Apologies in advance for the format below. I'm curious how I should be reading the results from the MGMAT CAT.
I got 92% of RC Qs correct but the difficulty range is 670-750 whereas for SC I'm at 64% but the range is 740-750. Does this mean I should be focusing more on RC and not SC? Is that the correct way of interpreting the results? Thank you!
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Verbal: Analysis By Question Format & Difficulty
Question Format Total Correct Incorrect Blank % Correct Avg Time Correct Avg Time Incorrect Avg Diff Correct Avg Diff Incorrect
CR 10 7 3 0 70% 1:47 1:50 740 750
600 - 700 1 1 0 100% 0:57 NA
700 - 800 9 6 3 67% 1:56 1:50
RC 12 11 1 0 92% 1:25 2:19 670 750
500 - 600 3 3 0 100% 1:51 NA
600 - 700 3 3 0 100% 0:32 NA
700 - 800 6 5 1 83% 1:42 2:19
SC 14 9 4 1 64% 2:06 1:58 740 750
600 - 700 1 1 0 100% 1:08 NA
700 - 800 13 8 4 62% 2:13 1:58
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- TeresaC758
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How to read CAT assessment results?
Last edited by TeresaC758 on Sun Dec 23, 2018 3:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9363
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: How to read CAT assessment results?
I'll preface this by saying: This test is weird. 
Adaptive tests don't work the way we're use to tests working, so that can make it hard to read the data. The difficulty levels that you receive will depend upon how you're doing in the rest of the section—so one possibility is that you're rocking RC so then you get really hard SC...so then of course you miss some of the SC.
The other variable here is that RC questions don't come one at a time; they have to come in clumps with the associated passage. So even when you're doing super well, you are still sometimes going to have lower-level RC questions (lower than your current scoring level), simply because the test is limited to choosing questions from that passage.
The data you cited shows that you're getting almost everything right on RC regardless of the difficulty level. So RC is great. For SC and CR, yes your percentage correct is lower—but you only saw super hard questions, so of course you should have gotten more of those wrong.
Can I ask what your actual score was? I'm going to guess in the lower 40s? That's in the 90th+ percentile, so your score is already really good. You should know that, although the scoring scale technically goes up to 51, it's rare to score higher than 45 on verbal. Even our own teachers don't often score above 47-48. So I tell my students that the practical upper limit on V is 45. (Oh, and another quirk: There's no V score of 43 for some reason. It literally goes 41, 42, 44, 45.)
I mention all of that because, if you're at like 42 right now and you're thinking, "I need to get this up to 50!" you really don't. If you're at 42, I'd say you have a range of 3 more points (up to 45). Let's say that your quant is at 45—there, the range goes up to the full 51, so you have 6 more points you could gain there. So you'd just want to balance that as you try to figure out what you can improve to lift your score further.
If your quant is at, like, 40—then I'd say that's your main priority now. If your quant is more comparable to the verbal in terms of the number of points you still have "to go" (up to 51 on Q, up to 45 on V), then yes, you'd want to try to address both.
For Verbal, once you get into the 40s, the potential opportunity is typically not for an overall question type but really for specific things that you see you're missing on any particular problems. Go back and look at the ones you missed. How often was it a careless mistake? How often do you look at it and think, Yes, I legit got that wrong, but I totally get why that other answer is better? How often is it—nope, I just didn't / don't know that and I still don't really get why that's the right answer? And finally how often do you think....I would like to argue with whoever wrote this because I still think I'm right?
Also for verbal at this level, a common issue is to be able to narrow it down to 2 but then struggle between the most tempting wrong answer and the right one. Do this in order to improve that last step:
(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?
Adaptive tests don't work the way we're use to tests working, so that can make it hard to read the data. The difficulty levels that you receive will depend upon how you're doing in the rest of the section—so one possibility is that you're rocking RC so then you get really hard SC...so then of course you miss some of the SC.
The other variable here is that RC questions don't come one at a time; they have to come in clumps with the associated passage. So even when you're doing super well, you are still sometimes going to have lower-level RC questions (lower than your current scoring level), simply because the test is limited to choosing questions from that passage.
The data you cited shows that you're getting almost everything right on RC regardless of the difficulty level. So RC is great. For SC and CR, yes your percentage correct is lower—but you only saw super hard questions, so of course you should have gotten more of those wrong.
