4 days to GMAT and GMAT Prep Exam Pack 1 scores

Question

Hi,

Had attempted GMAT on Nov 1 and had a low score of 620. Focused a bit more on verbal and took help of e-GMAT verbal online. Purchased GMAT Question Pack 1 from GMAC for practice to get used to more official questions as well.

Had taken GMAT prep exam 1 and 2 a lot of times so purchased GMAT Exam Pack 1 and finished both of them in last couple of days. I did the exams in actual test conditions with IR and AWA and correct breaks.

My scores are:

GMAT Prep 3 - 720 (Q50, V38)
GMAT Prep 4- 740 (Q49, V41)

How accurate are these scores and the exams in terms of actual difficulty.

Best Regards

dabral · Answer

Those are excellent scores. GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 is pretty accurate, at least I see a strong correlation between Exam Pack 1 scores and the official scores that my students end up receiving. I would say plus or minus 20 points.

You are all set for the exam. Take good rest and get some solid sleep, and also get some exercise. Best wishes.

Dabral

You are all set for the exam. Take good rest and get some solid sleep, and also get some exercise. Best wishes.

Dabral

maheshcet · Answer

dabral Thanks a lot for the information. I have already stopped my preparations and in the rest phase. Now fingers crossed..! :-D

gtbmed · Answer

My Exam Pack 1 experience has been rather odd. For the free exams (1 and 2), I got 710 on each (48Q 40V and 44Q 42V respectively).

On Exam Pack 1 I got 730 (47Q 42V) and I just took Exam 4 and got 690 (43Q 41V).

Now for exam 4 I will say that there were many more distractions in the library today. I have woman behind me who insists on using her computer with volume turned up, makes loud phone calls with customer service, and is still making a weird grunting sound, and a guy who feels the best way to communicate is yelling at the person 2 feet from him. I also got fewer total answers wrong during Exam 4. Weirdly, I also had two of the almost exact same CR question back to back in Exam 4 (37 and 38) with the only differences being one answer choice and a slight wording change (but no meaning change) to the passage. I saw an unusual number of Inference questions.

After Exam 3 I saw my SC was the only thing I missed on VR. 4 days later on Exam 4 it's my CR (flawless on Exam 3) that's weak. On QR I saw more Standard Deviation questions than in any of the previous tests (at least 4). Two of these were very similar DS questions with different subjects but the same 1) and 2) data. Overall, the distribution of questions on Exam 4 felt very different and, I don't know how to describe the feeling exactly but, unbalanced. Also something weird has happened in the library for the even numbered exams.

I'm taking my test on Friday January 30th. I'm reviewing my responses later today to see what mistakes I made and doing some last minute review, but this last test seems weird. Let us know how your actual test came out

Prep Info:
Manhattan GMAT Books (Got laid off and moved in with the parents, no money for a class)
GMAT Clarity as a Lesson Plan
Diagnostic (GMATPrep 1) - 700 (scores on another computer)
GMATPrep 1 710 (48Q 40V IR7)
GMATPrep 2 710 (44Q 42V IR8)
GMATPrep 3 730 (47Q 42V IR8)
GMATPrep 4 690 (43Q 41V IR8)

Prep Info: Manhattan GMAT Books (Got laid off and moved in with the parents, no money for a class) GMAT Clarity as a Lesson Plan Diagnostic (GMATPrep 1) - 700 (scores on another computer) GMATPrep 1 710 (48Q 40V IR7) GMATPrep 2 710 (44Q 42V IR8) GMATPrep 3 730 (47Q 42V IR8) GMATPrep 4 690 (43Q 41V IR8)

dabral · Answer

gtbmed 
On possibility is that you may have missed a bunch of easy questions in the quant section of Exam 4, that can drastically bring down your score. Your verbal score is about the same.

The difficulty level of the quant questions in Exam 3 is much higher than that of Exam 4. The final score does take the difficulty in to account when it comes to scoring, meaning you can miss a lot more questions in Exam 3 than Exam 4, and still end up with the same score. This kind of variation will happen in the real exam. This means that you just have to take a deep breath and do your best. It is easy to screw your timing if one is thrown hard questions as in Exam 3, but you have to be ready to cut your losses if there are questions that you are not making any headway.

