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Is the exam graded on a curve?
Examinees often ask if earning a high score or higher percentile is easier or harder at different times of the testing year. They ask whether they have a better chance of earning a higher score in April or in August, for example. The question is based on an assumption that the exam is scored on a curve, and that a final score is dependent on how an individual performed in comparison to other examinees from the same test day or same time of year.

While there may be small differences in the MCAT exam you took compared to another examinee, the scoring process accounts for these differences so that an 8 earned on physical sciences on one exam means the same thing as an 8 earned on any other exam. The percentile provided on your score report simply indicates what percentage of examinees from the previous testing year scored the same as you did on the MCAT exam.

How you score on the MCAT exam, therefore, is not reflective of the particular exam you took—including the time of day, the test date, or the time of year—since any difference in difficulty level is accounted for when calculating your scale scores (see above for information about scaling).
Why are raw scores converted to scaled scores?
The conversion of raw scores to scaled scores compensates for small variations in difficulty between sets of questions. The exact conversion of raw to scaled scores is not constant; because different sets of questions are used on different exams. Conversion of your raw scores to the 15-point scale also helps minimize variability in test scores due to factors unrelated to your skill or knowledge. Variability in scores may be due to such external factors as state of health or degree of familiarity with standardized testing. The 15-point scale tends to provide a more stable and accurate assessment of a student’s abilities. Two students of equal ability would be expected to get the same scaled score, even though there might be a slight difference between the raw scores each student obtained on the test.

Scaled scores on the MCAT can be interpreted as percentile rank ranges based on the performance of all students taking the test during a given year.