GMAT Prep Software Analysis and What If Scenario - IR

Question

GMAT Prep Software Analysis and What If Scenarios -- Integrated Reasoning

After conducting tests on GMATPrep Quant and Verbal sections, I thought it would be interesting to see how the scoring in IR is affected by our responses. I conducted multiple tests on the IR section and some interesting results came out. The boring paart during the process was marking answer choices for the 78 quant and verbal questions. This section is not adaptive and has a set number of questions. The GMATPrep software does not allow you to go the previous questions and won't let you go to the next question if you do not mark the answer choices in the current question.

1) How many questions do you have to solve correctly to score a perfect 8 ?

Interestingly, if you correctly answered 10 questions or higher you will get an 8 on IR. 10, 11, 12 correct questions gave a result of 8. It was interesting to see that at one time 9 correct responses lead to a score of 8 and on another it resulted in a 7. I think it is probably because multi source reasoning questions may carry higher weight.

2) Is there is a partial credit for the multi-part questions ?

The answer is no; If out of three true/false questions or any other multi-part questions you get any one incorrect, then the whole question will be considered as incorrect.

3) How many questions does one has to score correctly to increase one's score by one unit ?

Answering 7 questions correctly gave scores 5 and 7. In my opinion we can safely conclude that every question carries a different weight. This fact also explains the observation in 2) above. Getting more correct in the longer multi source questions would result in a higher score. Answering 3, 4, 5 questions correctly lead to an increase of one unit score point. But, the barrier from a score of 5 to 7 could be more; this number can be 2 to 3 (correct questions).

Interestingly I also didn't see any a score of 6 in any of the test iterations that I conducted on GMATPrep; However, my actual score in IR was 6. Therefore, we can say that the scoring in GMATPrep is slightly different from the actual IR scoring. But this difference may not be a great one.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I'll be running a few more tests on this section.

Also check out the video in the post below by jumsumtak, nice explanation by MGMAT. The part on scoring comes after 28 minutes in the video.

Vercules

jumsumtak · Answer

I think this video (from manhattan) does a great job in explaining the scenarios: (The video also mentions MSRs have a higher weightage)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRBl7jO0kac

TheNona · Answer

I read that the overall score of GMAT Preps varies from the actual test score with +/- 30 marks. How much does it normally vary on the level of a raw score (Q/V) ?

Vercules · Answer

Hi TheNona, Again, it is extremely difficult to put a number for the variation in individual scores, but I guess it could be _+2 points. But, you should not get overly anxious about this fact and this should not deter your performance in any way. The margin of error means that with same skill level on one day you can score 660 and on another day 690. But, you can always try to maximize your performance and score well. You can take this fact in a positive way, if your current skill level is 650, you can score 680 on the actual test :-)

. So, just practice and relax. All the best!! Hope this helps, Vercules

DIGNIFIEDLIFE · Answer

Would IR scores be considered critical by schools from the next year?

jumsumtak · Answer

There is no definite answer to that. It looks like schools will need at least 2-4 years more to assign a significant weightage to the IR score. Having said that, don't leave the IR prep. all together.

haiyen2189 · Answer

Thank you for posting this! I've only studied for about a month and a half now, and I work full time so it's been tough. I get a 90% in the verbal diagnostic test, but I'm not sure if that's inflated or anything, is there anyone who has experienced the same problem? Please give me an advice of how the verbal diagnostic test from GMAT club is compared to the actual test.

I'm thinking of signing up for a test next week but I'm not entirely confident I'd do good =___=

adityapagadala · Answer

Does the IR section works similar to quant and verbal section in terms of difficulty .i.e if we answer one question correctly, do we get the next question a bit more difficult one?

sa2222 · Answer

I am very confused after reading a post on IR (link pasted below) - specifically the mention of "experimental questions in IR". how true is that? The post is from Economist, thus really want to confirm, as I did not see the mention of experimental questions in IR mentioned anywhere else.

https://gmat.economist.com/blog/test-ta ... ion-scored

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Hello

Economist GMAT tutor is a reliable source for the GMAT and you can believe what they said in their article. No need to get confused at all by the experimental questions in IR section. GMAC send those questions to get idea of the difficulty level of the questions.

Thank you.

Kushchokhani · Answer

It may be so that IR 6 is possible in actual GMAT but not in Practice exam as there are experimental questions on the actual exam but not in practice exam. Experts pls give your opinion on this.

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