MGMAT Free Test scoring and Level

[sharma16.ash]

Friends,

I had given MGMAT free test and to my surprise i found that my score was 670 with following score..
Quants : 43 with 4 wrong and 8 unattempted.
Verbal : 33 with 12 questions wrong.

My question is that can we really bank on this score as it does not seems to reflect the realy GMAT score logic.

I also found that 98% of the questions in quants were of 700-800 level and same was the case in verbal too.

Do we get the same kind of toughness level in real GMAT.

I want to purchase the MGMAt test but little confused that whether they reflect my realy capabilities or not?

[StaceyKoprince]

What you received exactly reflects the way the real GMAT works.

You must have been scoring extremely well on the quant to receive a 670 overall even though you had 8 questions left blank at the end. Questions left blank result in a SEVERE penalty, so that pulled your score down at the end. That matches your observation that most of your quant questions were 700+; you were scoring very highly and then your score got pulled down at the end because of all of the blank questions.

DO NOT leave questions blank in future. If nothing else, guess randomly. Even if you get them all wrong, the penalty is not as high as it is for leaving the questions blank. Also, FYI, the other thing you want to avoid is a string of wrong answers in a row. 4+ wrong answers in a row incur the second-highest per-question penalty (blank questions incur the highest per-question penalty).

Ideally, you want to make educated guesses as you move through the test. The test is not just asking whether you can do the question sitting in front of you, but whether you can do that question in 2 minutes. If you can't, then you shouldn't keep spending extra time on that question, because you'll run out of time at the end, and the penalty at the end will be more severe than the points you gained by spending a ton of time getting one earlier question right.

Ditto on verbal - the scoring works the same way. It's important to understand how the scoring works; otherwise, you're not going to be able to do what you need to do in order to maximize your score.

The good news is that you scored a 670 even with the major timing handicap. If you can fix this problem, you should be able to score in the 700s.

[sharma16.ash]

What you received exactly reflects the way the real GMAT works.

You must have been scoring extremely well on the quant to receive a 670 overall even though you had 8 questions left blank at the end. Questions left blank result in a SEVERE penalty, so that pulled your score down at the end. That matches your observation that most of your quant questions were 700+; you were scoring very highly and then your score got pulled down at the end because of all of the blank questions.

DO NOT leave questions blank in future. If nothing else, guess randomly. Even if you get them all wrong, the penalty is not as high as it is for leaving the questions blank. Also, FYI, the other thing you want to avoid is a string of wrong answers in a row. 4+ wrong answers in a row incur the second-highest per-question penalty (blank questions incur the highest per-question penalty).

Ideally, you want to make educated guesses as you move through the test. The test is not just asking whether you can do the question sitting in front of you, but whether you can do that question in 2 minutes. If you can't, then you shouldn't keep spending extra time on that question, because you'll run out of time at the end, and the penalty at the end will be more severe than the points you gained by spending a ton of time getting one earlier question right.

Ditto on verbal - the scoring works the same way. It's important to understand how the scoring works; otherwise, you're not going to be able to do what you need to do in order to maximize your score.

The good news is that you scored a 670 even with the major timing handicap. If you can fix this problem, you should be able to score in the 700s.

Thanks Stacey for generating such a positive feeling in me. I really appreciate you kind and detailed response. I was not aware of the fact that unanswered question invites such as harsh penalty.

Now I am prepared to give the MGMAT test exams which I have purchased yesterday only. Can you advice me the best approach to give these exams so that I can improve my weaknesses. My G-day is on 6th October so I have only 1 month with me. Can you suggest some daily schedule so that I can improve on my weak points and score high on my G-day.

Lastly thanks to you and your team who are doing a really good job by enlightening all the GMAT takers with your positive and productive thoughts.

Thanks
Ash

[mitul1982]

Dear Stacey,

I just took the free MGAMT CAT test. I scored a 680. Below is the breakup of the sections.

Quant: 47, 81% - 15 Incorrect
Verbal: 37. 81% - 19 Incorrect
FINAL SCORE: 680, 90%

In Math and Verbal, just once i got a string of 4 questions wrong.

Do be honest, I have had a tough time with the GMAT in the past. I really would like to know what does a score of 680 on the MGMAT really means?

I know it is difficult for you to answer this question, but i would really like to know that if i had performed similarly on the actual GMAT with a slight difference here and there, How much do you think i would score?

If you atleast provide a range, I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT.

THanks,

[StaceyKoprince]

Answering ash's post first:

CAT exams are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve.

I don't recommend taking a test more than once a week - and, earlier in the process, I only recommend taking tests every 2 to 3 weeks. You're at the point now where you can do once a week, but know that just taking the tests is not how you're going to improve.

You'll need to do a lot of work between tests to (a) improve your timing, (b) fix any holes in your content knowledge (quant and grammar), and (c) get better at the general methodology of answering the different types of GMAT questions.

Those things will generally require additional resources, such as:
1) Official Guide books (for real GMAT practice problems)
2) GMAT Focus (www.gmatfocus.com) for additional quant practice, especially with timing
3) test prep books for any specific areas of weakness (you'd need to identify the areas of weakness based on your practice tests and then find the appropriate books to teach you what you need to know - eg, if SC is a weakness, then you'd need to find a book that teaches you specifically what you need to know with respect to grammar, as well as the best way to approach GMAT-format SC questions)

So figure out what additional resources you think you'll need (you can run the assessment reports on your first test to look at your strengths and weaknesses), get those resources, and set up a study plan. Good luck - let us know how things go!

[sharma16.ash]

Answering ash's post first:

CAT exams are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve.

