How much of a penalty do you receive for not finishing?

[johnwuy]

I took the GMAT today. Did excellent on verbal (95%), but my quantitative score was abysmal (78%). This coming from a person who takes pride in being mathematically superior to most of my peers is unacceptable. I have done so many practice problems in all sorts of books, but those questions are easy compared to the ones that I get on the CAT. The ones I get on the quantitative section of CAT are not only complicated, but lengthy. I can never finish on time. Of the two tests I took off GMAC's software, my quantitative score was wayyy higher, because when I ran out of time, I just chose C for the rest. Today, however, I lost track and left 6 questions unanswered.

I read in the official guide saying leaving a section unanswered can lower the percentile score by 20%. Obviously, there's a difference between leaving 20 questions blank or leaving 5 blanks, and I'd hope the algorithm is more sophisticated than lopping off a flat chunk of score.

My most immediate question then, is, with 3 minutes left, should I just go through everything left and choosing C, or am I better off doing everything as seriously as possible and leaving the section unfinished?

My long term question is how do I increase my speed on the quantitative section? I know all the math of every single question. It's just that without a calculator, the bottleneck is my hand + mental calculation speed. Being a careful person, I double check my arithmetic so that takes up a lot of time. The practice questions in different books are too easy because I just breeze through most of them only getting like one or two wrong due to careless errors.

EDIT: Not trying to come off as an elitist prick. I realize that for many people, 78 percentile is an acceptable score. However, for the programs that I want to get in (quantitative finance), a score like that on the quantitative section simply is not good enough. This is also coming from a person who has had substantial mathematical classes in college (math minor).

[StaceyKoprince]

The largest penalty is reserved for leaving questions unanswered. If you have to, guess randomly.

The penalty depends upon your scoring level and how many in a row you left blank. Last October, I viewed a presentation by GMAC's head psychometrician (ie, the guy who manages the algorithm!) and he showed a slide on which a 75th percentile quant test-taker left 5 questions blank and the raw score dropped by 15 percentile points. He also mentioned that the penalty is more severe for higher-level test-takers (because higher-level testers are not expected to run out of time as much as lower-level testers). Given that you were at the 78th percentile after the penalty, I think we can assume that your penalty was pretty severe - you were probably pretty far up there when you ran out of time.

Something to note for future: pretty much everybody has to guess on some questions, usually between 4 and 7 questions per section. This is especially true on the quant side; the very highest verbal testers don't have quite as much time pressure.

So, you are going to have to guess on some number of questions, no matter what. There are two scenarios: you are forced to guess on some number in a row at the end of the section (which is what happened to you), or you selectively choose the hardest questions as you see them throughout the section and let those go so that you aren't forced to guess on a bunch in a row at the end. Obviously, the second plan is better. (This is true for pretty much EVERYbody, no matter the scoring level, by the way.)

Think of it this way: the GMAT is also testing you on your ability to be a good business person. It's testing you on your ability to set appropriate priorities and manage your time well. You do this every day at work - there are some things that have to get pushed off to tomorrow, or next week, or never, because there's only so much you can do right now.

This test is the same way - sometimes, it's going to give you a problem, and you're going to have to say, "No way - not right now. Sorry!" and let it go. If you reserve this for the hardest problems spread out across the test, it won't hurt your score.

[pratikmalia]

Hi Stacey,

I gave my gmat today and got 640.. I consider this really horrible, since I had been scoring between 700 to 740 in my mgmat & gmat prep CATs.

The problem started when I ended up with not completing the last question in Quant section. I believe I had selected an option, but did not confirm it, before the time ended. my question is, would I have got penalized for not confirming the answer?. According to the test centre staff, as long as I had selected an option, I would not get penalized, but I am not sure about this!

Your advice is highly appreciated,

thanks & regards,

[StaceyKoprince]

They were correct - as long as something was in, the test will accept it.

The fact that you were that pressed for time, though, means that you messed up the timing in that section, right? It's unlikely that you just suddenly struggled for time on that last question.

And when that happens, people usually carry over the anxiety into the verbal, and then that tends to mess up the verbal as well. :( I'm sorry you had a rough test day.

If you took our course or one of our Guided Self-Study packages, then you're eligible for a free Post-Exam Assessment (if you haven't done it already). This is a phone call with an instructor to figure out what went wrong and come up with a plan to re-take the test. If this applies to you, please send an email to studentservices@manhattangmat.com and request the Post-Exam Assessment.

You can also read this to get some ideas about what might have led to the score drop:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ent-wrong/

It's important to figure that out so that you can figure out what steps to take to remedy the situation. Please feel free to come back here (**BUT start your own new thread**) and tell us everything you think might have contributed so that we can figure out a plan to move forward. (But if you are eligible for a PEA, definitely sign up for that right away.)

(It's fine that you posted here for your first post - but if you want to dive into your specific case, do that on your own dedicated thread.)

Also, since clearly there are some timing issues going on, read these two articles and start doing what they say:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

[yinliqiu]

Hi, instructors
I did my exam today, M50 V32, but on the last question of verbal ,I just chose it, but I did not have time to press"next". Do you think this kind of situation will have a penalty too?

Thanks in advance.

[StaceyKoprince]

No penalty. The answer to the last question was accepted, even though you didn't press next and confirm!

[Tanveenc416]

HI. I wanted to ask a question regarding this topic.
I was practicing the MGMAT CAT and i was left with the last 2 questions when time got over.
Does the Manhattan algorithm also give a penalty?

I am asking this to see how representative is the score I got. If I would've completed it the score would've been very different?

[StaceyKoprince]

We do also insert a penalty on our exams. You can't just add the points back in though - because you don't know how you would have done on those 2 questions.

There is a difference between leaving a question blank and answering but getting it wrong (the penalty is not the same), so let's say that you had noticed in time to make two random guesses and then you'd gotten them both wrong. Your score wouldn't have dropped as far. That might have been a 2-3 %ile point increase over your final score, which may or may not be enough to change the score itself - it depends what level you were at. Usually, for 2 questions, the change for the 3-digit score is either 0 or 10 points.

The real lesson: aren't you glad this happened in practice so that you can take steps to avoid this during the real test? :) What are you going to do to prevent this from happening again?

Think about that, then read the below for some ideas:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/
http://tinyurl.com/GMATTimeManagement