 1-49 (as the OG13 rankings would)?
ummmm.... yeah.
and there's also, simply put, the fact that there's no such thing as an "Nth percentile test taker" on a micro level. on a macro level obviously that concept exists, but it's just not a thing when it comes to individual problems.
i.e., almost every student i've ever taught has distinct strengths and weaknesses. so, even if you knew the "percentiles" of the problems, that still wouldn't be a useful guide for any individual student, since there would be some subjects/topics in which (s)he would nail the top-level questions but others in which (s)he would founder on much (supposedly) "easier" questions.
it would be absurd to think that any given test taker would be best served by doing the "Nth percentile questions" across the board and ignoring the others -- even if you knew those rankings exactly (which, of course, you don't).
it's best simply not to think about "percentiles" at all. who cares?
just try to solve the problems.
as for judging whether a problem is too easy or too hard for you, well, that's where the "three hints" protocol (mentioned earlier) comes in.
i.e., if you still don't understand something after a fair amount of hand-holding/spoon-feeding, then it's best to leave it for the moment and come back to it later.
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