Guess or skip - on the GMAT?

Question

Hello
Most of us already know (or have been given the advice) that skipping questions results in some sort of penalty on the GMAT.
However, I found the following message on mba.com by the GMAT team.

"If you leave a question blank, you receive no credit for the item. However, if you answer a question and get it wrong, you get no credit and you are penalized a quarter of a point for five-option multiple-choice questions and one-third of a point for four-option questions."

So now I am extremely confused? What's better, guess and mark or skip when run out of time?

Edit: here's the link https://www.mba.com/exams-and-exam-prep ... 0questions.

Rochix123 · Answer

bb   Bunuel   GMATNinja   MartyTargetTestPrep

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Rochix123.

The formula that you are concerned about is mentioned in that post as a general approach that standardized test makers have used.

It's not used by the current version of the GMAT.

So, your best move is to answer as many questions as you can, and if some are left when time is running out, then mark choices in all of them.

See this post for more.

How Is the GMAT Exam Scored?

bb · Answer

I think whoever wrote that article either did not fully understand how the GMAT works or maybe missed something in translation.... because what is a quarter of a point? Is that the scaled point? In any case, since the test is adaptive, it cannot work that way as Marty pointed it out. My guess this was an outsourced article....

It seems that some of that logic may have been borrowed from here without properly being applied to the GMAT framework:
https://www.webassign.net/manual/instru ... stions.htm

Thank you for sharing this. I would not worry too much about it. It seems a pretty strange article to start with. You can't even skip questions on the GMAT. 🤷‍♂️

P.S. It is really a confusing piece now that I think about it.... and damaging too!

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

So now I am extremely confused? What's better, guess and mark or skip when run out of time?

If you want to move to the next question on the GMAT, you have to choose an answer choice. There is no "skip" option.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  Rochix123 ,

That part of the article ("formula scoring") is about (many) standardised tests  other than the computer adaptive GMAT . In other words, they were not discussing the current GMAT in that part of the article. That's why they go on to say this:

GMATNinja · Answer

AjiteshArun is spot-on here. The article is as clear as mud, unfortunately. There's no such thing as "formula scoring" on a computer adaptive test, and the article was written badly, so it's not obvious that they mentioned that type of scoring solely for the purpose of contrasting it with the actual GMAT scoring system.

Honestly, I would completely ignore this particular piece of silliness on the mba.com website. Sorry that it wasted a bit of your time and energy, Rochix123 !

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Guess or skip - on the GMAT?

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