One bad section

Question

Hey everyone,

I just recently wrote my GMAT Focus and achieved a score of 645, which all in all I am pretty happy with as this is the average score for applications at my preferred universities/business schools. While Data Insights is my strongest area generally, it went pretty poorly in the exam.

My questions is: Does the one bad sectional score in DI have a negative impact despite the overall score and if yes, is it worth taking the exam again to score a somewhat similar score but have a better distribution?

Any insights would be really helpful.

THX!!

yc168 · Answer

What were your DI sectional scores in your previous mocks?

wxz36542 · Answer

Around 80 to 82

bb · Answer

Hi. If your score (overall is good for you) then the individual sections don't matter much. 
It is not worth getting another 655 with a different combination of Q, V, and DI.

P.S. 78 on the DI is 69th percentile. It is not anything that would make any AdCom reconsider, esp since they did not care about the IR score (the precursor of the DI) just a few years earlier.

APram · Answer

Most colleges don't look for individual scores but some colleges do look individual percentile. They keep such cutoffs 
So if your target colleges are not looking for individual scores then it's not much to worry

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

If you're concerned, consider reaching out the places you mentioned for any insight they may provide.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi wxz36542,

What is most important is that you hit your score goal. I would not worry about the score distribution among the three sections.

facereut · Answer

The score distribution rarely matters because the scores that people target usually cannot be achieved if you score too poorly in one section. But I am not fully sure if some colleges 'look' for the scores of certain section. I would recommend a simple check, if any of the institutes you are targeting has a specific sectional requirement, which I do not think is very common. All the best!!

Gladiator59 · Answer

Hi, BB. I do not think this is true. My reasoning is, I have heard from a GMAC video they specifically took input from Business Schools while designing GMAT Focus, where schools said they want to put more emphasis on data analytics capacity which is why they removed geometry and made DI a full fledged section. So I think DI cannot be compared to IR in terms of relevance anymore. Schools check Q score for quant readiness. Schools say V score is more indicative of success (Yale newsletter) Schools advocated for DI.

:cry:

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