Experiences with Executive Assessment - Post Your EA Experience Here

Ninonparis: I have not taken EA yet. Postponed it to 28th. I took practice test and got 146
Time is not sufficient. Any suggestions on how we’re the questions in EA compared to practice tests?

But Yes the good news is that I have very good credentials!

Hi there. I craved to find out more about the EA test since most material relates to GMAT, which is considerably different. I'll therefore add my experience, having taken the test a few days ago.

- I’m 45 years old with barely any numerical exposure in my line of work. Almost all material in the test (especially quant) was alien to me. I had studied some algebra and arithmetic in my school days, but nothing I would remember without picking up books again.
- I had to travel 5+ hours to get to a test centre in the Netherlands, since there are none in my country.
- I bought the official two mock tests and question pack offered on the GMAC site.
- I didn’t finish the IR and Verbal study materials but finished the quant questions. I also tried a few extra problems and read some material via a trial membership to the Target Test Prep site. If I had to restart studying, I would dedicate myself to that site over anything else as the material is quite polished, though focussed on GMAC rather than EA.
- Total study period was three weeks, give or take. About 1-2 hours daily. I took both timed practice tests, one week apart (obtained my target score on both occasions). I stopped studying two days before the official test, due to work pressure and travelling to the test country a day before.
- Basing myself on previous users' experiences, I opted to quickly complete questions I knew I could answer, then go back. Time management was thus less of an issue.
- Like others in this thread, I thought the GMAC study questions were harder than those found on the test, but I did come across questions that had no equivalent in the sample question pack.
- The test machine had a cheap low-res monitor and clunky keyboard and mouse. Took me a few minutes to acclimatise since all my practice and mock tests were done on a better machine. I suggest that you make peace with this before you step into the test centre, so you can focus on the questions not the environment.
- Final score: IR 9 / Verbal 12 / Quant 10 / overall 151
- I did badly in the IR section compared to mock tests, which must have led to easier quant questions. I think this ruled out a higher overall score for me, since easier questions carry less points.
- Final score secured me the target school admission, so I'm satisfied overall.
- An incident which may be irrelevant to most candidates: I arrived 45 minutes before the scheduled test time. Ten minutes before start time, the administrator could not log into the PearsonVUE candidate identification module and went on a lengthy tech support call. An hour later, candidates were given the option to reschedule the test or wait. They still could not get the ID module to work. I insisted that rather than fixing the module, they work on bypassing it through manual check-in. Administrator took this up with PearsonVUE and I was offered a manual ID and sign-in (endorsing a printed form), so the test could start. It was a stressful 90 minutes, so if this ever had to happen to you, do know that you can log-in the old-fashioned way, and insist that you do so.
- Happy to answer questions.

I agree that there is very little info about the EA, so I will also add to this forum since it has been a wealth of information for me about the exam.

I took the EA yesterday scoring a 151 - 10 IR/12 V/9 QR

Slightly lower than the two GMAC practice tests I took one and two weeks prior to the official exam - 152, 156.

I purchased the official GMAC practice questions with two practice tests and spent about 5 weeks studying for the exam - 60-90 mins a day going through practice questions in each of the three test categories. This was the only dedicated EA prep I could find. Prior to this I had been studying for about a month to take the GMAT using a combination of Magoosh and the GMAT official guide (online and actual book). I would highly recommend Magoosh based on their study guides and video explanations for every practice question. Magoosh really helped with re-learning many quant basics, which I had forgot over the past 20 years.

My background is in the creative field - 14 years of photography and film making. Needless to say, my quant skills were a bit rusty.

I went though all the practice questions 3x and each practice test 2x. Recognizing each section's question structure became second nature and allowed my answer times to become much quicker. Before the actual exam, my biggest fear was running out of time, which did not end up happening. I attribute this to knowing the landscape of the test. During the practice questions my IR times were not great, but after about 150 questions the concepts started to click.

