Do you have the choice to finish the exam early?

Question

Hi guys,

New here - apologies if this is already covered elsewhere but I couldn't find anything!

I have been asked to sit the GMAT as part of a conditional offer for a masters degree. The condition specifies that I must achieve a score in the Quantitative section of the GMAT in 75th percentile.

My question is - since I only care about my Q score - is it possible to sit this and then finish the exam early? If not, can I just sit out the remaining sections and get a score of 0 on each of these sections? I haven't revised one second for Verbal etc so I would rather get no score at all than a bad score!

Thanks in advance.

akela · Answer

Hi hpmhpm94 , You can finish the verbal part early, but you'll have to chose a random answer (A, for example) and move on. In this case, you'll inevitably get some questions right. In this case, your score will be around 6 (https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-prep-so ... 46146.html) Did you take a free official CAT from mba.com? You can try one and see your approximate score. Maybe it is not bad at all. What is your quant score btw? Hope this helps!

nishantd88 · Answer

You can just go through the VA and IR sections marking randomly and submit a blank essay for AWA.

hpmhpm94 · Answer

Thank you for your replies!

Akela  I've been asked to achieve 75% percentile in Q so this will be equivalent to Q49. This will be my first attempt at the GMAT and I've only had 3 weeks prep but I'm hoping I can achieve this with 120 hours of total study. As you can imagine I'm very nervous!

akela · Answer

Hi hpmhpm94 , I'd highly recommend to take a mock test. You can take it here: https://www.mba.com/exam-prep It will be very helpful to know where you stand. Good luck!

billionaire · Answer

Hello hpmhpm94 Before you do what you wanted, it would be wise to check with school, do they care about verbal score at all. I am not sure that since they requested Quantitative section of the GMAT in 75th percentile that they will be happy or will accept any verbal score, I would double check that if I were you. They obviously give more importance to the quant, because of the nature of the study, but that still doesn't mean necessarily that verbal doesn't count at all. In case they don't and only do count your quant score, then sure you can do what you insinuated. Best way would be to choose quant section first and after you finish that, you can just click randomly answer choice one by one on verbal part and IR. Also, I would just type one sentence on AWA, I would not leave it blank, just in case.

Now, regarding your idea to rather have score of 0 than "bad" score on Verbal IR and AWA, best way to make sure what you are allowed to do that is to contact administrators of the test via mail or phone: https://www.mba.com/service/contact-us Good Luck !

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi hpmhpm94,

There are a few potential drawbacks to your plan:

1) It's possible that you might want/need this GMAT Score for something other than applying to this one School (you might want to apply to another Program at some point in the next 5 years - but if this Score is 'incomplete', then you would have to restudy and retake the Exam - costing you a lot of additional time, money and effort). Some employers actually ask for an applicant's GMAT Score as well - and you would not have a full Score under these circumstances.

2) If the Representatives at the School that you plan to apply to "change their minds" (or some policy change occurs), then this partial Score might not actually get you in.

3) Your proposed idea (to take the Quant section seriously and either skip or rush through the other sections) might be seen as a 'test violation.' In the past, groups of Test Takers were taking the Exam with the goal of memorizing the questions - and then selling that information to other Test Takers. That plot was uncovered and led to a number of consequences (banned Test Takers, voided Scores, some offenders actually got kicked out of School, etc.). As a result, any type of suspicious activity - such as the one you are describing - will come under greater scrutiny. If you proceed with this plan, you might not actually receive a Score at all - but you'll still be charged for the Exam (and you might be banned from reattempting the Test).

This is all meant to say that your idea carries a LOT of risk - and very little upside. Take the FULL GMAT and take it all seriously. You don't have to study for every section, but you plan to do your best on each section on Test Day.

1) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
2) What deadline(s) are you facing?

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

AjiteshArun · Answer

Just ensure that you run this by your school before acting on it. Also, and this is probably  not  going to matter to your school, Q49 is now 74%, not 75%.

hpmhpm94 · Answer

Thanks to everyone for their responses.

EMPOWERgmatRichC  I'm very fortunate that I came across your course. I can't thank you enough!

In response to your questions:
1) My test is scheduled for 29th August.
2) The deadline for my offer is 31st August so this is the only attempt I have. I'm about 60 hours into my prep, with another 60 scheduled before test day. I've done all of the learning materials on the EMPOWERgmat quant and I'm now making my way through the 5 Manhattan quant books. In the last few days before the test I'll be doing practice CATs and OG intermediate/advanced quant questions from OG 2016 using EMPOWERgmat for explanations.

Thanks!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi hpmhpm94,

Since you have just 8 study days remaining, you should NOT try to 'cram in' a bunch of practice Tests in the last few days of your studies. The process of taking (and reviewing) a CAT requires a significant amount of energy and effort - and takes time to 'recover' from. This is one of the reasons why you typically shouldn't take more than 1 CAT per week. Taking a bunch of CATs right before your Official GMAT might tire you out too much and lead to 'burn out' on Test Day. If you have not taken any practice CATs yet, then you should take one soon (within the next couple of days). You could then take another CAT 3-4 days before your Official GMAT, but you have to be careful about taking any more CATs than that.

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

ccooley · Answer

If I were you, I'd do the following:

1. Make sure you 100% understand what the school's statement means. Do they genuinely not care whatsoever about your Verbal score or your overall score? Or is it more that they want a good score from you, but they only have a specific minimum for Quant (in which case a good Verbal score would still make you look better than a very low one?)

2. If your Verbal score really doesn't matter at all, don't study for Verbal at all. (By the way, what have they said about the IR section?)

3. On test day, choose to take the Quant section first. Do your best. Then, take the Verbal section and the IR/Essay section, and just answer the questions the best you can with the knowledge you already have. Don't guess randomly, but don't worry too much about it, either. You'll already have finished the section that matters, so there's no reason not to just try the other sections. The test can actually be pretty interesting, especially if you aren't stressed out about it - at best, you may learn some things about grammar/reasoning, or get an interesting passage or two to read.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi hpmhpm94,

I agree with a lot of what has been said. Even though your desired program cares only about your quant score, you still should give your best effort when completing the other sections of the GMAT.

That being said, since it appears that you have yet to take a practice exam, you should take an official MBA.com practice test before test day. Taking a practice exam will help prepare you for the rigors of sitting through a full-length GMAT and give you a baseline score.

Outside of taking a practice GMAT, I would not do much “heavy lifting” in the next eight days leading up to your GMAT. Keep your studying light. Review flash cards/notes from past topics to ensure knowledge has not slipped through the cracks. I also would not try to cram or learn any new material. At this point, piling on new topics would probably hurt more than it would help.

I wrote an article that you may find helpful that has some more advice regarding  how to treat the final week leading up to your GMAT as well as some tips for test day .

Let me know how things end up, and please reach out with any further questions.

Good luck!

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