Three 700-800 questions in first five quant problems?

[free2bloom2002]

Hi! I'm in need of some advice...

I've taken the first five CAT MGMAT's plus the 1st one again after recalibrating. On my last 6 exams my quant scores have been as follows (I'm only discussing quant because my verbal scores have been okay):

CAT 4 (quant) 24
CAT 5 (quant) 32
CAT 6 (quant) 31
CAT 1A (quant) 37
CAT 2A (quant) 19 (what!)

Obviously I have a ways to go in my prep with scores like these - but I was shocked to see after making progress, my CAT2A score go all the way down to a 19. I looked over my results and noticed three 700-800 questions within the first five questions. This seems to be the opposite problem others are having with not having enough 700-800's.

I am wondering if this is normal or an error in the way the MGMAT is pulling questions?

The first question was a 500-600 which I answered correctly but then questions 2 through 5 were a series of 700-800 questions - even after I missed the first two in this difficulty level, I got another one! This was followed by several of 500-600 questions which I got wrong because I got so many difficult questions right away, I think I got drained.

I am really discouraged by this terrible quant score after I really thought I was going to continue my upward trajectory considering how much I had studied the MGMAT guides since my last exam a week ago.

Could you please give me some advice as to whether this was just a fluke in the way the system was pulling questions from the bank or is it normal to see consecutive 700-800's right away even after getting them wrong? There were five 700-800 questions total on that exam and I wound up with a 19 quant score. I feel terrible that I thought I was maintaining above a 30 only to receive such a terrible score (my verbal was a 33, so I really just want to work on quant for now). I feel really discouraged.

I went through my old exams and noticed only one or two 700-800 level questions.

Any advice you could give me would be most appreciated! Thank you!

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, this can happen - the algorithm has quite a lot of leeway in what questions it picks next, as it has to hit a number of parameters (difficulty level is only one component).

Just those 5 questions alone, though, couldn't have caused that entire score drop, so we need to figure out what happened.

I'm going to make one guess. Did you spend way too much time on those (and possibly some others), and then have to work more quickly on others to catch up - and then either made some careless mistakes on lower-level questions or had a string of questions wrong in a row at the end because you were running out of time or anything like that?

Alternatively, did you get behind at one point, then speed up to catch up... but just keep going fast through the end of the section, even though you could have slowed down again? That would cause lots of careless mistakes.

So you may have been maintaining a 30+ score for some of the exam, but this exam is a "where you end is what you get" exam - so if you drop by the end of the section, that's your score.

Since there are at least some timing issues going on, read these (in order):
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

Then use the below to analyze your test:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Then come back here and tell us the results of your analysis and what you think you should do based on that analysis. We'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)