GMAT FE 635 Debrief - 14 Dec

Question

Hi Folks,

I gave my GMAT on 14th December, and I have received a score of 635 with only 12 incorrect questions overall.

Can someone please explain how is this possible?

I have seen multiple ESRs of 675 with 18 mistakes, 695 with 12 mistakes in total and so on.

I understand that the test is adaptive and it depends which questions you go wrong in, but even so a 60 point gap is a big mystery.

So here's the breakdown

Quant - 1 Incorrect
Question 6
Score - 84
Percentile - 85

Verbal - 5 Incorrect
Question 4, 6, 7,12, 14
Score - 81
Percentile - 70

DI - 6 Incorrect
Question 3, 7, 11, 15, 18, 19
Score - 79
Percentile - 79

It would be really great if someone with similar mistakes or same number of individual scores (Q84/V81/D79) can confirm their respective percentiles so that i can gauge and understand what really happened here, cause I am currently baffled

Any logical and reasonable inputs are welcome!

JayGMATFOCUS · Answer

Hi,

I am not a scoring algorithm expert but Q84 with 1 question wrong (that too not the very first one) seems really odd.

Try writing to GMAC, they might hopefully be able to give you an explanation.

Cheers

BrentTargetTestPrep · Answer

Q84 from 1 incorrect response seems odd. 
That said, the GMAT punishes you more for getting easy/medium questions wrong than it rewards you for getting hard questions right. 
So, I suspect the question you got wrong was either easy or medium level.

bb · Answer

This is pretty insane... this would only make sense if you left the last question unanswered. Can you check on your report if you left the last question unanswered? I really can't see how it would be Q84 with 1 wrong

If you answered all questions, do you have any idea what that 6th question was and its difficulty? (just grasping for straws here).

egmat · Answer

bb  - it definitely is insane. I absolutely agree. At the same time, I have seen a couple of other cases. We have two students - a 655 scorer who has 5 wrong on the Verbal section with a V85 - a 96th percentile. Another student - has a V75 (19th percentile) with 5 mistakes. When you look at the error map for both - they are very similar.

The student requested the GMAC to re-evaluate his score report. Their response - Please note, we did not find any discrepancy in your score. Your score depends on a variety of factors, including the difficulty level of questions.

While GFE scoring has, in general, been consistent, there are a few such cases where it seems like the algorithm does not adapt quickly enough.

BTW - on the other end of the spectrum, we have another student who scored 100 percentile in RC despite making one mistake in RC. Again - are such issues there - surely! Are they common - probably not. Were they there in the classical GMAT - they were. One the GCE, we had two students who got a V32 with just two mistakes. Both of them scored a V44 in their next attempt within 15 days.

While all of this is unfortunate, I think the OP should just take the exam again and score higher.

-Rajat

Heema22 · Answer

Hey BB thanks for sharing my bafflesness.

I completed the quant section 10 mins to spare, so i had definitely not left any que unanswered.

Nd the 6th question was a series question definitely a medium to difficult level question.

Posted from my mobile device

MrWhite · Answer

GFE is very sensitive to mistakes but this seems extremely unlikely - worth checking with GMAC.

One of my mocks, I scored Q86 with only 1 mistake (Question 5 or thereabouts). Unless you have missed one question which you clearly havent, your quant score doesn't make any logical sense.

Let's see what the response is. Great score otherwise give yourself a pat on the back regardless!

Posted from my mobile device

bb · Answer

Thank you! And you did reviews of questions in the last 10 mins or what did you use the time for?

Sorry for being so nosy, but trying to get every detail so we can track a pattern if there is a potential bug in the test software. It just seems quite crazy with 1 mistake. I have left 1 unanswered in quant in my GMAT Prep experiments. Leaving 1 question unanswered (last one obviously) gave me a score of Q85. 89th percentile so higher than what you got with just 1 mistake. It really really does not compute

Heema22 · Answer

bb

Hi Yes, I reviewed two questions, got them correct from incorrect.

But just to put it out there, i saw someones report where the person had changed two questions from incorrect to correct with all the rest questions correct and eventually got a Q90

So i don't think they can or should penalize me for reviewing two questions and getting them correct at last.

