Consequence of leaving the final question unanswered?

[jasonthomasyee]

Hi guys, had a quick question!

I just took my 2nd CAT (but the first since starting my classes), and I scored a 39 in Verbal. With 2 question left, I only had about a minute to go. Foolishly, I spent the whole time on the 2nd to last question and left the very last question unanswered. Now I know that the GMAT penalizes us harshly for not finishing -- I would have been better off leaving 5 seconds for the final question just to put in a guess.

My question is: With regards to the Manhattan CAT scoring algorithms, what might have been my raw score if I had guessed on the final question? And to be realistic, let's just assume I got that final guess wrong. I'm hoping that I was on pace to hit a 42 before my gaffe on the final question!

And if it might help, here is how I did on the mid/latter portion of the exam. From questions 16-41 I got:

18 questions right in the 700 - 800 range
4 questions wrong in the 700-800 range
2 questions right in the 600 - 700 range
1 question wrong in the 600-700 range
1 (last) question unanswered in 700-800 range

Thanks!

[jasonthomasyee]

Hi guys I actually saw a response fr Stacy saying Mgmat penalizes 3 percentile points per unanswered question. I scored an 88% on verbal, so it's a fair assumption that I was at the 91 percentile prior to the last question. The GMAT website shows 90 percentile score equals a V40, so would a 91 percentile score be a V40 or V41?

[StaceyKoprince]

Remember that you were at 91st going into that final question. If you'd answered but gotten it wrong, that would've dropped you 1 to 2 percentile points. So you definitely wouldn't have been hitting V41 (93rd percentile).

If you had finished at 91st percentile, you'd get a V40 (90) - that's the closest score. V41 (93rd) is further away.