Wednesday, July 30, 2008
percentile
I had a wrong assumption about the percentile calculation. Had always thought percentile gave you the idea how you fared with the toppers marks taken as cent. That made a lot of sense to me. The last AIMCAT made me wonder about the whole calculation. How does the number of people tell you how well you have done? Isn't the competition supposed to be with the people on th higher rung? With more people taking the test, the percentile will improve even with you being at the same level, assuming that the people joining the race are behind you. There should be an intelligent answer to this seemingly foolish calculation. I can only think of it this way, look at the rank when on top and the percentile when you want to make it to the top. :)
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2 comments:
hmm, it seem that way but the law of averages doesn't work that way. Suppose you are at the 90th percentile, and more ppl write the test, then your percentile is expected to stay roughly the same since the mix of the population ensures that. Good problem though, look at sampling theory and normal distribution curves for further clarification.
Exactly..your percentile stays there, giving you the false hopes that you are doing pretty well.. Bu in reality, the number of people doing better than you has increased. Ok, when you are doing really well, you would consider the increase in number of people too. But its still a lil misleading.
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