CAT 1 740 Q46 V45 with 11 mistakes in verbal

[karthik_prashanth]

Hi,

I gave MGMAT CAT 1 exam two days back and scored 740 Q46 V45. Upon reviewing the exam I see that I have made 11 mistakes in verbal and still could get a scaled score of 45. I have seen a guy getting 44 in verbal with 7 mistakes in a GMATPrep exam.

But the thing is ALL the 11 mistakes were on questions in 700-800 range. So is it possible to score 45 with 11 mistakes in the real exam if those mistakes are in difficult category? I am aiming at a verbal score of 40, so can I take some confidence out of this exam? I am planning to give my GMAT in about 10 days time.

Thanks
S Karthik

[StaceyKoprince]

It is possible to score 45 with 11 mistakes, yes. It depends on the difficulty levels of those questions and how the questions are spread out in the section. (For instance, if you have several mistakes wrong in a row right at the end of the section, you can't score 99th percentile in that section - your score will drop, then the section will end, so you'll have no chance to bring it back up.)

Next, did you take this practice test under 100% official conditions, including essays, length of breaks, *everything*? If not, then your score might be inflated.

Finally, take a look at the last 10 questions in the test. Did you have mostly 700+ Qs there? I just want to make sure that you didn't hit a situation that some other students have had. If you take 4+ CATs already scoring at the highest levels, then by CAT 5 or 6, you can start to run out of some of the hardest questions in certain categories. (The tests were designed with the idea that people would be improving over time, so pulling from different parts of the database. We don't have 6 full tests' worth of 99th percentile questions. Someone who's already scoring in the 90s on the first test... well, that person doesn't need to take 6 tests before going in to take the real thing!)

If that did happen to you, check your earlier scores, but you should still be okay. You still had to earn all those 700+ Qs on the earlier tests, which means you're ready for your goal of 40+.

The big wildcard is whether you took the test under really non-official (and advantageous) conditions, like skipping essays, using the pause button, taking longer breaks than allowed, etc. If you took the test under official conditions, then you're looking good going into the real thing!

[karthik_prashanth]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I took the test under 100% test conditions, two essays, 6-7 minutes break between the sections.

And I did check the last ten questions and all of those were 700-800 range questions.

My only concern is that my performance or accuracy in RC varies according to the subject matter of the passages.In some passages I am able to answer all the questions right and in some passages, which deal with a dry subject, my accuracy falls below 50%. Does this happen to everyone or just me?
I've practised around 100 passages but still my accuracy is as good as it was in the begining.

Thanks
S Karthik

[StaceyKoprince]

It's always more of a struggle when you don't like the RC topic. Are there certain topics that give you the hardest time? Business? Science? Humanities / social sciences?

If so, start doing some reading in these areas to get yourself more familiar with the kind of language and topics you'll see. You can try these sources:

http://magazine.uchicago.edu/
http://harvardmagazine.com/
http://sciam.com/

Also, does your performance drop across all types of questions on those dry passages? Or just certain types? Main Idea? Specific Detail? Inference? What is it that's harder to "get" when the passage is very dry / boring / a topic you don't like?

That's really good news on the practice test results - keep that momentum going!

[karthik_prashanth]

Thanks for the links Stacey.

Overall I find history related and technical passages very dry and difficult to comprehend, in these passages the skimming strategy, which I employ on other passages and get good accuracy, doesn't work well. For example the other day I got a passage about LED and CRT monitos with many technical stuff and I got all answers wrong.

Well I don't have any particular weakness per se in a particular type of question, the mistakes will be spread evenly across different types of questions, making it difficult to concentrate on a particular area.

[StaceyKoprince]

Do some reading in those areas just to get more used to those topics. Also, you may want to look through these articles in general:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... p-passage/

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... rc-passage

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... rehension/

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... prehension

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/11/ ... il-problem

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm