What is the "target" correct answers to get ~700?

[weishao]

First off I understand the adaptive part of the exam so the number of answers one can get right/wrong varies... But is there a ballpark that i need to get right to get ~700? I took a CAT recently and got 3 quant wrong (17,18,37) which resulted in a 47 and got 11 verbal wrong which resulted in a 28. I took a test before and got 10 wrong for math and still got a 47 and 9 wrong for verbal to get a 32. My quant seem to be steady in the 47-48 range and i know i need to improve on verbal.... What is the absolute minimum i need to get right on verbal to get a score ~700 assuming i get a 47/48 on quant again?

thanks!

[weishao]

someone also told me that getting consecutive questions wrong is very damaging... is that true?

[StaceyKoprince]

To score about 700, you need to get about 60% of the questions right. (This is also true for 600. This is also true for 500. Get the picture? :)

When you get up to about 720 or so, then you need to get more right - maybe 70 to 80%.

So, the percentage correct doesn't change a whole lot, and there's also no absolute minimum number of correct answers - that's just not how the test is scored. What changes is the difficulty level of the questions you're getting right vs. wrong. Also, because of the way the scoring works, strings of wrong answers can be very harmful to your score. A string is 4+ questions wrong in a row. Getting two wrong in a row is not a big deal - in fact, that's going to happen to pretty much everybody.

Basically, this is what you want to do:
- get everything or almost everything right that is "lower level" for you (that is, don't make careless mistake on things you should be able to get right easily)
- do very well on the questions that are in your "top range" (things that you usually, but not always, get right - no more than a couple of careless mistakes on these)
- don't lose time on any questions, especially those that are really too hard for you anyway
- don't put yourself in a position to get 4+ wrong in a row, which basically means don't put yourself in a "rush" position due to time pressure or nerves

[weishao]

Stacey,
so basically even if i get 90% of the questions right (in the 3 wrong out of 37 test) if the questions i got wrong on are the difficult ones i will actually lose more points than when i had like 11 questions wrong? Naturally there's no way i can control the right/wrong of the questions (besides doing them as best as i can) so basically i just have to "hope" the ones i got wrong on are not too hard?

the 60% right does surprise me quite a bit... i was expecting very high percentage corrects but then again like you said questions are weighted differently...

[StaceyKoprince]

On the real test, unless you score in the 99th percentile in one section, you're not going to get 90% right in that section. :) They'll just keep giving you stuff that's even harder till you can't do it (at least, not in the given timeframe).

Basically, you can't worry at all about difficulty level or percentage correct because you know absolutely nothing about those two things will answering a question / taking a test. Overall percentage correct / # wrong is so unimportant that I don't even calculate that for myself or for my students when reviewing tests. (I do look at # wrong in different categories, though, to identify the weaker areas.)

What you have to do is:
- make sure that your foundation is strong across ALL areas of the test; if you're really strong in certain areas but a lot weaker in others... well, those weaker areas will cause you to get lower-level questions wrong and your score will drop
- make sure that you manage your time steadily across the test; if you run out of time or mismanage your time badly enough, you'll have strings of wrong answers in a row and that will kill your score
- set up systems to avoid careless mistakes; every time you make a careless mistake in practice, figure out why you made the mistake and what habit you can make or break to avoid making that same careless mistake in future; this will ensure that you don't lose too many points on questions you actually do know how to do

[tobias-m.schulz]

First off I understand the adaptive part of the exam so the number of answers one can get right/wrong varies... But is there a ballpark that i need to get right to get ~700? I took a CAT recently and got 3 quant wrong (17,18,37) which resulted in a 47 and got 11 verbal wrong which resulted in a 28. I took a test before and got 10 wrong for math and still got a 47 and 9 wrong for verbal to get a 32. My quant seem to be steady in the 47-48 range and i know i need to improve on verbal.... What is the absolute minimum i need to get right on verbal to get a score ~700 assuming i get a 47/48 on quant again?

thanks!

Wow, you got only 3 Quant Q's wrong and scored only 47???? I almost every time had around 17 Q#s wrong and also had 47!!!! Considering, that only 3 were wrong, it can't be that I had more hard q's than you what might justify that score....

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm guessing that the discrepancy has to do with WHICH test was taken, actually. Possibly, the other student took a test with an algorithm that doesn't match the real test's algorithm very closely - that mix really doesn't sound like the GMAT.

weishao, if you see this, could you let us know what test you took on which you got 3 wrong and earned a 47?

[hardiksanghavi90]

Hi Stacey, I gave a GMAT Prep mock recently and score a 49 in Quant.

I had 5 questions wrong, fairly spread out. Also first 15 and last 7-8 questions all correct.

I was fairly surprised and dejected at getting a 49 and am aiming for a 51 ideally. Is this to be expected of the actual test? I had the feeling that I was getting fairly hard questions which I was getting right, but still ended up with a 49.

PS: I goofed up on one silly-easy question, and guessed on the other 4, one of which was of easy-to-moderate difficulty.

What I am trying to deduce is, is the margin for error between at least a 50 and a 49 so low on the actual test?

[StaceyKoprince]

My guess is no. The algorithm used on GMATPrep is not exactly the algorithm used on the official test (since they don't publicly release the official algorithm). In addition, the pool of questions in GMATPrep is narrower, and that can lead to "harsher" scoring at the extreme ends of the scoring scale.

At the same time, if you're going to get a perfect score of 51, you can't expect to get many (and possibly not any) easy questions wrong. (And that makes sense, right? Someone earning a perfect score shouldn't miss easy ones.)

Still, you did earn a 49, which means that you are a candidate to earn a 51.

So what can you do to prevent that careless mistake in future? And for the ones on which you guessed: in hindsight, did you make the best decisions about which ones to skip? That easy-to-moderate: did you know how to do it but just didn't realize it during the stress of the test? What can you do not to overlook it next time? Why did it initially look too hard?

Or did you not know how to do it / was it a hole in your foundation? What do you need to do in order to be able to answer a question like that one next time?