Grading of GMAT Exam Prep 2

Question

For those of you who have taken the latest official GMAT Exam Prep 2 tests, did you find the scoring to be more harsh in test 6 than in other GMAC practice tests (i.e. 1-5) or am I just dreaming this?

I took test 6 and only received 4 questions wrong on the Verbal section but still only received a 41. The wrong answers were pretty spread out too and not just at the end. Granted, 3 of the 4 questions I missed were CR so I feel this pulled it down quite a bit but I have gotten around the same number of CR problems wrong on other tests and gotten more of the other question types wrong but still received a better score overall. For example in test 5, I get 8 problems wrong and 3 of them were CR but I managed to get a 42.

Or is the answer just the standard one that the algorithm is way too complicated to parse and I should just try not to think about it :roll:

bb · Answer

Reading into this deeper, is your assumption that each test has its own grading/algorithm rather than relying on the same one in the software?

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EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi GinGMAT,

If you're consistently scoring in the V40+ range on your CATs, then how are you scoring in the Quant section? And when are you planning to take the Official GMAT?

Don't lose sight of your real goals - earning a competitive GMAT score and getting in to your first-choice Business School - by allowing yourself to get distracted by trying to figure out the scoring algorithm behind your practice CATs.

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

GinGMAT · Answer

I guess I'm just looking to see how other people performed in Verbal in test 6 vs. tests 1-5 and see if my score is consistent with what people have gotten. It just seems odd to me that my score was 41 when I received only 4 incorrect while in test 5 I had 8 incorrect and got a 42. Ultimately I want to use this to try to see where I should focus on Verbal to improve my score.

In the 6 GMAT Prep Exams, I've scored between 47-49 with an average of 47.7 in quant. My quant score is more consistent so I am trying to understand my variability in the Verbal section since that ends up driving my overall score since my verbal scores range from 40-47. I'm focusing on improving my quant score as well but given that I missed only 4 problems in the sixth exam but got a 41, I'm trying to understand where to spend my time in Verbal so the score is at the higher end of my scoring range. I've attached my score summary on the GMAT Prep exams below if you are interested.

bb · Answer

Did you get an enhanced score report with your test 6 results? I believe it is a part of EP1 but not EP2.

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saladi · Answer

My scores are about the same 710 in prep 5, 730 and 740 in preps 1 and 2 respectively. Q50 in all 3. V39, V40 and V35 in tests 1,2 and 5 respectively. 10 days left. I suck at RC.

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saladi · Answer

By enhanced if you mean individual scores in SC,CR and RC, yes. The software does provide them.

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bb · Answer

Ok. So nothing came out of that then? The correct and incorrect is really not the most helpful indicator. You would be better off looking at a scaled score for each of the sections CR SC and RC for verbal.

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saladi · Answer

How about doing some smart data work? How well do you perform on SC, CR and RC? Do you see a pattern?

In quant I was weak in DS. And in PS I was weak on number properties, word problems, statistics and probability. Now I do ok in most of these.

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saladi · Answer

They did provide scaled scores for all the three individual sections in exam 5. I was doing bad on RC. Terrible might fit. Wondering if I can improve in RC in 5-10 days. RC scaled score of 22 when I got 710.

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bb · Answer

The two strategies that helped me improve my RC were following a very prescribed strategy from Kaplan, which is very similar to Manhattan. When I say following, I mean really religiously following every single step such as creating notes, pausing, and other steps no matter how illogical they may have seemed.

Second aspect that helped me was reading books. Classic fiction, it had longer sentences, and and more complexity than most of the newspaper reading. I would spend several hours a day reading books, and enjoying it while add it.

Finally not directly related, but I was able to optimize my timing by reducing the amount of time I spent on SC and CR. That allowed me to get seven or eight minutes to spend on each of the RC passages

With the amount of time you have left, you probably only have time to polish your strategy. Make sure you do have a strategy and that is a realistic one and it's not going to fall apart once you're at the test center. Otherwise you just wasting time for nothing if you're going to abandon it.

