mayonnai5e wrote:
so i've read from several posts about the goal of increasing your hit rate. i was wondering why that should be the main goal/focus of our studies. on my gmatprep 1 test i missed 17 out of the 37 Q problems and received a 45 score which is decent i think. my hit rate wasn't particularly great, but the score turned out okay. is a high hit rate related to answering more questions consecutively so you can reach the harder questions? or is there some other reason why this should be one of the most important goals?
a 45 is a good Q score. depending on your ultimate goal and your V score, your hit rate might be just fine.
when we talk about hit rate, we mean % right vs % wrong... and I think most people talk about it in reference to non CAT practice problems (like the
OG etc..) Your hit rate on a CAT is somewhat less important, and it isn't an easily comparable statistic to other people.
Because it is adaptive, you were answering harder questions than someone who would score in the 30's, and earning more points per question. Your 45 and someone elses 35 can share the same hit rate.
No one knows 100% how the GMAT algorithm works, but it takes into accoount how many questions you got right, how many you got wrong, how many you didnt answer, the difficulty level of each question, and even the distribution of your wrong answers
For example:
if you got 10 Verbal questions wrong, and they were all SC - and I answered the same difficulty level, got the same amount right in the same exact order, but my 10 errors were spread across RC, CR, and SC, I am 'more well rounded' and 'smarter' so I get a higher score. Likewise if you get 10 Quant questions wrong, and they all had to deal with circles in some fashion, its worse than getting 10 Quant questions wrong in 5 or 6 different categories.
it's enough to make your head spin, so I suggest you don't worry about it. keeping track of your hit rate is important for practice problems, but if you are using the
OG, the questions get harder as you go along... so expect that your hit rate could drop as you progress.
keep tracking your progress in CATs and practice problems and good luck!