Gmat verbal scoring and old gmat paper tests

[guest11]

Hello,

I've only got 3 q's wrong(something like 22, 28, 30) in the verbal part of GMATprep and scaled score was only 47.
Is the real gmat like that - waaay more rigorous in scoring verbal?
Does Gmatprep contain experimental questions?

I did some paper tests from mba.com, and I think that quant is toooo easy. What do yall gmat CATs think about comparasion between those two?
Also, paper RC passages contain like 6 q's while real gmats RC supposedly contains 3-4(?).

Thanks. Mike

[JonathanSchneider]

When you say you only got three wrong - you mean on the paper tests, right? That would be nearly impossible on an adaptive test.

Paper and pencil tests, by their very nature, are not adaptive. As a result, they can't hone in on the finer points between test-takers' ability levels. Adaptive tests are much better at that. Paper and pencil tests, as a result, do hurt you more for wrong answers. In effect, they have to score you based on the % that you get right. Adaptive tests, meanwhile, score you based on the difficulty level of the questions you get right and wrong.

As to your question about the math vs. verbal levels, I'd actually say that it's the other way around. There are a lot more test-takers who can ace the math portion than there are test-takers who can ace the verbal. As a result, a solid verbal performance generally gets you a higher percentile ranking.

The GMATPrep software does not include experimental questions.

If you're finding the paper test quant too easy, that just means that you're a high math scorer. The adaptive test will be giving you harder math questions throughout, merely by being adaptive.

As for RC, you'll notice the same thing in the OG books. This is for a couple of reasons. On an adaptive test, you will just get the questions that are at the right difficulty level for you. On the old paper tests, meanwhile, they had to give you a bunch of questions to more accurately tell where you're at.

[guest11]

Thanks for the reply Jonathan.

Three verbal wrongs were on Gmatprep software, on the problems corresponding to mentioned numbers. I knew that result was screenshot worthy :) Wht do you think thats almost impossible?

Anyhow, I noticed that Gmatprep scores verbal more rigorously. For example 10 wrongs might get you a 50 in quant, but at most 42-3?(?) on verbal. Is the real test like that?

[StaceyKoprince]

The quant and verbal subscores are not on the same scale - so you'd need to get a 51 on quant in order to hit the 99th percentile, but only a 46 on verbal to hit the 99th percentile. That's why it seems like the verbal is scoring "harder" - it's on a different scale.

That also explains your results on the verbal portion when you got 3 wrong and got a scaled score of "only" 47. Because the 99th percentile on verbal starts at 46, 47 is a fantastic score. :) Except for those literally scoring at the 99th percentile in a section, people get a lot more than that wrong on a typical test.

You can download a representative score report with the scores and their corresponding percentiles from the GMAC web site (www.mba.com). Happy studying!