Gmat score

Question

Can 2 question actually make a big difference in the final score of a section? 
I just score a 37 in the verbal section of a GMAT Prep mock by answering correctly 27 and 14 wrong.
For my next mock (also a GPREP) I got 25 correct questions and 16 wrong, however this last test gave me a score of 19.
Any suggestion or posible explanations?
Thaks a lot!

KarishmaB · Answer

The bigger problem here is the inconsistent overall Verbal score - 37 vs 19.
When did you take the last test? Was it a long time ago? If it was taken recently, were you extremely distracted that day? Don't doubt the 37 that you got. No one can score higher than their ability by guesswork. On the other hand, people can mess up and score much lower than their ability.

Though I would guess that someone who gets 19 would have a lot more incorrect answers but I wouldn't worry much about it since the score depends on a lot of other factors.

dabral · Answer

rafaelcortes88

The final score depends not only on the number of questions you get right but also on the average difficulty of the questions. The bulk of the questions you will encounter on the GMAT will be around your ability, in fact the software is trying to gauge where you stand. If you consistently miss easier questions it will settle at a lower average difficulty, and will give you questions above and below that level. This is why you can get two different scores with the same number of correct answers.

Dabral

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

You'll find that people miss a similar number of questions at vastly different score levels. You're only going to deviate significantly from 40% wrong if your score is very low or very high, or if you are missing only 700-800 level q's.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi rafaelcortes88,

That difference in Scaled Scores is probably due to a few factors. The scoring algorithm for the Official GMAT is remarkably complex; it includes a variety of factors - the relative difficulty level of the questions, whether you were expected to get them correct or incorrect, the relative position of the question, what's going on "around" the question, whether the question even counted or not (some questions are "experimental" and are worth 0), if you didn't answer questions at the end, etc.

Based on these scores, I'd be curious about some things:

1) How did you perform in the first half of each section?
2) Did you run out of time and not answer any questions (if so, then how many?)?
3) Did you run short of time and have to guess on a bunch of questions (if so, then how many?)?

4) Were either of these CATs a retake (had you taken either of them before)?
5) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT both times (including the Essay and IR sections)?
6) When reviewing these CATs, how often did you "narrow it down to 2 choices and then guess?" How often did you "guess wrong?"
7) Did you "skip over" an entire RC passage and just guess on the accompanying questions?
8) Did you do ANYTHING that would be considered non-testlike while taking either of these CATs? Think hard; the little details matter.

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

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