GMATClub Mock DI score

Question

Hello,  bb , team, how come even after getting 15 out of the first 16 questions correct, I still got only 79 in DI. My impression was that in DI, we should focus on accuracy rather attempting all the questions. This is part of second GMAT club full mock. And how come after getting so many hard questions right, I got easy MSR?

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi gullyboy09,

I can't answer your main question(s), but about accuracy/completing the section: DI isn't any different from the other sections. Test takers aiming for a high score should try to complete  all  the sections.

If anyone has advised you to prioritise accuracy on the first x questions at the cost of the last few questions, they are almost certainly wrong (it'd be great if you could post a link to such sources).

bb · Answer

DI 79 is 76th percentile - that’s respectable though I also agree it is harsh.

However, I find it very interesting that you got an easy MSR., that should not have happened. I need to look behind the scenes. There may be reasons for it but I want to make sure there was a good reason for it. The system usually picks things based on probabilities and factors and you will get nonlinear tests that will move up and down because of content requirements (this is not relevant as much here but on a quant test if it needs to check your fractions, they’re just not that many hard fraction questions on the official test for example or in GMAT prep. The argument should not apply here to MSR, so I want to see why it was chosen. I appreciate your flagging it.

gullyboy09 · Answer

Hi  AjiteshArun  , thanks for your reply. Here is the link, it's posted on GMATClub channel only, if you look at the section around 27.30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pWMY14Yvps

MartyMurray ,  KarishmaB , and all the other experts, I would like to know your feedback on how to approach DI section. Till now my strategy is try to attempt 15 questions and get all of them correct, and in the process increase it to 17 Questions. Like you see in the above screenshots I pasted, I got 15 Qs correct out of the first 16, and then rest I just marked randomly. My expectation was that I would get somewhere around 82-83, and it's shown in that video also, and even in one official mock I got 82 when I got 13 correct in the first 16, and overall also only 13 Qs I got correct. Would like to know should I change my approach and now target to solve all the Qs?

KarishmaB · Answer

That is a very risky strategy you are using. What if there are easy questions at the end? You miss them and your score tanks. You could easily get easy questions at the end too (the algo is taking numerous aspects into account such as balancing the content). You MUST have sufficient time to get to all easy and medium questions for a high score. You want to skip some questions, that is fine - but skip the ones you find hard within the first 10-15 secs. Say a question with an unfamiliar graph or a TPA with loads of data etc. Try not to miss questions in a row.

bb · Answer

Interesting strategy... the last 4 wrong questions sunk your score... I know they are labeled hard but there is a range within "hard" 
i still think solving all questions is really the best approach. The test is not super linear so you likely will jump around and getting easier questions in the end will have bigger impact.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

The goal on test day is to answer all 20 DI questions, while making smart decisions about where to spend your time. It is not a choice between accuracy and attempting everything. 
 
Every unanswered question on the GMAT is a guaranteed miss. An educated guess, or even a blind guess, always has positive expected value over leaving a question blank. So planning in advance to skip questions in order to "protect accuracy" gives up points unnecessarily. You want every answer slot filled at the end of the section. 
 
That said, the instinct behind your question is pointing at something real. Sacrificing accuracy across the board just to make sure you finish is also a losing approach. If you race through every question in 2 minutes to be safe, your accuracy collapses and your score drops with it. So both extremes are wrong. Do not plan to leave questions blank, and do not rush uniformly through everything. 
 
The right approach is targeted triage. You aim to attempt all 20 questions, and you use guessing strategically when a specific question is costing you too much time. If a DI question is not opening up for you within roughly 2.5 minutes, commit to your best answer, click next, and move on. That single decision protects the time you need for the remaining questions you can actually solve. 
 
In practice, this means watching the clock at checkpoints rather than per question. The DI section is 20 questions in 45 minutes. A reasonable way to break it down is into 5 chunks of 4 questions and 9 minutes each. When you start Q5, you should have about 36 minutes remaining. At Q9, about 27 minutes. At Q13, about 18. At Q17, about 9. If you are within a minute or two of those targets, keep going at your normal pace. If you are 5+ minutes behind at any checkpoint, that is the signal that the next 1 or 2 questions need a faster decision, including a willingness to guess if the question feels heavy or unfamiliar. 
 
Question type matters too. Multi-Source Reasoning prompts vary widely in length and complexity, and a 3-statement MSR question often legitimately takes 2 to 3 minutes. A Two-Part Analysis can run a bit longer than average. Data Sufficiency, by contrast, should usually land in 1:30 to 2:00. Treating every question as if it should take exactly 2:15 is not realistic. The checkpoints are what hold the section together, not per-question math. 
 
One last thing worth saying. DI tests Quant and Verbal concepts in unfamiliar formats, and if your underlying Quant and Verbal skills are not solid, no amount of triage logic will make the section finish on time. The fastest path to better DI timing is almost always to keep building topical mastery in Quant and Verbal, get familiar with each DI question type, and then let pacing improve as a byproduct. 
 
So to answer your question directly: aim to attempt all 20, with strategic guesses on the 1 or 2 questions that are costing you the most time. That gives you accuracy where it counts and protects against leaving easy points on the table.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi gullyboy09,

Thanks for posting that video. It's really long, but from the bits that I watched, I found the analysis disappointing. Again, I hesitate to say this, because I haven't gone through the whole thing yet, but it appears that video contains multiple false/misleading statements. However, for now, let's ignore the video and focus on how you should approach DI.

As Karishma pointed out, the strategy you mentioned is very risky. Your score isn't "locked in" at any point during the test, and getting 4 questions wrong in a row at the end can absolutely hurt your score, especially if the difficulty level starts going down. The only exception to this is if most of those questions were  experimental questions .

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