I don't recommend taking a test more than once a week - and, earlier in the process, I only recommend taking tests every 2 to 3 weeks. You're at the point now where you can do once a week, but know that just taking the tests is not how you're going to improve.

You'll need to do a lot of work between tests to (a) improve your timing, (b) fix any holes in your content knowledge (quant and grammar), and (c) get better at the general methodology of answering the different types of GMAT questions.

Those things will generally require additional resources, such as:
1) Official Guide books (for real GMAT practice problems)
2) GMAT Focus (http://www.gmatfocus.com) for additional quant practice, especially with timing
3) test prep books for any specific areas of weakness (you'd need to identify the areas of weakness based on your practice tests and then find the appropriate books to teach you what you need to know - eg, if SC is a weakness, then you'd need to find a book that teaches you specifically what you need to know with respect to grammar, as well as the best way to approach GMAT-format SC questions)

So figure out what additional resources you think you'll need (you can run the assessment reports on your first test to look at your strengths and weaknesses), get those resources, and set up a study plan. Good luck - let us know how things go!

Thanks Stacey as always..

I have purchased MGMAT test, and two days ago gave the first MGMAT test with following score:

Quants 47 ( 28 Right,6 Wrong (2 wild guesses) , 3 unattempted).
Verbal 35 ( 25 Right, 16 wrong)

Score: 700..

I am confused with my performance with MGMAT tests. How can one score 700 with so many wrong answers and 3 unattempted questions.

My take away from the test were :

1. Improvement in speed in quants as i left 3 questions this time as compared to 8 last time.
2. I found RC is one of my weakness as a result i bought MGMAT RC book also, I am practising it daily.

But still there are some gray areas where i need to work on like in some quants questions i have spent more than 4 minutes and still got them wrong. what approach do you recommend for that.

And as you said that "get better at the general methodology of answering the different types of GMAT questions". How can i learn this approach, i mean offcourse it comes with practising more and more questions but what should be my approach to improve methodology to answer the questions. I would really like to know that.

Since i am short of time now, I have to finish the remaining MGAMT tests thats why i have to give 2 MGMAT test per week and after that i am planning to give GMATprep test one week before the exam.

Finally thanks for you good assessment of my scores and suggestions you provide.

[StaceyKoprince]

You had very few wrong answers on the quant, actually - unusually so. Most of the time, people only get between about 50% and 70% of the questions right, regardless of scoring level. So the fact that you scored a 47 on quant even after 3 unanswered questions means that you were scoring VERY highly on the quant - and that is backed up by the fact that you had only 6 wrong answers for the ones you did answer.

That's just the way the test works. Scores are not strongly correlated to the percentage correct; rather, they are most strongly correlated with the difficulty levels of the questions you get right vs. wrong. As a result, EVERYbody gets lots of questions wrong, even at a very high scoring level - many more questions wrong than you would expect on a regular, paper-based test.

I'm glad you've improved your timing on the quant - keep working at it. In future, NEVER leave anything blank. Guess randomly if you have to, just to fill in the last three (or however many). The penalty for a blank question is always higher than the penalty for a wrong question. In addition, if a particular question was scheduled to be an experimental question and you leave it blank, you get the same penalty as if it were a question that was supposed to count. If you answer it randomly and get it wrong, though, then you have no penalty!

For quant questions on which you spend more than 4 minutes and still get them wrong, you should get them wrong in 2 minutes instead. I'm completely serious. You should not expect to get everything right. You should only expect to be able to recognize when the test has given you something that's too hard, and then you should let go before you've lost time on that problem.

Ideally, on a "too hard" problem, you recognize that by the halfway mark (1min on quant) and then you spend some or all of the 2nd half eliminating wrong answers before you guess. (This is called making an educated guess and it improves your odds of guessing right.) But you should also not be disappointed at all if you still get that one wrong, even with an educated guess. Think about what's going on: the test just gave you a problem that's way too hard for you. Do you really want to get it right? You're just going to get an even harder question! Forget that! :)

For most people, improving methodology means (a) studying from GMAT test prep-specific materials (so not OG stuff, but stuff from a test-prep company) and maybe taking a GMAT class, and (b) constantly asking yourself "what problems have I seen in the past that were similar to this one in some way, and what was the best way to do those past problems? Are there any other, better ways to approach something like this?"

Re: practice tests, I will repeat what I said before, with emphasis added:

CAT exams are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve.

Do NOT make the mistake of thinking you have to "finish" the tests just for the sake of finishing them. If something isn't that useful, then you shouldn't be doing it, period. I would FAR rather have you take only 1 test per week but use the test results to define your study plan (and then go do that study) before taking another test.

If an analogy helps, think of tennis (or insert your favorite sport here). When you're watching professionals play a match, they are not learning much WHILE they are playing that match. They are DOING, not learning - just doing everything that they learned / planned before the match started. The learning comes afterward, when a player watches a tape of the match with his/her coach and discusses what went well, what needs to change before the next match, etc. The learning also comes during the practice the player does before the next match. When the next match rolls around, the player is back to doing, not learning or practicing.

The tennis matches, in the above analogy, are the GMAT practice tests.

[arorasudhanshu]

Hi Stacy,

I have just taken the Gmatprep test of manhattan series.( Not Prepared )

I have got the following score

TYPE SCORE ESTIMATED PERCENTILE RANK
Quantitative 36 48 %
Verbal 29 56 %
Total 540 50 %

I got 5 wrongs in a row for verbal.(all 600-700 ones)

Any advices on the strategy to reach the goal?

Cheers!
Sud

[StaceyKoprince]

I responded to your question in the separate thread in which you posted the same post. As a general rule, please only post once - don't copy and paste an identical post multiple times. Thanks!