Free MGMAT given.. :(

[possible894]

Hi,

Today I gave the free MGMAT exam from your website. The result i got was really dissapointing. I got a 630 :(. I am aiming for 720+ and have been studying for it for the last couple of months. I had a few questions about the exam:

1. Is this exam tougher than what I can expect on the actual day?

TYPE SCORE ESTIMATED PERCENTILE RANK
Quantitative 45 77%
Verbal 32 67%
Total 630 79%

Verbal
RC- 7 wrong
SC- 7 wrong
CR- 6 wrong

2. My D day is 28th July. I really don't know how can I get a 720+... really disappointed. :(. Based on the above stats can you suggest me areas I need to improve?? I always believed that Maths is my strong point but a 77% is really bad... :(

Thanks

[possible894]

another thing is that I was not able to answer my last question in the Verbal section.

[coolfire_khan]

another thing is that I was not able to answer my last question in the Verbal section.

Hi,

I just want to know how much these CAT exam resembles to Real GMAT.. as i just finished my free CAT 1 and i got 710, what should i expect in real GMAT??

[StaceyKoprince]

Some of my students tell me they thought our tests were harder; some tell me they thought our tests were easier. I'd say it's more common for people to think our quant section is harder than on the real test. On verbal, opinion is pretty evenly divided.

The test is not scored based upon percentage correct, so analyzing the number you got wrong doesn't actually tell you anything. Here are some ways to analyze your results.

Let's start with timing because you mention running out of time on verbal. (By the way, the penalty for leaving a question blank is an automatic 3 percentile point reduction in your score for each blank question. Don't leave anything blank in future. :)

- count the questions you got wrong that are below the level you're scoring. In your case, you're scoring in the low 600s, so everything labeled sub-600.
- count the questions on which you spent more than 30sec longer than you should have (even if you got them right)
- count the questions on which you under-spent your time by at least 30sec on SC or 45sec on other types (even if you got them right)

What does that data tell you about how you well you managed your time? What does the data tell you about how well you made sure that you didn't "leave points on the table" (by getting things wrong that were below your level)?

Also review each individual question to figure out:
- if you got it wrong, why (as specifically as possible)? if verbal, what tempted you to pick the wrong answer? why is it wrong anyway? what tempted you to eliminate the right answer? why is it right anyway?
- what do you need to learn / practice to avoid making the same mistake(s) again in the future?
- if you spent too much time, why? specifically, which part of the problem? did that extra time help? did that extra time hurt on a later problem? (if you spent more than 30sec over, the answer is yes, even if you got this problem right) how did that extra time hurt? specifically, where did you then not have enough time?
- if you spent too little time, why? were you rushing b/c you were behind? why were you behind; on which ones did you spend too much time? or did you think the problem was easy and you didn't need that much time? how often did you make mistakes on those "easy" problems on which you felt you didn't need full time? (On problems like that, you should make almost no mistakes - 95%+ accuracy. So if it's anything lower than that, you're hurting yourself by choosing to go fast when you think a problem is really easy.)

Here are the timing guidelines, by the way:
Quant - about 2m; max of 2.5m
SC - about 60-75 sec; max of 90 sec
CR - about 2m; max of 2.5m
RC - about 2.5m (short) to 3.5m (long) to read; about 1 min for general purpose questions; about 1.5 to 2 for everything else

Run the assessment reports to determine more specific data about your strengths and weaknesses. You need to know, for example, that you got both Rate questions wrong, so you need to do some work on rates, but you got both exponential equations problems right, so you look like you're okay there - that level of detail, not just your overall scores.

coolfire - the standard deviation between our students' final practice test scores and their official test scores is about 50 points. If you were to go take the real GMAT very soon, it's most likely that you would score within a 50-point range around the 710 (though some people score outside of that range). In general, it's a good idea to be scoring consistently in the range you want on both MGMAT and GMATPrep in the couple of weeks before you take the official test. If your scores are well below what you want on the real test, then you wouldn't be ready to take the test yet.

[possible894]

Thanks for the reply. Your reply looks very insightful.

[RonPurewal]

1. Is this exam tougher than what I can expect on the actual day?

as for tougher, probably not.
as for more work, though... perhaps.

our exams do have somewhat of a bias toward longer / more labor-intensive questions in quant. this bias exists only toward the 700ish end of the scale, however.
if you are a high scorer, then you can trust that the time pressure on the real test will be a bit more lax (but not THAT much more lax - don't forget to practice time management religiously).
if you are not scoring at least 650, then the difference in time management between our practice tests and the real test is essentially negligible.

--

also, the real test will have 8-10 experimental questions on your quant section. since these are of random difficulty, it follows that, if you're a high scorer, most of them will be easier than your average "real" questions.
since our exams don't have experimental questions, this discrepancy will also skew the real test toward seeming "easier" or "faster" (although the difference won't be reflected in your score, since the experimental questions don't count).

