is the Pearson Vue Test tougher than ETS

Hi,
I wrote the test two weeks back and I found it tougher.
The verbal was the of the same standard as of ETS. But the quant was definitely tougher. More inequalities, geometry, number properties.

I thought i screwed the quant, must have answered many wrong. But i got a 50 in quants.
I think i reached the tougher questions very early.
But better prepare well for quants.


Mohighmin

Thank You

The word on the street is that the Pearson Quant section is significantly more difficult. Apparently, too many test takers were scoring 50+ so they decided to "up the anty" even though this goes against the so called standardized nature of the exam.

Yeah thats funny notion thou..


How could you then compare the ppl who got X in the old GMAT to people who scored X in the new one when the standards are not the same?

The logic kind of beats me. Wonder whether GMAC has any published data!

BTW John, your website has to be one of the best I`ve ever seen. Outstanding work! Just one question though, why no mention of or plans to travel to Japan?

Matt

That's unfair
People who wrote ETS GMAT would have higher Quant score, the comparison is not going to be fair

hell yeah .. john, ur website is amazing man !! Whats more interesting is ur connection with Calcutta. Are you a "bong" ?

sorry for digressing.

Guess what? Yeah!! I was in Calcutta for 16 years.... went to Xavier's!!

u?

yeah am from st. patricks,asansol ... and then lawrence .

Tougher test doesn't necessarily correlate to lower scores. It is quite reasonable to assume that the test might be tougher now but scoring is more lenient. Just do ur best out there and let the software do the rest of the work. If u panic by seeing a tough question, u mite end up making mistakes even on the easier ones.

Agreed!

Yes, that's true!

correct me if i'm wrong, but if it is tougher as you say, then the percentiles will change. meaning, a 95th % might be 700 versus 710 as the 95% for the old test. just a thought. These do change over time I believe if more people are scoring higher, the percentages will migrate up (or down) accordingly. So the score is less relevant than the percentile. However, I would image they want to keep the percentiles and scores pretty consistent over time.

Hi guys, just did my GMAT for the first time yesterday and got 710. Turns out that the quant section was significantly harder than any ETS or OG stuff that I have been exposed to. The english section was not that hard but after doing the quant, it kind of rattled me a little that my performance in the verbal was not good at all hence the low score. Even though at the end of the day i got a 50 on the quant - i refrained from panicking in the section but during the break I let it get to me and hence it affected the verbal. I would say that the OG's mathematical questions are no longer revelant or even indicative of the types you will get on Pearsons. They are designed to trick you on almost every single question with multiple calculations required each. Finally no matter how badly you think you did in one section, just focus on the next section.

I can also confirm that a few coworkers of mine here in Japan have made it clear that their Quantitative scores have dropped significantly (Q44 ---> Q 35) due to a perceived higher level of difficulty. I guess only those who took the ETS version will be able to make an accurate comparison.

This is quoted directly from Veritas, a leading developer of GMAT specific preparation materials:

"So the competition has become stiffer, but does that mean the test itself will get harder? Although the subcontractor responsible for writing the test remains tight-lipped, it is evident that it already has and there are reasons to think it will continue to become harder. Because more students are doing better with the math topics, the GMAT is less accurate at the highest score levels where one or two missed questions correspond to huge differences in percentile score. The writers have already tried to remedy this by focusing far more on the harder probability and combinatorics problems. As average scores continue to rise the test may change even more to relieve the clustering of high scores."

Sure, one may read this as a simple marketing gimmick, but there must be some truth to the issue because I keep hearing the same sort of claims from test-taker after test-taker...

Thnks guys!!! this is good info