680(43,40)--guessed on last 10 in Verbal

[braves2200]

Hi,

I took the GMAT yesterday and received a score of 680 (43,40) and I am pretty content with my score, however, I am disappointed with the fact that I had to guess on the last 9 verbal questions because of time, due to one question. I spent 5-7 minutes on one problem....very bad move. With that said, I do not understand how a score of 40 is possible when guessing on the last 9 and not even answering the 41st question--primarily because of the practice test patterns when answering questions in a row incorrectly.

I find it difficult to believe that I was in the 99th percentile before I started to guess simply because of my typical practice scores that ranged between 39-41....any explanation?

Thanks,

-J

[braves2200]

I am assuming that there is no way I was scoring above a 42 level because of my practice test scores...I am just curious as to why I was not discounted more because of consecutive wrong answers--most likely 8 or 9 too.

[abhishek.gpta]

Can't say with full confidence but read GMAC summit highlights where they mentioned ~9 experimental questions in quant and ~10 experimental questions in verbal.

Guess you just had a lucky day.

[StaceyKoprince]

Some of those 9 were almost certainly experimental. Plus odds are you would have guessed correctly on a couple - it is multiple choice, after all. Odds would in fact say that you'd guess correctly on 2. If those both counted, and maybe another 3 were experimental, then you'd only have gotten 4 wrong. If those 4 were spread out (so that your couple of lucky guesses "interrupted" the downward flow)... plus if you actually got really lucky and maybe guessed 3 correctly... you can see how things could go better than expected.

You did of course get a bit lucky - but it's also possible your score was higher than you thought before the downward trend started. The practice tests aren't exact gauges, and sometimes people do actually perform better on the real thing!

Anyway - yay! :) However it happened, that's awesome!