Update:
Qjones818 ended up scoring V39 - a score that is in line with Scholaranium's ability estimate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guys, when you think about using Scholaranium, you have to understand
The Intent with which the tool is created. The primary purpose of the tool is to provide you your individual sectional abilities. This means, that as soon as you finish studying for one particular section, you get a realistic evaluation of your abilities. The tool does exceptionally well in this regard. We have hundreds of score reports. Note, our goal is to be within 10 percentile points of accuracy and for 80%+ of the data points that we have, we are within 7 percentile.
Now, you may say (especially those of you who are engineers) why not aim for a better match. Quite simply, because you cannot. Even GMAC says that your performance on the test day can vary as much as 28 points. This variation is due to external factors such as your mental state of mind, a match up between your individual strengths and the kind of questions that you get on the GMAT.
Let me give you a few examples of the latter, which is also an illustration of the extent to which luck plays a role.
Take a look at this debrief:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/from-a-zero-t ... 03223.htmlThis student – Anuj – scored V35 in his first attempt and V44 during his second attempt. During his first attempt (V35) Anuj received 4 passages – all in humanities – an area that he is not so comfortable with. However, in his second attempt, he received 4 science passages, and was able to breeze through them. Now, had he scored V44 in his second attempt or V35 in his first attempt had the sequence of nature of passages been reversed – probably not. Does it mean that GMAT is inaccurate in how it evaluates individuals? Not a lot? Is it
Absolutely Precise – No.
Take a look at his video interview here:
https://e-gmat.wistia.com/medias/dnh1fg5ytoThe second case is even more baffling. Attached (below) is the score report of a student who scored V34 despite scoring 0 percentile (yes Zero percentile) on Reading Comprehension. There is a school of thought that says that you must do well in RC to score 700 (see one of Sandeep Gupta’s promotional videos). Here is evidence of someone doing not poorly but pathetically (actually it’s a degree lower than pathetic since you cannot go lower) and still scoring 700.
What should you infer from these data points?My reason for citing these examples is not to state that the GMAT is an imprecise exam. In fact, it is one of the most accurate tests of your corresponding ability. My intent is purely to illustrate that there are outliers in every scenario and it’s very dangerous to generalize outliers. Imagine, someone inferring from the score report above that you don’t need to study RC to score a V34. I can tell you that 95 out of 100 times, you will not be able to replicate the performance.
@Engr – your case more of an exception than a norm and using the reasons above (especially after looking at Anuj’s case) you should be able to justify the same.
Similarly, we have examples of students who have scored 78 percentile in ability quizzes and have not been able to score as much on the real test.
I understand that it’s very tempting to generalize using anecdotal scenarios, but doing so is very dangerous, potentially catastrophic. Generalizations should be made based on representative samples and in our case, the samples include thousands of data points. Just to tell you the extent of the # of data points – We will get ~2M page views this month which is comparable what GMAT Club receives on the Verbal and Quant forums. This is despite the fact that 80% of our content is videos and videos only register a single PageView (even though each of our video is about 10 page views). Now lets look at some of your other statements:
Quote:
Strange thing was that I had 6 incorrect out of 30 and all of them were hard. So getting a 72 didn’t make sense.
Actually this makes complete sense. Let’s see why – First of all, you made mistakes in all hard questions and since you are a bright guy, it tells you that
a) the classification of question is precise and
b) the six questions that you got wrong probably indicated a couple of areas that you were weak in.
Now, would you get 6 questions from those areas on the actual test –
Probably Not. Did it illustrate a worst case scenario –
probably yes. Similarly, in your case, you score a V41, V42 before your test, indicating that you are constantly improving and that you Peaked on the test. (Good for you
)
Quote:
I stopped taking individual sections once I reached 80-90 ability in SC and CR. I redid a couple of individual ability quizzes to make sure that I did not fall for the same traps. This was an important step for me.
This is
Absolutely Perfect. This was the original intent of the tool and illustrates how the tool should be used. Note, you used the tool to
reach to a point and then maintain your performance. Really Good Use.
Your Advice – Skip Scholaranium and focus on GMAT Prep
Quote:
Additionally, download GMATPREP collection from all-gmatprep-questions-verbal-quant-194907.html#p1503956 and solve the questions. There is no susbtitute for official questions. Again, you can time yourself for sets of 37 and 41 questions respectively for Q and V sections. This way you will get timed mini mocks.
Your advice
can be misconstrued. Here is why – Most People will read this and completely skip Scholaranium. Remember, you did this only after you reached 80% to 90% ability in each of the sections. Most students will not take this into context while applying the above (trust me when I say that. We respond to 150 emails every day and see such examples).
Secondly, while you may create mini mocks based on GMAT Prep, you cannot ensure that those mini mocks have questions
that are representative of the set of questions (read the breath of topics) that you are likely to see on the GMAT. In the scenario that you have outlined, there is no way to prevent GMAT Prep from serving all Assumption and Strengthen questions in one of the mocks. In that case, will your accuracy be representative at all. Will you be able to track your improvement from one mini mock to another? Remember a lot of work goes in designing an ability quiz. You
cannot simply put in a set of questions in a bucket, stir it and replace an ability quiz.You Must Practice GMAT Prep questions but remember, these questions do not come with detailed solutions. Hence, they offer limited
“Repeatable and Avoidable learning”. Repeatable and Avoidable learning points to learning that you can apply in other questions and mistakes that can avoid. While you may google for good solutions, you will not find those solutions outlined in a step by step methodical process.
Bottom LineUnderstand that the original intent of Scholaranium is to help you reach 80% to 90% sectional abilities and maintain the same. Use the Original questions, Amazing solutions, and the Rich analytics for the same. Try GMAT Prep questions once you get there.
Are some of the questions slightly more difficult – Yes. Yes, but ever so slightly. This has been designed
to ensure the consistency in your GMAT Prep results. Think of Scholaranium as equivalent to Army training. Is it a bit more difficult than the real battle – YES.
Does it ensure that you do well on the BATTLE – YOU BET. Lastly –
Scholarnaium is a Mock Test Preparation Tool, not a Mock Test Replacement Tool. It’s helps improve your score a lot faster and ensures that it stays there consistently.
This is one reason why you see very few students saying that they scored well on Scholaranium Ability quizzes yet did not do well on the test – Very few compared to the number of students who say that they did well on GMAT Prep or other mocks but could not replicate the performance on the real GMAT.
I hope the above helps.
-Rajat Sadana