Relationship between raw score and % correct

[GregT702]

Hi,

What percent of questions does one have to get correct in order to receive a perfect score on either section? Also, I was wondering if there was a general guideline for the relationship between raw score and percent correct (i.e. 51=x% correct, 49=y%, 45=z%).

I know that if you get multiple answer wrong in a row then your score gets hurt more than if you get the same number of questions wrong spread out throughout the section but my intuition tells me that there must be a significantly positive correlation between the two.

Any guidance on this topic would significantly help me when I study for the test and when I take the test (bc of the time management aspect).

Thanks,
GregT702

[StaceyKoprince]

Here's the relationship: at almost every scoring level, you will answer approximately 60% of the questions correctly. (This only skews a bit higher or lower at the extreme ends of the scoring scale.)

Percent correct is not what determines your score. That's how paper-based tests worked in school, but that's not how an adaptive test works. Instead of giving everyone the same questions and then distinguishing based on how many they get right (paper-based approach), an adaptive test actually changes the test itself: everyone sees a different mix of questions that is designed to find your upper and lower limits. You can almost think of it as the test trying to find your "60% level."

This is why, if you get a string of wrong answers in a row, it hurts your score more - because you are offered new questions based on your scoring level to date. So if you get a bunch wrong in a row, that puts you way down, and now you're seeing lower-level questions that you wouldn't have been offered in the first place if your performance were kept more steadily higher, with a more up-and-down pattern. And now you have to dig yourself out of that low position. By the end of the test, you will have had a greater percentage of your questions at that lower level, so your overall "60% level" is dragged down.

And, of course, most people who are having timing problems have those problems at the end of the section. In other words, your score drops and then the test is over: there's no time to dig yourself back out of that hole. The double-whammy of timing problems.

So what does this mean? However you were thinking of using this data, this isn't the approach to getting a better GMAT score, since that's not how the test works. Your task is to be able to identify and classify questions rapidly: I can definitely do this; I think I can do this but I'll cut myself off if it doesn't come together; I can do this but it's going to take way too long, so I'm just going to guess; I can see a way to make an educated guess (and it's too hard or will take too long otherwise) so I'll make the educated guess; I can't do this and don't even know how to guess so I'll pick my favorite latter and move on.

What's your favorite letter: A, B, C, D, or E?

If you don't have an instant response to that, you're not ready to take the test yet. Not just because you haven't actually picked a letter, but because your mindset is still too far towards the old-school "I have to get everything right" mentality and not enough towards the business-school "I'm making a series of investment decisions to the best of my ability, given current circumstances and available resources (time and mental energy, in this case)."

Some follow-up reading:
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -to-do-it/
http://tinyurl.com/GMATTimeManagement

Thoughts?