PS if nothing else works you can try a crazy idea someone discovered on the forum. I don't know if it actually works on the real GMAT but someone noticed that if they skip an entire RC, I believe the third one they still got a very decent verbal score and save themselves a bunch of time. I would not use it unless you had a use for entire Time this would save you or unless I had no other options. This is an unverified Theory and likely not a reliable one.

Hope this helps.

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saladi · Answer

Thanks for your reply. The strategy you mentioned seems ok to me. Will give it a shot on MGMAT CAT 2 and see how it works.

But one has to be very disciplined to be able to apply such a strategy.

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bb · Answer

Yes, nobody can afford to spend more than two minutes on the question, unless after having spent two minutes, you feel that you can get to an answer within 15 seconds, you should guess and move on.

I noticed that in my practice, I would spot the issue in SC for example 50% of the time right away and solve it in 30 secs. In 10-20% of the time I could get to it within a minute or so by running through checklists I memorized. And in the remaining scenarios the stem was either correct as it was or it was impossible for me to spot the issue or figure out the correct idiom. So in those cases I would guess and MoveOn because no matter how long I would stare at the idiom, I still have no way of guaranteeing that I would get it right.

Good luck! Report back on your progress/findings.

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GinGMAT · Answer

bb, I think you've been responding to saladi who is a different user. As for myself, I did analyze the enhanced score report. The breakdown was CR - 36, RC - 51, and SC - 47. Given that 3 of the 4 questions I missed in Verbal were CR, it makes sense that it was lower but I did not expect it to be so low. As a comparison, in practice exam 5, I also missed 3 questions in CR and the CR breakdown was 44. I don't get why it's so much lower in exam 6.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi GinGMAT,

Based on the score data that you've provided, you've now scored above 700 on your last 6 practice CATS. This begs a few follow-up questions:

1) What is your goal score?
2) When are you planning to take the GMAT (what are you waiting for?)?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

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

GinGMAT · Answer

My goal score is 740+ and I am taking the exam next week. My concern is that my last two scores were below 740 and mainly due to lower than expected Verbal scores. I am trying to understand where to focus my efforts on Verbal.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi GinGMAT,

Here's the 'tricky' part with that type of thinking - GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Assuming a similar 'swing' in how your CATs are scored, you could very well be at your goal score 'level' right now, but you could also be below it and you'll never really know. At your current score level (in BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections), the GMAT becomes really 'sensitive' to little mistakes - if you make too many, then a 740+ score becomes impossible to achieve.

If you're really looking to squeeze out as many additional points as possible, you really have to nitpick WHY you're getting questions wrong. On your last CAT, how many 'gettable' questions did you miss because of a little mistake (in both the Quant and Verbal sections)? Based on your Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores, you could potentially pick up a few points in the Quant OR Verbal sections, so focusing on just one of the two sections limits your potential to increase your score.

All of the above having been said, you're in a great position right now to hit your goal score. Remember that the GMAT will always give you the score that you EARN, so you'll have to work hard on Test Day, make good decisions and EARN those points.

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

GinGMAT · Answer

Appreciate the response Rich. In the last few days, I'll focus on:
1) Practicing minimizing careless errors in quant to achieve on the high end of my quant range of 47-49. ~50% of questions I get wrong in quant are due to small oversights which I should have gotten
2) Doing trickier CR questions in Verbal since CR makes up ~50% of my wrong answers in verbal (after reviewing my Practice Exam 6, I still think I was too heavily penalized in the section for only getting 4 questions wrong since 2 of them were actually kind of tough. Hopefully the test day algorithm is closer to practice exam 5, in which I got 8 wrong and a better score, than 6)
3) Getting proper rest

Hope to walk away with a 740+

saladi · Answer

Hi, took GMAT today. My mind was completely blank when I did Verbal. Bombed in it. Worst ever verbal score. Nothing was working.

700 Q51 V31.

I cannot take GMAT again. I couldn't spend any family time last 3-4 months.

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