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If you’re law enforcement applicants trying to game the psychological tests, please don’t, because no offence but you’re probably too dumb and unsophisticated to pull it off. If you’re aiming for a more advanced position requiring a security clearance and have an advanced degree, then please go ahead and try to tweak the personality testing results since you’ll be able to pull it off and have nothing but to benefit from it by reducing the uncertainly and potential pitfalls from your application profile.
If you post a link with your email asking for the questions and the “answers” to “pass” the test, please just stop, you have 0 research skills and will never have any chance at getting the outcome you want. This thread is a guide but you have to put in several days or weeks of work in order to figure out exactly how the test works in order get the results that you want. You might even go crazy trying do figure it all out. It’s obvious when someone reads only the first page and then immediately posts asking for “the rest of the questions”.
The truth is that the test is very flawed and out of date, but they don’t change it because to do so would be to invalidate decades of research, plus Pearson likes making lots of money on it, it’s big business. The only thing they can do is tweak the language every few decades, or gradually update the interpretation scales, but not change anything significantly otherwise they would have to start from scratch. Pretty good test in the 1950- to 1960s but pretty misleading now I think. No surprise that it’s pretty much only used for government job screenings (government is also a few decades behind in thinking and adaptability). Don’t forget that most of these tests were developed as a method of social control or to screen army or government personnel (again for government political control reasons). Who undertook (or funded) most of the initial psychological research in the 1950s and 1960s in North America? Army and CIA.
Most of the comments on this thread are just too amusing. However, kudos to the few posters who provided all the starting resources for anyone to master the MMPI2 including scoring and interpretation (mostly just me under several different usernames?). Nice to see TOR having resources on it nowadays, although unnecessary and not always safe to download things from there.
MMPI2 and various revisions have been used for a while and don’t change much, but there is more and more research and data on it. Which makes it easier then ever to know exactly how it works and game it however you want. Remember, the assumption is that it works because the naïve test takers don’t know how it works or what’s on it. It’s not about cheating, but instead it’s about doing your best on the assessment just like you would research and prep for any interview. The other reason is that the results are generally not told to the applicant, but can be used against the employee later on during the career so it’s easier if you can control what those results are ahead of time, and pre-emptively skew them to your favor.
If you read some specialized books on it and experiment with the scales you will very quickly know more about how the MMPI2 works than a psychologist. This is because a psychologist has to know many different areas of psychology and usually works with many different assessment instruments on a practical limited basic level. And whatever details and subtleties they studied during training they have long since forgotten unless it’s something they use daily. The psychologist also has to master many practical clinical skills unrelated to personality testing. Think of it as the difference between an apprentice mechanic knowing one plane engine inside and out every day, versus a certified pilot operating many different aircraft types as well as various administrative duties on different days.
MMPI2 has a long list of multiple choice true false questions (recently a shortened revised version has gained popularity which makes it even easier to remember and manipulate). Short versus long form. Based on those questions there are a myriad of developed scales which supposedly measure different things. These have all been mentioned in this thread in detail. The problem is that the scales use overlapping questions so changing the answer to one question will affect the interpretation of multiple scales. The validity scales can also get somewhat complicated but the basic validity scales and basic main psychopathology clinical scales are easily manipulated and interpreted. If someone showed extremely high scores on the truth or various validity scales, then that would be a red flag. Another red flag would be high values on clinical scales indicating things like psychoticism or other serious clinical disorders etc. The same red flags are triggered by critical items on specific clinical inventories where just answering one question the wrong way can trigger a suspicion of a having a specific disorder such as saying you hear voices for psychosis. The exact terminology varies and can be looked up in interpretive guides. There are also new scales constantly being revised and developed but most likely only the basic established main scales will be analyzed by a psychologist.
If you want to play around you will need:
1. List of the questions and scoring script for automatic scoring from this thread or Google.
2. Interpretive guide which you can buy or get from the library, also listed in this thread or Google. The blog styles guides above are also ok for a quick and fast interpretive overview.
3. Take the test once, score it, and interpret it using a guide. Then work backwards from the scales changing the item answers depending on which scales you want to adjust. The items for each scale will be listed either in the appendices or the interpretive guides or in the script file itself. Just be careful because one answer will affect multiple scales so you will have to rescore for each change. Also double check the script against an interpretive book to make sure the scoring is correct. The main established scales you can score automatically, but some of the newer specialized ones you will probably have to do manually or add them to the script.
4. Use the interpretive guides to ensure that main scales and validity indicators fall within normal ranges or desired ranges.
5. For the other various specialized scales you could try to find a psychology scientific paper that lists some typical average scale ranges for your target occupational or sample group and use that to adjust the score bands.
6. Once you have your ideal scoring band results from adjusting the answers to fit your target profile, memorize the answers to all the questions for that profile and answer the questions in the same way on the real test. There will be no surprises if you practiced it a few times to make sure you were consistent in your answers on re-tests. The real test will have the exact same questions in the same order and will be scored the same way. If you read the guides carefully the interpretation will also be similar.
7. You’ll probably have an interview with a psychologist either way, and if you did everything right then it will just be a standard biographical interview about you plus maybe some additional questions like a standard psychoticism checklist just to makes sure.
8. There is no pass or fail per se. It all has to do with the interpretation of the scales, and what the psychologist is looking for in terms of a profiles or specific scales. You don’t even know which scales they will focus on, but usually it’s only the main basic ones and only in terms of average normative ranges leading to overall personality theories (covered in the assessment guide books). Any red flags mentioned prior will also be specifically explored, so it’s best to avoid those from the outset.
Reading this thread was also amusing since I posted some of the original initial posts way back when and saw that some of the posts were later removed due the copyright reasons after I later told a high-ranking expert psychologist about this thread during a discussion of how easy the test is to game and how useless it is once the veil of secrecy and authority is pierced (similar to the psychology of the polygraph). I think the posts that were removed were either links to live scorable versions of the MMPI2/MCMI from scripts posted back in the day, or different sub-scales such as the validity types listing the specific items. But these days with Google that type of info is even easier to find than ever before. Back in those days it took real skill to collect all the info, but now there’s this thread that has it all in one place, at least as far as the MMPI2 is concerned. For the others a Google search can find the rest.
“MMPI-2 questions removed at request of copyright holder -- AntiPolygraph.org Administrator”
I am quite curious what I posted all those years ago since at the time I was an expert at MMPI2 scale scoring and manipulation (completely undetectable by multiple expert psychologists with decades of experience and completely different interpretations of the different manipulated tests). Keep in mind this is in the context of pre-employment psychological tests and assessment, nothing clinical. I am very healthy and normal, but it’s fun to mess around with silly tests still used since the 1950s (surprisingly very little has been changed).
The first time I gamed it I had to do a follow-up interview but for different reasons and the experienced psychologist with decades of research experience only had a thin basic interpretive guide on the desk and I think only briefly mentioned some elevation on a basic scale (which was intentional on my part). He asked a few biographical questions plus some follow-up about a prior interview stage and he quickly declared that I was good to go. The books I read on the test were far more comprehensive and advanced than the quick guide he was using to interpret, which means he was mostly looking at the established basic scales only. The second time I wrote the MMPI2 I tweaked the answers I had from before and also wrote several other tests which I also 100% controlled, and that second time there was no follow-up psychological interview at all which means I perfected the answer series to fall within the normative ranges. That was three different psychological tests where the total manipulation of the items was not detected by very senior psychologists. However, I might have over tweaked it going the other way too much, so next time I will have to adjust it combining all prior experiences to reach a better personal narrative balance. Better yet, I will probably use some more recent statistical profiles to tweak the answer series. Before I did not use statistical profiles but simply adjusted the scales independently and as I wanted either overly extroverted or overly introverted with very reduced clinical scales and very reduced personality disorder scales. These were not in line with normative sample scales since they were in the extreme lower quantiles, but they can easily be made to be so depending on the type of position (using published normative profile ranges) making detection impossible.
Nothing is more annoying than the phrase “layperson”. I met a lot of psychologists in university and let me tell you, they’re not that bright. The most intelligent students do not study psychology, ever. They study medicine or something else.
Psychologists also say that it is NEVER appropriate to put the actual questions out there because it decreases the integrity and validity of the test...this means the test can easily be beat once you know how it works…or more like how it doesn’t work.
@ psych1
According to my assessment I believe psych1 might have a combination of narcissistic personality disorder combined with borderline and histrionic personality traits. Possibly delusions of grandeur?
As for the “bootlegged” scoring programs, they are simply scripts written from the official books discussing scoring. I have checked the keys for different scoring programs and sometimes there are a few minor key errors and that’s why I double check the scoring keys to make sure they are 100% correct. Generally they work well. The errors can be fixed easily by editing the code and new scales can also be added the same way, it just saves a lot of work by not having to write the code from scratch. The interpretation is easily done by other means either via narrative books/guides or even automatic narrative reports where you input raw scores.
