Drop in Quant Score Despite Better Accuracy

Question

Hi all - I was wondering if anyone could help shed some light on my recent quant ESR. I took my first exam in early Dec and got a Q49 (see ESR below). However, on my retake this past week, my quant score dropped 2 points to Q47. When I took a look at the Q47 ESR it shows that I missed fewer questions and received questions around similar difficulty to my Q49 attempt. Could anyone explain how missing 5-6 questions resulted in a score of just Q47? I thought these stats would result in at least another Q49. Thanks in advance.

Attachments

Q49 ESR.jpeg [ 127.86 KiB | Viewed 2377 times ]

Q47 ESR.jpeg [ 135.3 KiB | Viewed 2385 times ]

prateekgupta95 · Answer

bb   egmat   chetan2u   GMATNinja   dcummins

bb · Answer

Hi. It is not possible to tell a score just based upon on the number of incorrect answers.

This is due to 2 factors:
1. Adaptive nature is the test
2. Experimental questions

However, you can get Q50 with just 1 wrong or with 8 wrong. It really depends on the above factors. We did some experiments with GMAT prep, and those were some of the results. So, no, there’s no mistake in scoring that I can clearly see and as mentioned it’s not usually possible to see 😬 Sorry.

Posted from my mobile device

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Consider checking out some of the publicly available Q47-Q49 ESRs on the forum. They may provide some further insight. You can find some  Q50 ESR data at the top of this link .

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi prateekgupta95.

By looking closely at difficulty graph of the ESR for your second GMAT, you can see that you missed some questions toward the beginning of the quant section and drove the difficultly down so that the difficulty of the questions you got correct in both the first and second quarters of the quant section of your second test was lower than the difficulty of the questions you got correct in the first and second quarters of your first test.

So, that lower difficulty of the questions you got correct in the first two quarters of the second test is what underlies the score difference.

dcummins · Answer

I know you didn't ask this, but why are you stressing so much about Q47 and Q49? Fluctuations like that be very random. Just sure-up your weaker points.

The bigger question in the back of my mind is why aren't you worrying about verbal as much? Score improvements in Verbal will glean signficantly greater overall GMAT Score improvements. Q47-Q49 will improve your score, but nowhere near as much as a 2 point improvement in your verbal will

egmat · Answer

prateekgupta95 - take a look at the difficulty level chart. In the Q47 attempt, you made mistakes on easier questions. It is unfortunate, but this resulted in a lower score. You probably were rusty in a few concepts.. and these concepts showed up on these questions or your luck ran out (careless mistakes). I am saying this since you answered harder questions with much greater accuracy. You can see the impact of mistakes on easier questions in Q4 where your score estimate declined, despite a stellar performance in Q3.

Next Steps:

This probably was a bad day for you. I have seen this happen with a few students. Just keep on practicing, and you should be able to score a Q50 on the next attempt.

-Rajat

Next Steps:

This probably was a bad day for you. I have seen this happen with a few students. Just keep on practicing, and you should be able to score a Q50 on the next attempt.

-Rajat

prateekgupta95 · Answer

bb   egmat   dcummins   MartyTargetTestPrep   GmatTutorKnight  Thank you all for your insights. The big take away I got here was that I need to be more careful when approaching the "easier" quant problems and that I need to divert more of my studies to the verbal section. I will schedule a retake within the next month and hopefully report back with stellar news. Thanks again!

dcummins · Answer

Hi Prateek

How is your verbal? Where is that sitting at?

prateekgupta95 · Answer

dcummins  just sent you a chat!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

We are rooting for you! Feel free to reach out with any questions.

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