GMAT Prep Score vs Questions Correct

[henriso]

Hello Stacey,

First of all, thank you for taking the time to answer all of our questions on the forum. I really appreciate it.

So here is my issue:
I recently took 2 GMAT CATs using the GMAT prep software. I scored a 720 on both of them, with the same breakdown in Quant and Verbal (49Q, 40V for both). The curious part is how different the two tests were.

The questions I answered incorrectly were the following:
Test 1, Q: 2, 6, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34
Test 1, V: 3, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 25, 28, 30, 31, 36, 37
Test 2, Q: 5, 8, 15, 17, 22, 31, 24
Test 2, V: 2, 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 41

I understand that the adaptive nature of the CAT makes the percentage of correct answers a relatively meaningless measure. However, I am surprised by the following observations:
- I had missed significantly more questions in Test 1 than Test 2. I missed 12 quant questions and 14 verbal questions in Test 1, while missing 7 quant questions and 8 verbal questions in Test 2
- I had missed a lot more consecutive questions in Test 1 than Test 2 (I had a string of 5-6 consecutive misses in Test 1)
- I didn't have a problem of missing questions any earlier in Test 2 compared to in Test 1, which I associate with starting at a lower score and needing to "crawl back up".
- I practically killed the 2nd half of Verbal in test 2 (answering all but question 41 wrong since question 15), but my Verbal score was the same as in test 1.

So the ares I could use clarification and advice are:
- I'm rather confused how the adaptive algorithm works.
- I felt really good while taking Test 2 (I was very disappointed to score a 720), so if the final score is the same, wouldn't I be better off making sacrificing guesses earlier on, so that I work easier problems through the rest of the exam at a more comfortable pace, seeing that it has no effect on final score?

Finally, I am a week away from my exam. I'm pretty disappointed with my score so far. The last practice test I took was particularly discouraging because I thought I was doing really well on timing, and had better command over the material being tested (as evident in my lower rate of mistakes), but still ended up scoring the same 720. What kind of advice do you have for me in terms of preparing in the last week up to the exam?

Thank you very much Stacey. I love your blog posts and have been following a lot of your responses in the forums. You have been of immense help to my exam preparation. I hope you keep putting out more fantastic content for us!

[kouranjelika]

Hi Stacey,

Yea, I am with Henriso. I just took my second Gmat Prep test and took a MGMAT CAT last week. I got so many more questions incorrectly in Quant, while the score is tremendously higher (not speaking of the percentile, just the raw score).

Also I believe we are told that it is out of 51? How so? If the GMAT Software shows the scores out of 60 and when I googled it, found similar info. Please clarify this.

I am a little bit lost, because I feel like my Verbal is better, but my score says otherwise. Latest test (GMAT Prep Software): Q47, V35. Q wrong 17/37, V wrong 12/41. I honestly don't even know what to focus my studies on in the Verbal section now. I clearly want to improve my score like crazy in that section, but don't know what the real problem is. I mean, I calculated how many I got wrong on different types, I have 2 wrong in CR, 2 wrong in RC (always the same thing gets me, the purpose of the passage, I find this so subjective at times and always bounce between two answer choices picking the wrong one or sometimes feel pretty confident about the wrong choice from the get-go). AND then there is SC, out of the 12 that I got wrong overall, I got 7 wrong in SC. Do you think this is why my Verbal score is so low? This is super difficult question type for me, but I feel I have improved tremendously, and yet, here we are. What do you recommend? My test is in less than 2 weeks, I usually do better when I study really really hard beforehand, so although I totally understand where you guys are coming from when you say not to push on the material too much right before, it doesn't work so well for me. I operate at highest efficiency and sharpness when under pressure and cramming. I've even tested this with the GMAT. If I sleep a proper amount of time, feel relaxed, don't do any questions beforehand, I score SO low. I need to get my brain working before I tackle the problems, it's just how I am.

But what do you think about the Verbal?
I made a study plan to go over the entire Foundation of Verbal book again. I think it is helping already. Anything else? How do can I particularly improve on my SC? Any tips, helpful articles, Labs (I don't think there are any)?

[StaceyKoprince]

Good questions. I hope I'm not getting to you too late!

First, I can't tell you exactly how the adaptive algorithm works - it's just way too complex. I understand enough to advise people, but even I don't fully understand it!

Of the items in your first list of bullets, the only one that surprised me was that you got questions 16 through 40 right on verbal and still "only" got a 40 (in quote marks because 40 is still a great score!). I do find that one strange - but in a "that's a new one for me" sense, not a "the software must have screwed up!" sense. All the others are normal / par for the course.