Test Day Experience:
-All of my prep was done alone in my home where it was quiet and distraction free. My actual test was in a room with approx. 15 other people, separated by cubicle walls. It was definitely quiet, but there was a lot of movement from the other test takers taking breaks, finishing exams etc. I was provided with a pair of noise cancelling headphones which I used and helped me dial in my focus. As other members here have stated, the dry erase marker and sheets also provided were somewhat cumbersome to use, but not terrible. I asked to test both pens provided before I entered the exam room. The computer interface that the test is administered in is highly dated. At the onset of the exam I was given all the instructions on screen about how each section works, reviews etc. I think I had 15 mins to go through this - which I took nearly all that time to allow myself to adjust to the font etc. Additionally, during the exam at the start of each section (IR, VR, QR) another set of instructions is presented. Do not read through these again because you'll notice that the clock has already begun counting down. I felt like this is a little deceptive on GMAC's part. All these little differences felt somewhat distracting, so definitely be prepared to encounter them. And use the bathroom before taking the test! I couldn't imagine taking a break during the EA, every second is crucial.

-From my understanding the test is adaptive, so the answers to the first half of the questions in each section dictate the second half. I agree with the member that said not to spend too much time reviewing the first half because if you did poorly, the second half of the questions will be easier. I found this to be the case for the Quant section of my test. The second half questions were very simple, likely because I did poorly on the first half.


Hope this helps and good luck to everyone taking this test!

Hello all,

I took the Executive Assessment today and scored a 150 on the nose, IR-9, V-10. and Q-11. I felt the exam was slightly harder than the practices exams that I have been taking from GMAC, my practice scores ranged from 152-162, and my score reflects this. Realizing 150 seems to be at the bottom of the acceptable scale, do I still have a shot at my target schools of Yale SOM, Wharton, and Booth? Should I consider retaking?

Any consultants willing to weigh in would be appreciated!

ShellyLWatts
MBAPrepCoach

I have lurked around the site and wanted to add my thoughts about the EA, which I just completed today. First, I think there is a strong correlation between the GMAC practice exam scores and your actual scores. I took a couple of tests early in my prep and then took a couple more yesterday, before taking the exam today.

Total IR/V/Q - exam type (date)
155 12/11/12 - practice #1 (7/24/19)
162 18/12/12 - practice #2 (7/25/19)
158 13/13/12 - practice #3 (8/9/19)
156 11/12/13 - practice #4 (8/9/19)
164 18/12/14 - actual exam (8/10/19)

I primarily worked the GMAC prep you can purchase when you register and supplemented by searching for "tips" in areas I thought I struggled. My undergraduate degree was in engineering, but I ended up pursuing a different career. I had a great quant foundation from almost 30 years ago, but it's not something I have used in a long time. I sorta like the stress of testing so I tend to outperform on exams; I was pretty casual on my practices, so I expected I would see a little score bump during live testing.

On the practice exams I always attempted to complete the first half of each section with at least 18 minutes remaining, assuming the back half would be more difficult. Compared to my practice, the IR questions were pretty easy (completed with about 4 minutes to spare). I thought the verbal was much tougher, with lots of sentence correction wherein the choices seemed really similar; my strategy to pick the shortest option did not really work out because they were all similar in length and complexity. Verbal started out tough and never let up (completed with about 2-3 minutes to spare). Quant started really tough also and I fell way behind in spite of practicing pacing. I started the back half with only 14 minutes left and really had to hustle on the last couple questions, forcing myself into the wrong answer on the last question because I ran out of time. It felt like half my questions were really difficult data sufficiency questions, but it was probably only one-third, because I did spend lots of time on a couple of complicated calculation and algebra questions,

My practice was almost exclusively the GMAC online questions. They are representative but I am not sure they teach you how to improve on questions. I really only modestly improved with studying and I think this would be tough test for somebody without either a fairly strong math background or lots of studying. I think you could improve verbal with study, but I just didn't care enough to memorize sentence structure and I guess that showed. I sincerely wish everyone taking the exam in the next few months lots of success.

I had a similar trajectory to Spark808. I started with the GMAC full bundle, and eventually worked my way through all of the practice questions and all 4 tests.

My practice scores (in chronological order) were 154, 156, 157, and 160 (the final test marked a correct answer incorrect by mistake, so call it 161). I took the first two about 2 weeks apart, and the final two in the last 3 days before the test.

I was pleased to end up with an actual score of 167 -- 18/18/11 (IR/VR/QR). (Do we have any visibility into percentiles yet?)

I started by taking a practice test as a diagnostic before doing any studying, and I was unhappy with my quant score (9). I bought a Manhattan GMAT quant-focused book and took a week to work through that. Then I continued with practice questions and exams for another couple of weeks before scheduling the test for this week. All in all, probably 20-30 hours of studying.

