Analyzing Your GMAT Enhanced Score Report (Part 3)
Welcome to part 3! In the first installment, we talked about the overall Enhanced Score Report, how to interpret your scores, and how to analyze the data from the IR and Essay sections. In the second installment, we talked about how to analyze your Verbal data. Now, it’s time for Quant!
Here’s the first page of the Quant section of a GMAT Enhanced Score Report (as with Verbal, not my own report because my data was atypical):
What jumps out at you as worth analyzing?
This test-taker did much better at Data Sufficiency than at Problem Solving, even though the average time for DS was lower than for PS. What does that mean?
First, it means that the test-taker should be quicker to bail on some PS problems. They’re costing more time but not actually providing a better return—it’s wiser to spend extra time on DS, not PS, given the data.
Second, the fact that the test-taker is better at DS than PS tells me that she understands math rules and concepts pretty well but is struggling more with actual calculations and solving to the end (which is what we have to do on PS but not DS). So she needs to practice more “math on paper” but she also probably needs to practice alternative strategies that let her avoid that kind of computation, such as estimation and logicking it out. (We have an entire chapter called Logic It Out in our All the Quant guide. If you told me I couldn’t logic stuff out or estimate any longer on the GMAT, I’d refuse to take it again! )
The student was much better at Algebra / Geometry than at Arithmetic. Likewise, the student will want to be faster to bail on pure Arithmetic questions that she finds too complicated—she might as well reallocate that time to Alg / Geo, since she’s better at those areas.
Speaking of “those areas,” wouldn’t it be nice if they gave us more detail on our content strengths and weaknesses?
GMAT Enhanced Score Report: Quant Performance by Fundamental Skills
They do! Take a look:
Geometry is awesome! But ouch, Counting / Sets / Series is…not. The FAQ section of the ESR tells you what falls in each of these areas. Here’s what it says about Counting, Sets, and Series (indented material copyright GMAC):
Counting (Combinatorics)
Problems whose primary focus involves basic combinatorial ideas, such as permutations, combinations, counting paths in a grid, etc.
Estimation
Problems whose primary focus involves one or more numerical estimations.
Series And Sequences
Problems whose primary focus involves a numerical sequence (a finite or infinite list of numbers) or a numerical series (the sum of a numerical series), such as arithmetic sequences, geometric sequences, sequences defined by recursion, etc.
Sets
Problems whose primary focus involves the understanding of, and application of basic ideas about sets, such as their union and their intersection. Problems that appear to be best solved by the use of a venn diagram are considered sets problems.”
Okay, we have some good material to work with here. Check it out! Estimation is on this list. That confirms our earlier hypothesis that the student needs to work on this. (I promise I hadn’t already seen this when I made that hypothesis! I’ve literally been writing all of this as I examine the score reports.)
Next, the other three areas are pretty annoying quant areas. There are ways for the test writers to ask easier questions in these areas, and so we do want to know how to handle those. But these can also get quite hard. Since this test-taker now knows these areas are weaker, she can just put “harder combinatorics, series / sequences, and sets” on her “bail fast” list. (How do you know which problems are officially rated harder while taking the exam? You don’t. “Harder” means “harder for me.” If it looks annoying and it’s your area of weakness, bail.)
It looks like this test taker also needs some work on Value / Order / Factors (and that goes along with the data that she’s struggling more with Arithmetic, by the way). So she would also read the description for these areas and now she’s got a good idea of what she can do to try to improve her score for next time. (Of course, you’ll want to review all topics, even your strengths, before you take the test again.)
GMAT Enhanced Score Report: Performance By Quadrant
Next up, we’ve got the quadrant data. What do you spot here?
As with the Verbal report, analyze all of this data collectively. The quadrant 4 percent correct stat is an immediately obvious one—0% right. Before that, this student was doing really well. What happened?
Take a look at the timing data. Yes, the student did very well in the first three quadrants, but she had to burn through a lot of extra time to maintain that performance. Then she had to rush a lot in the fourth quadrant, so it’s no surprise that her performance dropped so much.
The great news? She still scored a 45 in this section despite dropping so much in the last quadrant. The GMAT is a Where You End Is What You Get test: Your scoring level at the end of the section is your final score. So if she can make some better decisions earlier in the section—which will definitely involve using our Yellow Pad time management technique and choosing a small number of problems on which to bail fast—then she won’t miss a bunch of questions and have her score drop at the end. And that means she’s got a really good chance to score in the high 40s (if not higher!) on her next official test.
Remember our earlier takeaway about finding other quicker, dirtier ways to do math, including estimation? Getting better at that will also help her to manage her time on the test. All in all, this student has quite a bit of opportunity to lift her score.
One last thing. It’s sometimes the case that certain data points don’t seem to be as useful (for example, if your percent correct was about the same for all content areas) but even “low-contrast” data points tell you something (for example, that you have a solid foundation across all content areas—a good thing to know!). If you’re planning to take the test again and you don’t think that you already know what you need to improve, then the ESR can be a valuable tool, even with its $30 price tag.
That’s it! We’ve analyzed the entire Enhanced Score Report. Happy studying!
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Stacey Koprince is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California. Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests. Check out Stacey’s upcoming GMAT courses here.