GMAT Prep Practice Exam - Quant Scoring Discrepancy

[Spoontrick]

Hello all!

I completed Practice Test 2 from the free GMAT Prep Software over the weekend and I am a little confused as to the difference in quant scoring relative to Practice Test 1.

In summary:

Practice Test 1: Q44 (63rd %ile) 15/09/2013 21 incorrect

Practice Test 2: Q45 (68th %ile) 2/11/2013 8 incorrect

Something doesn't smell right with this - the spread of incorrect answers in Exam 2 was dispersed very evenly throughout the test and I didn't miss more than 2 in a row. In the first test I missed the last 8 questions in a row but apart from that I never missed two in a row either.

I realise that the scoring algorithm is pinned to the level of questions I answered correctly but I do find the 1 point improvement extremely difficult to fathom.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Cheers,
Spoontrick

[StaceyKoprince]

The part that I find especially strange is that you got a 44 with 21 incorrect. In my experience, that score should have been lower!

And I agree that the 8 incorrect on the second test is a bit odd as well, though I have heard of similar situations (perhaps not quite as low - maybe 10-11). The only thing I can think is that, even though you didn't have more than 2 wrong in a row, maybe they were still too clustered together (eg CWWCWWCWWCWW)?

Or perhaps they have added "experimental" questions to the scoring, and maybe all of your wrong answers counted while some number of your correct answers were experimental...

I'm curious to hear whether anyone else has experienced this - if you have, please reply to this post.

I'm going to be attending a conference in early December put on by GMAC - I'll try to ask about this then. If you have the time, it would be great if you could send an email to gmat@manhattanprep.com to give me any additional details from the two tests. (In the email, indicate that they should forward the email to me.) Thanks!

[okb_twinny]

I know that this is extremely late, but did you go to the conference and ask about this issue?

I just did the GMATPrep 2nd exam and I got 10 wrong with a score of 44. To be honest the mistakes I made were extremely silly and were on pretty easy questions, but I was just sitting through the exam thinking 'where are the harder questions?' I took GMATPrep 1 and got 50 while getting 13 wrong which I think is too high for getting 13 wrong so I think there must be a mistake. Additionally I am a lot, lot better now than I was then making me think that it is even more fishy!

[StaceyKoprince]

Your results are completely normal to me, actually - usually people get anywhere from about 10 to about 15 wrong. That maps to all but the very highest or lowest scoring levels. (And it is quite common / normal to have a few more wrong on a higher score - the difficulty levels of the questions you're answering make the difference.)

I didn't ask about this at the conference - the student who asked didn't send me an email with the details and so I didn't have enough to describe what had happened. (If you're reading this, Spoontrick, feel free to send me an email with whatever details you remember and I'll try to ask!)

They may not tell me anything though - they're very serious about protecting the exam details.