I found the test itself to be much easier on IR than the practice tests. I felt extra confident after getting through to see VR questions that were difficult, meaning I'd done well on IR. The VR questions were more difficult than the practice questions I'd seen. Sentence correction can't really be much more difficult, but certainly the questions about the reading passages were much more nuanced than I'd seen on practice tests.

When I got to QR, the first set was insanely difficult, much more so than anything I'd seen on practice tests. It took a lot more time for each question than I wanted, and I must have done poorly because the next set was an absolute breeze. I was definitely rattled by the difficulty of the first QR set, which caused me to lose focus on moving quickly through questions and setting them up correctly. It also didn't help that my sharpie ran out right as I started QR and I lost 2 minutes waiting for the test administrator to bring me another one.

Overall, the prep was worth it, and I'd highly suggest getting through all the available practice questions because they give you enough reps to realize what type of answers the test is setting up.

I just took the EA and wanted to share my experience. Sounds like I had a similar experience to Spark808 and Angrynrdrckr.
I studied for about 2 weeks. I bought the official GMAC EA bundle - 4 tests and practice problems.

I found the actual EA to be no easier than my practice tests but for some reason scored higher than my practice tests. I ended up with a 170 (IR: 18 VR: 14 QR: 18).

I barely studied for the verbal section at all - which is likely why my score was much lower than the other 2 sections.
I found the IR sections and QR sections to be very similar to the practice test and problems in the GMAC bundle. I did spend a good amount of my study time making sure I understood all the math concepts and tricks so I could be quick to answer complicated questions.

Hi, Do we have an idea on how many incorrect questions in the Executive Assessment test result in the the associated score and how much should I score across all three sections to get a score above 175 / 200 ?

Unless GMAC makes changes, the maximum possible score is thought to be 174, with a maximum of 18 in each section. Lots of sites claim the maximum section raw score is 20 and the overall maximum score is 200. This is WRONG! Just take an official practice exam and you can confirm this for yourself. Without changes to the standardization curves, 175/200 would require a perfect exam. And even with a perfect exam might not be achievable.

The test is adaptive, so you must score perfectly on IR to receive the most challenging questions in the V and QR sections. The schools receiving your scores also get percentiles for the total and each section score. I was told by a reputable admissions director that 18 in any section is the "100th percentile" - I did not argue - maybe I just misheard or he/she just meant "perfect". I think missing up to 2 questions gets you 14 if you have the higher difficulty in later sections. I do know that 14 was the 99th percentile on the exam I completed and 164 is also the 99th percentile. That said, some have said there are different test banks of questions and similar sections scores can lead to slightly different total scores.

I speculate that the cutoff for the 99th percentile is probably somewhere between 160-164. All schools seem really impressed with anything above 155-160 though. Just guessing, but I would think anybody scoring in the 98th percentile or higher would be grouped in the top tier in the "testing" category and then other considerations would become the more important differentiators.

Hi

I am 36 years old and the last test (of any significance was 15 years ago) . Prepared ~20 days for the EA, primarily the Official bundle (300 questions + 4 practise tests).

Did ok in the 4 practise tests
P1: 162
P2 161
P3: 165
P4: 168

My actual EA score was 159 (IR: 13; VR: 12; QR:14). Felt the questions were slightly tougher that the practise test. Time was more or less sufficient. Did not miss any question

Hi,
I have given the first two review tests with the score of 164 and 162. I wanted to confirm how much do these score result in terms of percentile as I am looking to target the 99 percentile as I wish to apply for my full time MBA and few full time programs are accepting EA in addition to GMAT

I have attempted on 26 November and scored 151.
This is an exam more about focusing and maintaining pace.
I have used official material only

Posted from my mobile device

I have a question for the folks who have already taken the actual EA test. While preparing the EA from the GMAC's online practice tool, the IR question seems to be difficult to navigate as everything appears top to bottom per question. This makes it really hard to read the question and scroll up and down to read the table etc. So, my question is: how does the IR question appear on the actual EA test? Does it appear as the data/graph/table on the left and then the question on the right or does it appear the way it appears on the EA practice tool (from top to bottom)? Thanks!

Hi!
Can you share please link on GMAC test prep ? Which exactly?

Hi!
Can you share please link on GMAC prep materials, that you used?

https://www.gmac.com/executive-assessme ... icial-prep