Really, though, trying to figure that stuff out is a waste of valuable brain energy and study time. It leads people to do things like speculate that you should purposely make sacrifices earlier on... :) Nope. Don't try to game the test - you'll almost certainly mess yourself up. When a question pops up, if you can do it (or make a reasonable guess) within a reasonable amount of time, do so. If you can't, put in an answer and move on. If you try to do the problem and realize that you're stuck, guess and move on.

Think of it as a tennis match. You're going to win some points and you're going to lose some. You know that before you even start playing. When each point starts, you want to win it, but as the point progresses, you make a decision at some point to keep trying or let it go. And you don't get upset at letting go - that's just the way the game works. You shrug and get ready for the next point.

My general advice for the last week is to think about a comprehensive review - your main strategies for the different question types, reviewing the main content areas, etc. Don't try to get better / fix weaknesses / etc. during the last week. Your score is what it is - just review and don't burn yourself out.

kouranjelika, the official scoring scale for the GMAT Q and V sections is 0 to 60, but they only assign scores from 6 to 51. So you may see literature saying the scale goes up to 60 but, in practice, its impossible (at this point, anyway) to receive a score higher than 51.

Next, your verbal score is a bit better than your quant score. The two scoring scales do not map to the same percentiles. A 35 on verbal is the 75th percentile. A 47 on quant is the 70th percentile. You can find the score to percentile conversion chart here:
http://www.mba.com/us/the-gmat-exam/gma ... kings-mean

If you know that you do better by cramming beforehand, then I won't stop you. :) Most people will get burned out / mentally fatigued, but obviously some people are different, so do what you know works for you.

It does seem as though SC is your weaker area. (I say "seem" because it could be that those just happened to be the hardest questions in the section - in which case, you'd expect your performance to be worse.) In that case, dive into the questions to figure out why you missed them. Did you know the rule but didn't spot it or forgot it? Did it test something that you didn't know? Was the sentence cleverly-enough written to get you to fall into a trap? What happened?

On verbal, it's useful to do this analysis on the answers:
1) why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible; also, now you know this is not a good reason to pick an answer)
2) why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
3) why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer)
4) why was it actually right?

And for SC, if I were to show you a particular difference in answer choices but NOT show you the full problem (or even the full answer choices), would you be able to tell me which rule is probably being tested? You can probably do this for some things right now (eg, "has" and "have" would be a pretty straightforward split), but you can also probably get better at this. The splits, or differences in the choices, are the major clues that (should immediately) tell us what rules we need to think about / apply for that choice. That will help with both your speed and your accuracy.

For SC, try this exercise: approach these as you would a math problem, to some extent, where you see certain "symbols" and that causes you to categorize the problem in a particular way. The "symbols" you'll see are the differences in the answer choices, and those "symbols" should be your immediate clue that a particular rule is being tested.

Combine this with your analysis of the answers so that you learn to spot and correctly deal with the things that you're missing now.

Also, now that you know your verbal score is already a bit better than your quant score, maybe you also need to spend some time on quant? :)

[TuhinaS58]

Hi
In a recent practice test, I scored 620. My maths score was 49 and verbal was 26

The following questions I answered incorrectly.
M: 5, 19, 20, 24, 25 , 26, 32, 35, 36, 37
V: 3,4,11,14,21,22,23, 25, 26, 27, 31, 33, 34, 37, 38 , 39

I feel the verbal score is a bit inaccurate. I got only 4 questions wrong in the first half of verbal test and with 16 questions wrong. How is it possible that I got such a low score? If you could help?

[StaceyKoprince]

That score is consistent with the data you have posted.

The GMAT is a "where you end is what you get" test. You did do very well early in the test, but your score later dropped. In particular, in the middle of the test, you missed 6 out of 7 questions (21 through 27). That kind of pattern would drop your score a great deal. You then got the next 3 right, which would have lifted your score some (though not to what it was at question 20). A little later, you missed 5 out of 7, again dropping your score. You did get the final 2 right, but your score had already dropped too much by that point.

It is not the case that the GMAT takes some kind of "average" of your performance once you're done with the section. You can lift to the 99th percentile mid-way through, but if you drop to the 50th percentile (or whatever) by the last question, then that's your score: where you end is what you get.

Now that you know that, how do you need to change your approach to the test?

How many careless mistakes did you make on those later questions? Were time and/or mental fatigue factors? What else do you notice in reviewing those problems?