Grading: HELP :)

The IR thing is interesting - because it's still relatively new (it debuted on the GMAT in June, 2012) many schools still aren't sure how to use it in admissions decisions. Largely that's because they haven't had many (if any) students with IR scores complete a semester of school yet, so they don't have a good read on how well that particular data point correlates with students' success in the classroom and in other important elements like the job search.

At the same time, many *employers* (consultancies, banks) have started to express real interest in using IR as a predictive tool for their job candidates, and the preliminary data on IR scores from GMAC is showing it to be predictive, so if schools aren't giving IR much weight today (and from what it sounds like they're not just yet), it's only a matter of time before they do.

For the 2013-14 application cycle I'd still say that it's probably more important to "not get a bad score" (on the 8 point scale I'd worry a little about having a 1 or a 2 and probably a 3) than it is to get a great score (I just don't think today that an 8 would get you in where a 5 or 6 would keep you out), but the longer your time horizon for applying (if it's next year or 2-3 years down the road) the more I'd start to think about prioritizing IR closer to quant/verbal in terms of study time/effort.

Thanks again for your great help appreciate it !
now i think I know everything about it, I can keep on practicing !

THANKS


EDIT: Ok i thought i had understood well but i have doubts again :D

I don't know how you checked my former results, if you manage to have a look at the last one thats great

Really poor performance last week, so i have a question here, how come do I get such a low score particularly in maths section? U told me that the first answers were important that it was trying to evaluate your level. Well first 18 questions I got only 4 wrong which don't look so critical to me, no? Still I got that low grade :p

Thanks again

There are a bunch of "hidden" (to the test-taker) factors that go into GMAT scoring, so things like "earlier questions matter more" isn't entirely true (but not entirely false either). In your case on this recent test:

-You did pretty well early in terms of % correct, but missing the first question meant that the next few questions were below-average difficulty questions and so even though you got 5 of the first 6 correct, most of those 5 were in the below average to average range so you "wasted" a few early questions "showing the test you weren't below average" instead of "showing the test you were above average".

-You missed 7 of the last 9, so where around question 27-28 the system had you looking pretty firmly above average, you went into a free-fall toward the end and that took you from probably the 60th-65th percentile are down below average.

-It's relatively rare but your case is an example - your first half of the test (mostly correct answers and a strong upward trend after missing the first question but digging yourself out of that hole) and your last third (pretty much a straight nose dive missing 7 of 9) were different enough that at one point the system's projected margin of error went *up*. The system thought it had a pretty good read on you in the mid-20s of that section, but then around question 29 the bottom dropped out of your score and the system had to recalibrate its estimate of you fairly dramatically. 1-2 more evenly distributed correct answers from 30-37 could have helped a lot as the system was in "how low is this guy, really?" mode.

In terms of "order of questions":

-If you don't do well on the first 10-15 questions you almost certainly won't do well overall. Not necessarily because "they matter more" but more because you've dug such a hole that you have to be just about perfect the rest of the way to convince the system that its initial estimate of "this guy just doesn't have it" was wrong.

-BUT if you *do* do well on the first 10-15 questions that DOES NOT guarantee success. You still have to be at least around 50% accurate in every 6-8 question block the rest of the way...if you go on a rough run of missing chunks of consecutive questions the system will readjust to that.