BUMPED BY ONE PRACTICE TEST

Question

Hello friends,

I started my preparation 2 months back. My exam is in 10 days. So I thought of giving all the free practice tests available on the internet. Today I gave ECONOMIST GMAT tutor free cat test. My estimated score came out to be 520...WHAT???...I am consistently scoring between 600-650 in Manhattan CAT's and GMAT Prep.

Is this Practice Test reliable??? I just got 12 wrong in each section...Please advise...Is this paper a true representative of my level???

bb · Answer

Moving to the Economist sub-forum.
In general my experience with the Economist tests been good - you can always take a GMAT Prep if you are only 10 days out - that would make sense at this time.

Ritish · Answer

But the discrepancy is HUGE...100 points...how???...I just got 12 questions wrong on each section...and they were evenly spaced...I scored Q47 in Veritas Prep....Q42-Q45 in Manhattan...but ECONOMIST GMAT Tutor predicts my score to be Q31...thats heartbreaking....

TheEconomistGMATTutor · Answer

Hi Ritish.

We see that a score can dip from one exam to another even with the same amount of knowledge or the same percentage of correct/incorrect. The GMAT scoring algorithm takes many factors into account including where you make errors, how many mistakes you commit in a row, whether you finish both sections or leave questions out, whether the last few questions of either section seemed like they were guessed at, how you felt on test day, etc. These factors can all affect your score.

From one test to the next you can easily jump +/- 30 points (and even up to 80 or so) depending on where the mistakes are made. *Where* you make mistakes can often be more important than how many. Overall, when a student wants to know where he/she stands, the best way to do so is to take the average after a few sim tests. This should get you to a fairly close estimation of where you are at.

As for Economist GMAT Tutor, in general, our students tend to score within about +/- 30 points or so from what they get on our tests and the GMAT test preps.

Here is a great discussion from the forums why practice test scores may vary:
why-practice-test-scores-vary-168747.html

Regards,

Elizabeth

martin70 · Answer

Thanks for this useful recommendations.

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