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

How do you know whether knewton cat scoring is accurate or not? Better attempt GMAT to decide whether to be worried or not.

ah... i think you are right on that one. the last quant i got 47 on i had 10+ questions wrong but i dont think any 2 were consecutive while the most recent one with 3 wrong i had 2 consecutive wrongs. I am not sure why that is though since wouldnt getting 2 right after 2 wrong bring me back to the original level or i lose more than i gain? Well if that is the case then i cant really do anything about it...

someone from mgmat told me this:

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


so basically i just have to try to get everything right since it is impossible to know which i got wrong (unless i did some serious guessing..)... still interesting to know though

Glad to see someone sailing pretty much in the same boat as I did a couple of months ago. That was my last week of prep before the big day and I was under a severe panic attack. I could manage my quants well above 47 always, which I did on the test day too but verbals weren't willing to rise above the highest ever 35 on my graphs. I changed my strategy since then.

Reading a question, understanding it's content and intent, identifying the trap, and approaching the correct solution in a timely manner is an art. If you have mastered it, you are in the groove, and the sad part, nobody can teach it to you. You have to figure it out all by yourselves. It's like a soul-search.

Interesting topics here.

how did you do?

I know i am getting better at SC than before - i am more active in noticing errors and getting down to 2 choices. However, my RC is still OK. RC is still dependent on the passage - if it is boring or too statistical i do horrible, but if it is interesting i do very well. CR i know my weakness is sometimes i let "outside" info in answer choice affect me. My highest verbal thus far is 32 - that was with 9 wrong and i though i couldve done better....

My Question will be some kind offtop, but i have taken on 4. March the Kaplan free Gmat Sample test. And i think that the Questions there was preety easy. Could anybody comment this? Are the Questions by Kaplan something like a real GMAT?
I ll be really glad to become an answer)

Hi Lindsy,

Our tests are adaptive, and are pretty close to the real thing. However, we've just instituted some minor mathematical alterations to our scoring algorithm, which will hopefully be even more accurate in the future!

Apologize for the delayed response.

I consider my first attempt at GMAT a disaster. 650 is nevertheless not really bad, it is just average and I don't want to be just an average. I went into a hibernation mode, did some thinking and soul-searching and figured out my weakness. I am just good at simple and basic quant. When I see a problem, I already know what is given, what is needed, and quickly devise how to get there. It just comes naturally, out of sustained practise since I was a kid. I decided to employ the same technique to verbal as well. MGMAT SC and powerscore CR were very very helpful. They teach us to look at a question in exactly the same mode above, what is given and what is needed. However, to develop a habit out of it takes a lot of time and a lot of grueling practise.

I am still in the practise mode as of now. Been constantly taking practise questions, haven't noticed an alarmingly upbeat improvement yet, satisfied that I have learned something in the way and my ability to analyze a verbal question has changed dramatically. I'd suggest, make it your aim to try and get every question right. And that is possible only when you master the above strategy, which I repeat again, know what is given, know what is asked and quickly devise how to get there.

Thanks for the heady discussion.

We here at Knewton take great pride in the accuracy of our CATs. The original designers of the GMAT algorithm built our CATs. That is not marketing speak, it is simply a fact.

We are super anal about data and reporting -- and we work very diligently to give students the most test-like experience out there.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns,
Josh