You can get the test items and scoring guides for almost any psychometric test. It makes a difference when you go into an employment testing environment with confidence!
I majored in psychology in undergrad, and after did a Doctorate in a related field, but I don’t work in psychology so don’t have any professional ‘obligations’ to confidentiality to keeping the inside machinations hidden.
Coached responses in those specific studies is telling an ignorant participant to try to appear ‘better’ or more truthful or perhaps trying to give them a few ideas on how to answer with regards to one specific scale or measure. This is not what people were talking about. People were talking about manipulating all the scales and all the items on the test in a total way, not just one or two individual scales. There has never been a study done on a total manipulation of the test by a covert participant who knows 100% how the test is scored, how all the scales work, and what every item in the test is used for.
The test can be learned in a few weeks where you have total 100% control of all the major scales including all the main validity scales. This means being able to control and know the exact score and interpretation for all the major clinical and validity scales as well as a few of the extra other factors which aren’t even used for interpretation normally. Most practicing psychologists would not even be aware or be using some of the more advanced and recent interpretation factors. They only use the more basic established scales, and those are very easy to manipulate any way you want. It’s like going into a job interview where you already know what the questions will be and how each answer will be scored. I’m always amazed at the sheer arrogance of psychologists in thinking that somehow the instrument is too complicated for anyone else to try to figure out or that no one knows about the ‘secret’ truth validity scales. Sound like anyone else you know? Polygraphers! It’s just a multiple choice test from the 1950s, not brain surgery. IQ tests such as the one on the 16PF can be manipulated the same way.
According to empirical literature, the vast majority of people in the world do not graduate university nor have advanced degrees. Does that mean that I didn’t graduate from university according to stats? This is the main fallacy of the MMPI2, it’s based on stats on mass screening of normalized sample populations. What if I am not like the normalized sample population? What if I am not “normal”?
There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.
In your posts you confuse effects that are valid at population level statistics with effects that are valid in individual instances or outliers. Thus a person can be an outlier and use the safety that psychologists have in statistical effects at the population level to pass off a test result as ‘valid’ by skewing the score scales to the score bands that fall within the expected norms. This is called hiding in the plain sight average and it is undetectable.
By the way, I think most of western psychology and polygraphy pseudo-science is a complete sham so that’s why I nave no trouble saying what I did.
Nowadays, most narrative reports are generated by computer and psychologists test en masse, just looking to see if anything glaring pops up that warrants follow-up (which the computer alerts them to). The follow-up interview is also standard and sometimes only if there are issues from prior stages are specific probing questions asked.
Here’s all you need to know about psychology. If you don’t have major problems that affect your day to day life functioning, then you’re fine. The rest is just psychology made up BS. And I won’t let BS stop me from leading the life I want to live, including when it comes to getting the job I want etc. Hence the need to game a BS test in order to optimize the chances of being competitive.
Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-III) or whatever the latest version is for personality disorders is even easier to game since far less validity and overlapping scales. Everything is available online or in some book somewhere. You can buy or find almost any test or manual online.
Some or all of these instruments are used for jobs involving security clearances or for security/enforcement related jobs.
The main ones are MMPI2 (psychopathology screener), MCMI-III (personality disorder screener), 16PF (personality dimensions screener). All are available and scorable online along with various documentation and all can be gamed any way you want in just a few weeks. Psychologists will assume that lay people cannot game the test and will always defer to the statistical based interpretative manual and their training for interpretation of results, always use this presumption to your advantage!
Any test that can be invalidated by simply knowing how the test works is not a valid objective test, sorry. And thus deserves to be used to an applicant’s advantage. If you hide from me how the test is tricking me, then I will withhold from you how I am tricking you using your own methods. Just playing by your rules except without you knowing that I know the rules of your own game. I bet you didn’t read a study on that in your scientific literature. You know why, because truly skilled test takers who know the instrument well always beat the examiner, without getting caught.
What’s the number one rule? Do not get caught.
Learn it well. Rule number one -- do...not...get...caught.
The truth is that I am so full of repressed pathology that I have managed to pathologically cover it all up while both looking and functioning normally. And thus I am normal. The only way to catch me is by making a scale that detects the total manipulation of all the scales especially the validity ones. Such a task is impossible since such a scale would also be tricked by definition.
Stuart Hemphill, an attorney representing the University of Minnesota, said the contents of the test need to remain private.
“We are concerned that the test responses are not valid when there has been prior exposure,” he said. “If they’ve seen it before, then the responses can be of questionable validity.”
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MMPI 2 First 75 Questions out of 567 Psych Exam (Read 1087838 times)
