Justin is Screwed...

Situation: Not adequately prepared for exam on Sunday.

 

Estimated Time to "Death-by-Exam": 40 hours (give or take variance of 3 hours)

 

Problem Faced: Subjective self evaluation of only being 50% ready for paper. Hence Expected Score = 50%.

 

Additional Note #1: Take into account that total score is 240. And that total time allocated is 6 hours. 

Evaluation #1: Will have exactly 1.5 minutes per question (360 questions / 240 mins = 1.5 min/q).

 

Additional Note#2: Take into account that Guaranteed pass rate = 70%. Probability of passing given achieved score is between 60%-69% = 70%. Pr(passing | achieved score is between 50%-59%) = 40%. Pr(passing | achieved score is < 50%) = 5%.

Evaluation #2: Given that E(Score) = 50%, Pr(Justin passing) = 40% (die...).

 

Additional Note#3: Take into account that there is a probability not considered in previous data that questions are MCQ with 4 choices per question. Wrong guesses are not point deductible.

Evalutaion #3: No. of questions likely to be unanswered = (0.5)(240) = 120questions. Pr(of guessing correctly) = 1 / 4 = 0.25 = 25%. New E(score) = 50% + [ (0.25)(120) / 240 ] = 50% + [ 30 / 240 ] = 50% + 12.5% = 62.5%. Given that new E(score) = 62.5%, revised Pr(Justin passing) = 70%.

 

Additional Note #4: Take into account that Justin overly evaluates personal abilities and that final results are biased upwards in a range of 10-15%.

Evaluation #4: Pr(Justin passing) = [ (70%-15%)+(70%-10%) ] / 2 = 115% / 2 = 57.5% .

 

Question: Given that global passing rates have averaged 30% (however statiscal calculation did not exclude candidates that registered and did not sit for the paper), what is the chance that Justin will pass?

 

Conclusion: Let us assume that if we included that true passing rate for candidates who sit for the paper is adjustd upwards by 10% to 40%. We do realise that passing rate is not a nominal figure as given above but rather on a bell curve. We therefore would like to use subjective evaluation combined with objective figures that it's a flip-of-the-coin situation and it is equally likely for Justin to pass or fail. We also note that in all honesty that given he spent 15 minutes blogging about this and not furthering studying efforts, coin is slightly biased to failling now. Justin is screwed...

 

"Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are." ~ Malcolm Forbes

 

Third Eye Blind ~ Jumper