Are Blueprint Exams Harder Than AAMC Exams?

How Blueprint’s Practice Tests Compare To The AAMC Materials: Which Is Harder?

I’ll just start by saying that while both sets of practice material are valuable, they do differ somewhat in terms of difficulty, structure, and predictive accuracy.

In any event, I’ll cut to the chase. We found Blueprint Prep’s MCAT practice exams to be harder than the actual test, particularly in terms of passage complexity and question wording. On average, Blueprint’s practice exams tend to include longer, denser passages that require more reading comprehension, which made them somewhat more challenging to complete. 

Additionally, I thought their questions required a higher level of critical thinking and application. In all honesty, it pushed me beyond what you’ll typically encounter on test day. 

Now obviously, this comparison uses the AAMC practice tests as a baseline. The AAMC mock exams and practice sets are the most accurate representation of the real MCAT, both in terms of difficulty and style. There’s no doubt about it. Since the AAMC creates the actual exam, their practice tests mirror the question format, passage length, and logic required on test day. 

So that’s sort of the bottom line in my opinion, Blueprint’s tests are harder. Not a crazy degree of difficulty harder, but you can feel the difference.

However, here’s the silver lining: I actually see this as a benefit if you’re using, or plan to use, Blueprint’s practice materials. While this added difficulty can feel a little discouraging early on, it ultimately helps build endurance and problem-solving skills. By the time you’re done prepping, it honestly makes the actual MCAT feel easy—or at least much more manageable.

The MCAT is a crazy difficult exam. So in my opinion, if you train on materials that are slightly tougher, you’ll be better prepared. In addition, because the AAMC offers only a limited number of full-length exams, I would strongly suggest relying on both Blueprint’s harder tests and the more accurate AAMC materials in your preparation. A well-rounded study plan could and should incorporate both, using Blueprint for skill-building and the AAMC for final test-day readiness. Using both will give you so much more confidence going into test day.

If you’re focused on accurately predicting performance and results though, you may need a score converter for the two. That’s next. 

Blueprint To AAMC Conversion Guide

Obviously, there is no exact formula for converting Blueprint MCAT scores to AAMC scores. There’s no publicly available data on it given that neither organization would be incentivized to release such. However, below we’ve created a general Blueprint-to-AAMC score converter based on our experience taking both exams.

As noted above, we found that, on average, Blueprint MCAT practice exams are more difficult than AAMC exams. We typically scored 2-5 points lower on Blueprint exams than on AAMC full-lengths. As such, the following table provides a rough estimate of how Blueprint scores might translate to AAMC scores:

Again, please don’t take this chart as gospel—it’s simply our best estimation based on our experience. 

Final Thoughts

If you’re scoring lower than expected on Blueprint Prep MCAT exams, don’t panic. We found the Blueprint practice materials to be more difficult than AAMC practice tests, and we saw a score increase when transitioning to AAMC mock exams (typically 2-5 points).

In my experience, your best AAMC full-length score will likely be the most predictive of your actual MCAT performance. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use Blueprint mock exams. 

Given their rigorous nature, I would suggest using Blueprint’s tests for endurance and skill-building, and then rely on AAMC tests for final score predictions as exam day closes in.