How bad is the scoring of Magoosh mock tests?

Question

Hi everyone!

I have a small doubt about the Magoosh GMAT Focus mock.

To give you context:
I already took the GMAT 2 years ago for my Master of Science - I scored 710 - 91st percentile (with 3 consecutive 730s on Official mocks) - and I'm now preparing it again for MBAs.
I tried an official mock before restarting my preparation, to understand whether I lost my edge. I scored 645 - 89th percentile (Q81, V85, D79). Decent enough.

Now: I just completed a GMAT Focus mock from Magoosh.
I scored 605 - 72nd percentile (Q80, V79, D83), missing only questions classified as "Very hard"...
I know that GMATPrep mocks are the only reliable ones in terms of scoring but... how bad is Magoosh at that?

I'm just trying to understand if I should just completely ignore this number and go on or if I should waste time to understand what went bad during the test, since this was the first one I took after (re)starting my preparation.

Thank you in advance

egmat · Answer

Marcof11 - It seems you underperformed in Verbal on the Magoosh mock. Quant and DI seem to be in line with the official mock. Now, this begs the question -What is your true Verbal ability? Did you just have a bad day or does Magoosh need to improve their Verbal scoring algo? You probably are in the best position to answer this question since you can review your Verbal attempts and make that judgment.

-Rajat

-Rajat

Marcof11 · Answer

Hi! Thank you for your reply. I got wrong 4 or 5 answers and they were all "Very hard" questions. I think I performed similarly, if not better, than other times... Considering that the GMAT is a CAT, getting wrong 4-5 answers should be pretty standard, isn't it? This is my main doubt

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

You've taken an Official Focus mock. Might be worth comparing how people performed on their Official Focus mocks with their actual FE results. You could also see how many questions people are getting correct/incorrect for different performances.

-contact: gmatknight site | gmatclub dm

-contact: gmatknight site | gmatclub dm

egmat · Answer

Marcof11  - I agree that you probably deserve a higher score. Having said that, can you provide me with the following:

1. what is your accuracy for Very Hard questions on Magoosh's mock?
2. How many difficulty levels does Magoosh mock have?

-Rajat

Marcof11 · Answer

Hi! 1. 25%, which is actually very low. However, I noticed something that might explain the issue. After getting wrong a "Very hard" question, I often get 3/4 easy or medium questions in a row. Basically, as soon as you make a mistake, the CAT algorithm considers you an idiot

2. It has 4 difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard, and very hard). PS: Reviewing the last test, I found an old test I took on Magoosh. I scored 620 while getting 700-730 on all the other tests. So I think they might provide a slightly lower score than GMATPrep.

KarishmaB · Answer

Ignore the number but focus on the analysis. Learn from your mistakes, identify the weak areas and work on them. As for Verbal, no test prep can match up to the quality of the official questions so don't worry about that. 
Test prep mocks are good for identifying your weaknesses. As for the score difference, you could have seen the same or even higher with an official mock too. Too many variables play a role in the final score. Ignore it.

egmat · Answer

While I am not privy to Magoosh's algorithm, going from Very Hard to Easy does not seem right. That is a recalibration mode, unless they are using a block-based question selection algorithm (sorry about the technical jargon) or unless their algorithm defaults to lower difficulty levels if they run out of hard questions (another possibility). Ask Magoosh folks the same and they would be able to justify why their algo behaved this way.

-Rajat

How bad is the scoring of Magoosh mock tests?

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