An Observation...For You High Scoring Types

Question

An interesting observation from GMATPrep and for the real deal too...

Took GMATPrep 1 and 2 with the following scores - 770 (Q50 V44) and 760 (Q49 V47)...

What I thought was interesting was that my 3 point increase in V wasn't enough to move the needle to offset that 1pt drop in Q! I think 44 V or 45 V is the terminal number where any upside to that matters not...anyone have any input here?

mailtheguru · Answer

Interesting. How many did you get wrong in the sections? Did the positioning of the wrong answers matter?

One independent question: Do you have to click on confirm on the last answer, or can you click on the answer and let the clock time to expire?

pelihu · Answer

I noticed that exact same thing with my official score. Let's compare some recently reported scores:

50Q/32V = 690
50Q/38V = 730
50Q/41V = 750
50Q/43V = 760
50Q/44V = 770
50Q/51V = 780

All scores have 50Q with varying V. Notice that around the 700 level, improvements in V still seem to garner nice improvements in overall score. A 6 point improvement in V (32-38) moves the overall score 40 points (690-730) - not bad. 3 points V will move the score from 730 to 750 and again from 750 to 770, again not bad.

But look at those last 2 scores. A 7 point improvement in V yields only a 10 point improvement in overall score - now that's diminishing returns. I suspect the issue is that at 44V you have hit the 97th percentile, and by 46V you have achieved 99th percentile. GMAT scoring is based comparative scoring, so I think you are correct that there just aren't many gains available after 45V or so. There may only be 10-20 points available between 44V-51V, depending on your Q score. If you Q score is much lower, then a wider ranger may be available.

Now Q is a different matter. Competition is intense at the top of the Q heap. Improvements in Q score will affect your overall score to a greater extent, but the gains are harder to achieve because there is much more competition. There are simply fewer people competing for the final V points.

I'm also kind of bothered by the fact that as recently as a year ago 50/51 probably yielded 800, while now it is only worth 780. The percentile ranking for a 750 score changed in the 5 weeks between my two test results, and I actually wonder if a 50/51 on my first attempt would have resulted in 800. Those that have recently score 750 with a 98% probably know how I feel. Timing is everything.

nothanks · Answer

If you look in the share your gmat experience section there are examples of people getting almost the exact same scaled scores yet different overall scores. For example 2 people who took the test recently had almost the exact same scores and the guy with 1 higher scaled score point had a LOWER overall score (by 10 pts)! 

So far I gather that a total scaled score of 84-86 generally equals a 700 overall score. From that point it gets muddy where the top scores break down.

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An Observation...For You High Scoring Types

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