Can I ask what your actual score was? I'm going to guess in the lower 40s? That's in the 90th+ percentile, so your score is already really good. You should know that, although the scoring scale technically goes up to 51, it's rare to score higher than 45 on verbal. Even our own teachers don't often score above 47-48. So I tell my students that the practical upper limit on V is 45. (Oh, and another quirk: There's no V score of 43 for some reason. It literally goes 41, 42, 44, 45.)
I mention all of that because, if you're at like 42 right now and you're thinking, "I need to get this up to 50!" you really don't. If you're at 42, I'd say you have a range of 3 more points (up to 45). Let's say that your quant is at 45—there, the range goes up to the full 51, so you have 6 more points you could gain there. So you'd just want to balance that as you try to figure out what you can improve to lift your score further.
If your quant is at, like, 40—then I'd say that's your main priority now. If your quant is more comparable to the verbal in terms of the number of points you still have "to go" (up to 51 on Q, up to 45 on V), then yes, you'd want to try to address both.
For Verbal, once you get into the 40s, the potential opportunity is typically not for an overall question type but really for specific things that you see you're missing on any particular problems. Go back and look at the ones you missed. How often was it a careless mistake? How often do you look at it and think, Yes, I legit got that wrong, but I totally get why that other answer is better? How often is it—nope, I just didn't / don't know that and I still don't really get why that's the right answer? And finally how often do you think....I would like to argue with whoever wrote this because I still think I'm right?
Also for verbal at this level, a common issue is to be able to narrow it down to 2 but then struggle between the most tempting wrong answer and the right one. Do this in order to improve that last step:
(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?
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- TeresaC758
- Students
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Feb 21, 2016 7:11 pm
Re: How to read CAT assessment results?
Stacey - Thanks so much for such a thorough and thoughtful response. I really appreciate your help. And I hope you get some time off to enjoy the holidays!
You guessed correctly - my verbal score was a 42 on this CAT!
I've been consistently scoring low 40s on practice tests, but when I took the actual GMAT earlier this year, I really struggled with timing and ended up with a lower score than I anticipated. I got three science/technical RC passages! And the SC questions felt like paragraphs with almost everything underlined. I would love to hear if you have any thoughts on how to be more efficient when reading difficult/technical RC passages as well as long, unruly SC questions. I did also read your article on "SC first glance" recently and that technique has helped me tremendously!
I completely agree - it is absolutely important to keep in mind the entire score! I do have less room for improvement on the quant side. I know I need to work on speed and think about non-traditional approaches as well as eliminate careless mistakes. I'm definitely not perfect on quant, so I'm all ears if you have any thoughts on how to get those last few points.
And thank you! It is always a good reminder to review questions thoroughly and really think about why you got to the wrong answer. It's great to see it written out, and I'll use this as a checklist going forward. Someone once explained to me the "God view" vs "solider view." The GMAT God view 1) why are these answer choices here 2) why are these specific words here 3) are there any traps or distractions. The GMAT solider view is going through the motions and answering a lot of questions, but no processing, evaluation, or review of each battle (GMAT questions). I know that the GMAT Gods (GMAC test writers) have all the right answers... so I should be spending more time understanding how they think!
You guessed correctly - my verbal score was a 42 on this CAT!
I've been consistently scoring low 40s on practice tests, but when I took the actual GMAT earlier this year, I really struggled with timing and ended up with a lower score than I anticipated. I got three science/technical RC passages! And the SC questions felt like paragraphs with almost everything underlined. I would love to hear if you have any thoughts on how to be more efficient when reading difficult/technical RC passages as well as long, unruly SC questions. I did also read your article on "SC first glance" recently and that technique has helped me tremendously!
I completely agree - it is absolutely important to keep in mind the entire score! I do have less room for improvement on the quant side. I know I need to work on speed and think about non-traditional approaches as well as eliminate careless mistakes. I'm definitely not perfect on quant, so I'm all ears if you have any thoughts on how to get those last few points.
