Quant vs Verbal

[Saurav]

hi,

I have taken a 3 test by this time. My questions are as follows:

1. Are the Quant questions slightly tougher than those to be expected in the GMAT
2. I have read through one of the posts, that getting a good score in verbal section improves the chances of breaking 700 mark. Can you advise on the minimum number of questions to get correct considering the fact that average percentile in the Quant section is 80% +. I know this is a bit of working backwards, and that cannot be held as a guarantee, but I am looking for some numbers based on the way MGAMT tests have been designed.

thanks for your help.

[StaceyKoprince]

I have had some students tell me that they think our quant is harder than the quant on the real test. The primary reason is this, I think: we don't have experimental questions on our tests. The official test does. Experimental questions can come at any difficulty level, so if you are a higher-scoring quant student, then you will get some easy (for you) questions on the official test, because you will have some lower-level experimental questions. You don't get those little "mental breaks" on our tests, so ours feel harder.

We do also have some questions that are a bit too convoluted / computation-intensive, so that contributes to the feeling as well.

The test is not scored based on percentage correct. I can tell you that, at about the 700 level, you'd get about 60% of the questions right. But I'd tell you the exact same percentage if you asked me about the 600 level or the 500 level, so that data really tells you nothing at all. The idea is that you are going to get (roughly) the same percentage correct no matter what - the difference between test-takers is in the difficulty levels of the specific questions they're answering.

The verbal section is weighted more heavily in the overall score than the quant section, but we don't know by exactly how much, because the test makers don't release that data.

[Saurav]

Thanks for your thoughts Stacey.

I just finished another CAT (CAT 3) and have scores from 4 tests.

CAT-1 Q-45, V-34, O-650

CAT-2 Q-47, V-31, O-640

CAT-3 Q-50, V-32, O-660

Nearly constant scores in Verbal, and with even a score of 50 in Quant I could go upto 660. 700 will be a miracle !

If you have any suggestions on test taking strategies do drop a note.

I will be grateful, if you could give some pointers on essay-writing.

[StaceyKoprince]

There are all kinds of test-taking strategies - just depends on the situation. :)

In general, if you're trying to improve your verbal, here's something to try (in addition to the "normal" stuff). For any problem you study, be able to articulate:
- specifically why each wrong answer is wrong
- which wrong answer is the most tempting and why
- how to recognize that the tempting wrong answer is still wrong anyway so you can eliminate it
- why someone might be tempted to eliminate the right answer

Re: the essays, I'd be glad to provide some general advice in the essay folder. Please post a question over there (note: we don't analyze or score essays that you write, but we do discuss essay issues in general).