Why wasn't my MGMAT test score higher?

[OmarK839]

Hello-

I just took my second practice test yesterday. While my score overall improved from a 580 (Q39 V31) to 620 (Q39 V36), I was hoping for an improvement in my math score- as that is all I have studied over the past 2 weeks!

So onto my question: When I compare my quant performance from the two tests (link below) - the difficulty of my correct and incorrect questions increased dramatically, but I was scored Q39 on both tests (DS accuracy stayed the same and PS accuracy fell by 3 questions.).

For PS/DS my correct question difficulty went from 500-600 to 700+ and my incorrect difficulty increased from 660 to 700-730.

I am wondering how my score stayed at Q39 for both tests- I'm trying to better understand how the GMAT is scored.

Thanks!

Link to test performance:
http://imgur.com/a/5UaOM

[OmarK839]

Bump- is this in the correct forum?

[StaceyKoprince]

Please remember to read the forum guidelines before posting. Please don't "bump" your own post. We respond to all posts in order, oldest first, and the date of your post is based on the date of the last post in the thread, not the first. If you bump your own post, you will wait longer for a response. (Also, just FYI: it is quite common to wait 5 business days for a response. We get a lot of traffic.)

Okay, on to your question! The short answer is that the scoring algorithm is very complicated and it's not based on any kind of "average" of your performance or your difficulty level earned across the section. It's basically unlike any test you've taken before, so it really doesn't make logical sense.

First, think of the GMAT as a "where you end is what you get" test. You can lift your score to the 99th percentile but if, by the last question, you've dropped down to the 50th percentile, then your score will be 50th percentile. It won't be some score in between 99th and 50th. This is why you could lift your overall average difficulty level and yet get the same score (or an even lower one!).

So I'm going to speculate that this was at least part of what was going on. Go into your test results and look at the problem list. The right-most column shows your score trajectory throughout the section. Is that what happened - you lift high earlier on but then you dropped by the end of the section?

If so, then there are some things to learn about how to maintain a steadier performance across the entire section. A lot of times, what happens is this: you're doing well and get some hard ones right, and then get even harder ones, and then spend too much time, and then have to rush towards the end...and where you end is what you get. Better to let some of those really hard / long ones go in the middle so that you can maintain higher overall performance all the way to the end.

Assuming that I'm right read this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

and this (with special attention to sections 4 and 5):
http://tinyurl.com/GMATTimeManagement

and this series:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/09/ ... gmat-quant

Aside: I know you weren't working on verbal, but yay! It went up 5 points! Take it!

[OmarK839]

delete

[OmarK839]

Please remember to read the forum guidelines before posting. Please don't "bump" your own post. We respond to all posts in order, oldest first, and the date of your post is based on the date of the last post in the thread, not the first. If you bump your own post, you will wait longer for a response. (Also, just FYI: it is quite common to wait 5 business days for a response. We get a lot of traffic.)

Okay, on to your question! The short answer is that the scoring algorithm is very complicated and it's not based on any kind of "average" of your performance or your difficulty level earned across the section. It's basically unlike any test you've taken before, so it really doesn't make logical sense.

First, think of the GMAT as a "where you end is what you get" test. You can lift your score to the 99th percentile but if, by the last question, you've dropped down to the 50th percentile, then your score will be 50th percentile. It won't be some score in between 99th and 50th. This is why you could lift your overall average difficulty level and yet get the same score (or an even lower one!).

So I'm going to speculate that this was at least part of what was going on. Go into your test results and look at the problem list. The right-most column shows your score trajectory throughout the section. Is that what happened - you lift high earlier on but then you dropped by the end of the section?

If so, then there are some things to learn about how to maintain a steadier performance across the entire section. A lot of times, what happens is this: you're doing well and get some hard ones right, and then get even harder ones, and then spend too much time, and then have to rush towards the end...and where you end is what you get. Better to let some of those really hard / long ones go in the middle so that you can maintain higher overall performance all the way to the end.

Assuming that I'm right read this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

and this (with special attention to sections 4 and 5):
http://tinyurl.com/GMATTimeManagement

and this series:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/09/ ... gmat-quant

Aside: I know you weren't working on verbal, but yay! It went up 5 points! Take it!

Got it, thank you. After reviewing my test, it looks like I missed 7 of my last 9 questions. That must have been it.

For the percentile estimate for questions- does that correspond to the numerical score (i.e. if a question is in the 43%, that corresponds roughly to a Q39, which is the 43% for quant) or does it refer to something else?

[StaceyKoprince]

Yep, missing 7 of 9 at the end will definitely do it. Glad we figured out the problem! So let me know if you have any questions about the resources I posted last time (and let me know how it goes).

Yes, you can think of that percentile score as roughly "if this were the end of the test right NOW, this would be my score."