Posted from my mobile device

bb · Answer

Hi. I have played around with correct/incorrect and you are not penalized per se and test seems to be (within limits) treating changed answers just as though they were correct from get go, so I don't think you should have been penalized in any way but quick question, which question numbers were these? I guess we will see when you get your Score Report in a few days... just impatient and really weirded out with this score.

bb · Answer

Thank you for the perspective Rajat! 
Appreciate the additional depth and data points!

I have also seen people make multiple and numerous mistakes and walk away with decent scores. 
I guess one more question for you Paumilpatel - what were your practice test scores for QUant?

Heema22 · Answer

bb

I reviewed question number 2 and 19 and got both right

Also in practice, i used to get 4 to 6 questions wrong in Quant usually, but that was mainly because i was practicing on harder question sets.

Posted from my mobile device

bb · Answer

Got it. How were your practice scores? Were they consistent or higher? my question is not so much for the number of mistakes but the practice scores, even if they had more mistakes. One theory could be that you got a really easy question set but the system still Eter your score close enough so to speak… 🤷‍♂️ I’m just trying to figure it out

Heema22 · Answer

bb   egmat   BrentTargetTestPrep

Can you guys please share your views on verbal and DI score on these number and format of mistakes?

Posted from my mobile device

bb · Answer

I don’t have a whole lot to say about verbal or data insights score in light of the quantitative craziness… maybe one last point would be about the order you took the sections in, did you take them quant, verbal and data insights?

However the verbal score also seems a bit restrained or depressed because in my experiments with GMAT prep missing five questions in a more or less diverse pattern should give you a higher score. I’ve even once got 11 wrong in a row. The first half and I still got 78 one time and 79 another time. Getting eight wrong I ended up with 81 one of the times. And another time I got 79 with eight wrong as well so as you can see there’s not too much of a relationship between the number of wrong questions and the score because the difficulty comes into play.

Posted from my mobile device

Heema22 · Answer

Yeah i did take it in that order, quant, verbal and then DI.

Looks like I've gotten the worst case scenario of Gmat scoring, but even with all the adaptiveness i am not able to wrap around my head on this score!

egmat · Answer

Paumilpatel  - It is really important that we do not lose the forest for the trees. What we are discussing here are exceptions, and there is a thing about exceptions - they are rare. For an overwhelming majority of users, the estimation algorithm that the test uses is extremely precise.

Another thing - You seem to be harping on accuracy vs. ability estimate. In any adaptive test, this correlation is weak, especially in the ability zones that we are discussing - 70th percentile to 90th percentile. Hence, rather than worrying about whether you got a raw deal in Verbal and DI, focus on how you can improve your ability even further. I think your ability estimates for both Verbal and DI are within the zone of error (about 5 percentile).

I hope this helps!

-Rajat

Heema22 · Answer

Understood  egmat

Anyway, I have emailed GMAC regarding this and to do a reassessment (if possible), will wait for their reply.

Meanwhile will apply in IIMA for R3 deadline.

And will plan to give the gmat again in January for global applications.

Any suggestions on how to attempt exam again from here would be helpful, because i planned on getting less than 18 mistakes which i did achieve, but i dont know how much better can i perform in a months time to get less than 12 mistakes!

Thanks all in advance for hearing me out and giving me some insights here

Posted from my mobile device

egmat · Answer

Paumilpatel - to do that, we would need to focus on building ability. We can create a plan for you. Please take screenshots of your score report and share the same at [email protected]. Please send a link to this thread as a reference for continuity.

-Rajat

klexian · Answer

TBH if you got full marks for Quant that'll be 695 already (from 635), and since it's Q6 you likely got an easy (but tricky) question wrong. 
Probably a good idea to check through every question if you have the time. I managed to change 1 from incorrect to correct for my Q90.

For the other sections, I just needed to concentrate (and some luck) during the exam. Can't really give you tips on how to prepare because I didn't at all. My only comment on verbal is that usually there aren't trick questions unlike quant. For DI, be prepared to get several wrong but that usually doesn't drop your DI score and total score too much.

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