[coolfire_khan]

1. Is this exam tougher than what I can expect on the actual day?

as for tougher, probably not.
as for more work, though... perhaps.

our exams do have somewhat of a bias toward longer / more labor-intensive questions in quant. this bias exists only toward the 700ish end of the scale, however.
if you are a high scorer, then you can trust that the time pressure on the real test will be a bit more lax (but not THAT much more lax - don't forget to practice time management religiously).
if you are not scoring at least 650, then the difference in time management between our practice tests and the real test is essentially negligible.

--

also, the real test will have 8-10 experimental questions on your quant section. since these are of random difficulty, it follows that, if you're a high scorer, most of them will be easier than your average "real" questions.
since our exams don't have experimental questions, this discrepancy will also skew the real test toward seeming "easier" or "faster" (although the difference won't be reflected in your score, since the experimental questions don't count).

thanks for the reply.. as per your advice i can gave a standard deviation of 50 points lower or higher in my real test?

[supratims]

I took the test yesterday and got 670. Here is the distribution.
Q48, V33

While the quants section was difficult, I made a few silly mistakes to make it tougher. :(

And about the Verbal, the RC was really tough. And i could have scored more in CR and SC. Here is my sectional report :
RC = 6/12 6 correct, 6 wrong out of 12
SC = 9/15 9 correct, 6 wrong out of 15
CR = 7/14 7 correct, and 7 wrong out of 14
---------------------------------------------
Total = 22/41 ie 22 correct and 19 wrong.
Could the experts let me know how much i can increase my score if i get 30 correct in verbal. and score around 49 in Quants ?

[StaceyKoprince]

coolfire - I'm not sure what you mean by "I can gave a standard deviation of 50 points lower or higher in my real test?" Do you mean that this is what you can expect? The standard deviation means that the most likely outcome will be within that range, but there are always some outliers - sometimes people will fall outside of that range.

supratims - the test is not scored based upon percentage correct. Someone scoring in the 50th percentile could get the same number of questions right as someone scoring in the 80th percentile. Unless you score at a very high level on this test, you will always have a lot wrong. Your score gets higher because the questions you answer correctly get harder, not because you get more questions right. When you get something right, the test will just give you something even harder until you start to get questions wrong again - so everybody gets a lot of questions wrong.

It's important to recognize this in assessing your performance. For instance, you might conclude that you need to work on RC and CR because the percentages for those two are lower. But let's say that, in CR, the average difficulty of your questions was 700, while in SC the average difficulty was 660. Does that mean you're worse at CR? Not necessarily - you got harder CR questions, so you'd expect your percentage not to be as high.

Hopefully, this also makes clear why I can't answer your last question - there isn't a particular score that we get if we get a certain number of questions right. It all depends upon the difficulty levels of those questions (and other factors).

[coolfire_khan]

coolfire - I'm not sure what you mean by "I can gave a standard deviation of 50 points lower or higher in my real test?" Do you mean that this is what you can expect? The standard deviation means that the most likely outcome will be within that range, but there are always some outliers - sometimes people will fall outside of that range.

supratims - the test is not scored based upon percentage correct. Someone scoring in the 50th percentile could get the same number of questions right as someone scoring in the 80th percentile. Unless you score at a very high level on this test, you will always have a lot wrong. Your score gets higher because the questions you answer correctly get harder, not because you get more questions right. When you get something right, the test will just give you something even harder until you start to get questions wrong again - so everybody gets a lot of questions wrong.

It's important to recognize this in assessing your performance. For instance, you might conclude that you need to work on RC and CR because the percentages for those two are lower. But let's say that, in CR, the average difficulty of your questions was 700, while in SC the average difficulty was 660. Does that mean you're worse at CR? Not necessarily - you got harder CR questions, so you'd expect your percentage not to be as high.

Hopefully, this also makes clear why I can't answer your last question - there isn't a particular score that we get if we get a certain number of questions right. It all depends upon the difficulty levels of those questions (and other factors).

Thanks for you reply.. i just wanted to make sure that my score in my last MGMAT test was 650 so what range can i expect in my real GMAT test, In addition to this does these test gets tougher when we move from CAT1 TO CAT6 because i am experiencing pretty hard question as i am moving ahead.

[StaceyKoprince]

Our tests simply react to you / your performance - so if you are getting harder questions, you are also getting better. We don't automatically make them harder just because you've taken a lot of them. :)

If you take a practice MGMAT test within a week or two of the official test, then there is a very good chance you will score within 50 points of that score on the official test. Not everyone does, however - there are always outliers. It's also the case that you know the practice test doesn't count and you know the official test does count. Sometimes, people get very anxious or stressed out during the official test and that obviously can affect the score in a negative way.