Best wishes for the exam,
Dabral

gtbmed · Answer

Thanks dabral

I went through my problems and had two dumb mistakes near the beginning that dropped me down at the beginning and made some bad units mistakes on some problems in the middle. Those seemed to keep me lower. Plus I couldn't seem to figure out an addition table near the end (I've never seen one of these before), but kicked myself after figuring it out after. Anyway, I'm spending today working on my attention to detail in the problems and my guessing strategy (as you said, just cut my losses).

Thanks Again,

John

Onthemove · Answer

Hi, Need some help interpreting verbal scores on GMAT PT's 1,2,3 &4.  dabral  ,  OfficialGMAT  or any one else who is familiar with the material, could you help me with this please.

Verbal Break-ups:

PT 1:
Verbal Score - 45. CR - 42, RC-45, SC-47. 
Incorrect Questions: 6

PT 2:
Verbal Score - 42. CR - 39, RC-51, SC-41. 
Incorrect Questions: 6

PT 3:
Verbal Score - 42. CR - 42, RC-42, SC-42. 
Incorrect Questions: 7

PT 4: 
Verbal Score - 39. CR - 39. RC-35. SC-41. 
Incorrect Questions: 6

As you can see there is a serious discrepancy in Exam 4 versus Exam 1,2,3. 
I know the number of questions you get incorrect is not always going to get you the same scaled score but the score difference appears to be much larger than normal. The questions I was answering seemed just as difficult in Exam 4 as compared to Exams 1,2,3. I did a Veritas Prep exam also a week or two ago, got 16 questions wrong for a verbal score of 38(know its not official but its CAT and slightly similar).

Anyone who can shed some light or has had similar experiences please feel free to share also. Thanks.

Onthemove · Answer

Just to add to the above post, in case it may help, in Exam 4 out of the 6 questions that I answered incorrectly, break-up is 2 each for SC,CR, RC.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Onthemove,

Your Verbal Scaled Scores on all of these practice CATs are fantastic, so assuming that you took the Exams in a realistic and 'test-like' fashion, then you certainly appear ready to face the Verbal section of the Official GMAT.

The GMAT scoring algorithm is far more complicated than most people realize, so unfortunately counting up the number of incorrect answers isn't going to get you the information that you're looking for about your Scaled Scores. There are a number of factors that go into those scores, including the relative 'positions' of your correct and incorrect answers, the difficulty level, whether you're expected to get the question correct or not, whether the question even counts or not (some questions are experimental and are worth 0), the "strings" of answers, if you don't answer questions at the end, etc.

When reviewing these questions, were you able to determine WHY you got them wrong? Were any of them "coin flips" (meaning you narrowed the answers down to 2 choices, but 'guessed' wrong)? Were any of them just too hard? Were any of them due to little mistakes?

One other thing to consider is your overall pacing. Do you finish the Verbal section early? Are you rushing through questions at the end because you "just want the Test to be over"? At this scoring level, the GMAT becomes really "sensitive" to little mistakes, so a few questions correct or incorrect can skew the Scaled Score. If you have any extra time at the end, then you COULD slow down a bit and put a bit more time into the handful of questions that give you any trouble.

When are you planning to take the Official GMAT?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Onthemove · Answer

Hi,

Your reasoning makes sense. yes im taking the tests in exam mode ( fu exam including ir awa, 8 min breaks etc) 
Verbal pacing is good, exam 4 I had 5 mins left for my last two. I normally do sc quick, rc once I've red the passage I end up getting the questions right quit fast (less than 2 mins on avg), only takes time when I'm not sure.
The incorrect questions were coin flips in most cases as they were difficult. - one reading comp was a passage on phocids seals fasting foraging - it was quite dense. The sc was very hard as well.. This is why I find the score a bit strange. In any case,
I don't look too much in to the score, rather on how im doing on time etc. I'm just gonna see if I'm getting a particular type of question wrong more often, and review theory once again.

The exam is in 4 days.

Posted from my mobile device

andyadams · Answer

Thanks for your sharing of this info.

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