I dispute my score - Experimental Section

Question

I just got back from taking the gmat. Today is the 1st day that the gmat has an entire new section of experimental questions. These questions are NOT suppose to count in the final score of the test. As such, I whipped through this section and put random answers down so I could get to my score...

Here is the kicker: I suspect that the scoring system glitched or somehow included the experimental section in my quant score (or used the experimental section for my quant score). The reason I believe this may have happened is three fold. First, the math score on my actual gmat exam does not match up at all with practice tests. Second, I was confident I did better on the actual test than any of the 7 practice tests I took. Third, the gap between my actual verbal score and actual quant score is too large (very statistically unlikely).

My average pratice quant score (between mba.com and Manhattan) was 43 (70th percentile). My average verbal score was 37 (83rd percentile).... and my actual scores during the first day of experimental questions:

Quant: 27 (19th percentile) and Verbal: 39 (87th percentile)

Yes, you read that correctly. I was feeling on top of the world today. I thought I killed the entire test. This confidence and belief shows well in my verbal score but obviously something is going on with my quant score...

I know this is the 1st day of the experimental section.... Can anybody weigh in on this? Did anybody take the test yet with the experimental section? If so, did you try on it or just guess to get to your actual score?

Has anybody had an issue like this before? If so, how did you go about handling it?

Thank you for the support!

Vince

jordanhendrix · Answer

Yikes, that is quite a jump down in scores, and i understand why you feel that way.
At the end of the day all you can do is complain which most likely will lead to nothing, yes its worth a shot and who knows it could really be computer error. Call them and see what they say. Be sure to have a sandwich and bottle water with you as i feel you will be on the phone a long time.

shaselai · Answer

ok before the experimental questions are put into the real sections so you have no idea which question is experimental or not. So it seems the test is explicitly telling you what questions are experimental now? If that is the case AND the fact your verbal is very similar to your practice I think the score calculated might be correct and i guess you just messed up in quant. Please also remember practice test does not reflect your real score so dont give up

vwjetty · Answer

whoa whoa wait what?

there's a completely different experiemental section now? I thought we weren't suppose to know about the experimental questions otherwise it would defeat the purpose of being "experimental" yeah? because you'd figure if i knew which one was which, i'd just guess and keep on gettin' it you know.

shaselai · Answer

yeah exactly.... so it seems to defeat the whole purpose of it.... o well

Dawgie · Answer

Is this a joke? Haha I get it!

whiplash2411 · Answer

I think we're jumping ahead of ourselves here. I think the experimental section he is talking about is the one the GMAC has designed for the new GMAT. When I registered for my test, I was informed that if I took the test between Nov 19-24, I'd have to do like an extra experimental section that wouldn't affect my score. Maybe the OP is talking about that?

But either way, that is a big jump. I'd recommend contacting GMAC and asking them about this and if that doesn't work, just retaking after a while during a period that doesn't have this experimental testing section.

Good luck.

gmat1011 · Answer

https://www.mba.com/community/MBA_com/b/ ... sting.aspx

From MBA.com --- the experimental questions pertain to the new section proposed to be added to the GMAT from 2012. How could they have counted these questions as part of your score?

Next Generation GMAT: Integrated Reasoning Question Testing

Written on 11/05/2010 , 11:45 AM by Ashok Sarathy

This month, from November 19 to 24, about 5,000 GMAT test takers around the world will get a sneak peek at the new Integrated Reasoning section of the GMAT exam that will launch in June 2012. We’re rolling out some potential question types to see how well they measure the reasoning skills b-school requires.

We’ve made a tutorial available online, to demonstrate how to navigate and respond to sample questions. We do hope those participating in this research will give their best—their experience is critical to our evaluation of these preliminary question types.

The Integrated Reasoning questions being researched won’t count toward test takers’ official GMAT scores or be sent to schools. Because it won’t affect scores, we don’t expect test takers who see these questions to study for this section. Test takers who’ll get a glimpse of possible Integrated Reasoning questions will spend an extra 30 minutes at the testing center. For their time, their reasonable effort at completing these sample questions, and their feedback, we’ll refund $25 of their GMAT fee.

Although the question types we’re testing during this five-day period are complete and designed to test Integrated Reasoning, we do want to emphasize that they are all still under consideration. They may be approved, altered, or discarded entirely if our research shows that they are less effective than expected. As always, the primary goal of the GMAT is to measure the skills most likely to predict success in graduate management education—we’ll adjust the question types as needed to meet the needs articulated by the faculty who helped define this section.

We’ve got a lot of work ahead to get this exciting new section ready for GMAT exam—stay tuned!

— Ashok Sarathy, Vice President, GMAT Program

gmat1011 · Answer

sorry - didn't your post completely before posting; I guess you are saying the system somehow counted the score though it was not supposed to... well, you never know with technology... hope you improve your score if you decide to re-take

shaselai · Answer

well unless it affects everybody i dont think the algorithm just "doesnt work" for that test center. It is more "common" to see score drops than gmac program broken. With that said it is a prototype but with money and people's mba life on the line I am sure GMAC has done some serious testing to bring this out.

jordanhendrix · Answer

I agree for the most part, but hey you never know. I'd be throughly mad at that large of a disparity.

vwjetty · Answer

i hope im not one of those 5000 kids that's all. don't even want $25 bucks for 30 min of my time. sorry too valuable for me. not even worth my time to answering them :-)

whiplash2411 · Answer

It was only during the experimental period vwjetty

Posted from my mobile device

vwjetty · Answer

oh. ok. that's all good. i'm still taking my gmat's soon but it's outside of their little time frame thing. ok. all gravy.

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I dispute my score - Experimental Section

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