And thank you! It is always a good reminder to review questions thoroughly and really think about why you got to the wrong answer. It's great to see it written out, and I'll use this as a checklist going forward. Someone once explained to me the "God view" vs "solider view." The GMAT God view 1) why are these answer choices here 2) why are these specific words here 3) are there any traps or distractions. The GMAT solider view is going through the motions and answering a lot of questions, but no processing, evaluation, or review of each battle (GMAT questions). I know that the GMAT Gods (GMAC test writers) have all the right answers... so I should be spending more time understanding how they think!
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9363
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: How to read CAT assessment results?
Ha, I should go buy a lottery ticket.
I'm sorry that you're continuing to have issues posting. I saw that you had to post three times before it finally came through. (The first two did come through on our end marked as "waiting for approval"—you just couldn't see them.)
For SC, you mentioned that the first glance article was helpful. Have you seen this one yet, on the core sentence?
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ce-part-1/
It's useful when the sentences are exactly what you describe—really long, coupled with long underlines, and everything is changing / moving around in the answers.
It sounds like you might have been doing well on the real thing (to get such hard questions) but then you maybe spent too much time / got too sucked in...then had to rush / ran short of time at the end...then your score dropped...and on the GMAT, where you end is what you get. Your score is not an average of your performance across the whole section.
So the real way to handle getting a really annoying passage or long/hard problem (of any type!) is to be able to make a good business decision: This isn't how I want to spend my time right now. I'd rather get out and save this time and mental energy for something later that doesn't look like such a poor "investment opportunity."
Ideally, you're doing so well on the test that you're earning killer problems as you go along. When the test offers you a killer problem, the first thought is, "Yes! I'm so glad I earned this!" followed quickly by, "And...I'm out." That's what allows you to actually keep your momentum going all the way to the end of the section (where you end is what you get).
So you might actually be ready to go take the real test from a content perspective, but you may need to hone your actual decision-making process / the way you're taking the exam. These will help:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... lly-tests/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/
And I'm going to guess that, if this is an issue on verbal, it's also an issue on quant—so you may be able to eke out another point or two on quant, too, just by learning to make better decisions about where NOT to invest your time. Let me know what you think about all of that.
I'm sorry that you're continuing to have issues posting. I saw that you had to post three times before it finally came through. (The first two did come through on our end marked as "waiting for approval"—you just couldn't see them.)
For SC, you mentioned that the first glance article was helpful. Have you seen this one yet, on the core sentence?
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ce-part-1/
It's useful when the sentences are exactly what you describe—really long, coupled with long underlines, and everything is changing / moving around in the answers.
It sounds like you might have been doing well on the real thing (to get such hard questions) but then you maybe spent too much time / got too sucked in...then had to rush / ran short of time at the end...then your score dropped...and on the GMAT, where you end is what you get. Your score is not an average of your performance across the whole section.
So the real way to handle getting a really annoying passage or long/hard problem (of any type!) is to be able to make a good business decision: This isn't how I want to spend my time right now. I'd rather get out and save this time and mental energy for something later that doesn't look like such a poor "investment opportunity."
Ideally, you're doing so well on the test that you're earning killer problems as you go along. When the test offers you a killer problem, the first thought is, "Yes! I'm so glad I earned this!" followed quickly by, "And...I'm out." That's what allows you to actually keep your momentum going all the way to the end of the section (where you end is what you get).
So you might actually be ready to go take the real test from a content perspective, but you may need to hone your actual decision-making process / the way you're taking the exam. These will help:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... lly-tests/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/
And I'm going to guess that, if this is an issue on verbal, it's also an issue on quant—so you may be able to eke out another point or two on quant, too, just by learning to make better decisions about where NOT to invest your time. Let me know what you think about all of that.
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- TeresaC758
- Students
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Feb 21, 2016 7:11 pm
Re: How to read CAT assessment results?
Hi Stacey,
I know it's been a while but I wanted to circle back and thank you for all of your help on GMAT strategy (especially the articles that you shared)! I took the GMAT for a second time and ended up with a score that I'm much happier with and a score much closer to what I saw on practice exams.
Thank you!
I know it's been a while but I wanted to circle back and thank you for all of your help on GMAT strategy (especially the articles that you shared)! I took the GMAT for a second time and ended up with a score that I'm much happier with and a score much closer to what I saw on practice exams.
Thank you!
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9363
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: How to read CAT assessment results?
What great news! Thanks for coming back to let me know—you made my day.
Good luck with applications—and school itself!
Good luck with applications—and school itself!
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
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