High score with a lot of wrong answers on GMATPrep Test 2

Question

I'm prepping for the GMAT on June 2nd, and I've been taking full length practice tests for the past several weekends and doing conventional studying during the weekdays in between. I've been steadily improving and took the GMATPrep (2009) Practice Test 2 today. The strange thing is that during the test, I didn't feel like it was going well, I was having trouble really focusing, etc., especially during the quant section. At the end, I didn't expect a high score. Lo and behold, 760 appeared on the screen, with a Q48 and V47. I had been scoring in the 730 range on the two prior tests. The strange thing is that, once I went to the Review Screen, it showed that I had gotten 13 of the quant problems wrong. Now, I know that it's an adaptive test and that the actual number of correct answers is not a perfect indicator of score, but 13 of 37 wrong and still a 760?! Doesn't seem right. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

On a somewhat related note, does anyone know how to get from the review screen back to the scores screen in the GMATPrep software? It seems like I should be able to review my score and subscores, but I can't figure out how to get out of the review screen. Any help is much appreciated, thanks.

On a somewhat related note, does anyone know how to get from the review screen back to the scores screen in the GMATPrep software? It seems like I should be able to review my score and subscores, but I can't figure out how to get out of the review screen. Any help is much appreciated, thanks.

KarishmaB · Answer

Q48 with 13 wrong is nothing absurd. In fact, you could even get a Q50 with 8 -10 questions wrong! It depends on a ton of factors. You got the 760 because of the fabulous V47! Hope you will be able to replicate (or improve!) this performance in actual GMAT.

pdreyer · Answer

Thanks for the clear reply, Karishma! Good to know that there wasn't some sort of mistake. I know you said it depends on a lot of factors, but I guess I'm still mildly confused.

I got 95% (39/41) of the verbal questions right, yet still had a lower verbal subscore than I did on quant with 65% of the questions right. Are the two scores not really directly comparable? Is it more difficult to get a high subscore in verbal?

amy089 · Answer

Is there anything strange, do they want to

KyleWiddison · Answer

Yes, on average test takers have a more difficult time scoring well on Verbal than they do on Quant. Just check out the percentiles for Verbal in the score table here: gmat-scores-83890.html. You can be in the 99th percentile from subscores 46-51 on Verbal, but you must have a 51 in Quant to hit the 99th percentile.

High Verbal scores can have a profound impact on your overall score. A test-taker received a scaled score of 45 in verbal (98th percentile) and 40 in quant (66th percentile) and an overall score of 700 (93rd percentile). Notice how much closer the overall percentile is to the excellent verbal percentile. If the overall percentile were simply an average of the individual percentiles, this person would have received about 640. But because the combination of an outstanding verbal performance with a fair quant performance is so rare, the overall percentile and score will be much higher than the lower quant percentile. Another person, who scored 49 in verbal (99th percentile) and 37 in quant (56th percentile), received 710 (95th percentile), even though the quant performance here was a full 10 percentile points lower than that in the previous example. Again, an outstanding performance in verbal significantly offset an average performance in quant.

in GMATPrep 1.0 you can't get back to the review screen to see your scores. It's a feature they have added in GMATPrep 2.0, though in 2.0 you can't review your answers once you close the session.

Hope that helps!

pdreyer · Answer

Thanks Kyle, that's some pretty interesting information.

I've heard people refer to the older and newer versions of the GMATPrep software-- do those refer to the pre-integrated reasoning version and the post-integrated reasoning versions? From your last comment there, it seems like I'm using 1.0. I'd love to get access to more practice tests from GMATPrep, but I'd rather not practice with the new format of the test since I will be taking the "old" test.

KyleWiddison · Answer

Yes, GMATPrep 2.0 contains Integrated Reasoning, but GMATPrep 1.0 does not. If you are looking for more GMAT practice exams, you should download GMATPrep 2.0 (https://www.mba.com/the-gmat/download-fr ... tware.aspx). The Quant/Verbal sections are no different in the "new" GMAT format, so you can just skip the IR section (or guess your way through). Your 200-800 score will be the same in 2.0 as it would be in 1.0.

Another benefit of GMATPrep 2.0 is that you may be seeing more recent GMAT questions, so your practice experience may be more similar to the real GMAT than your experience would be in GMATPrep 1.0.

High score with a lot of wrong answers on GMATPrep Test 2

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards