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takasar12
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Quant section questions 13 Dec 2017, 12:49
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Big fan of gmatclub, love the great advice and whole host of strategies and tactics on these pages. Not quite sure where this small set of questions belongs but this seems quite an appropriate place given that most are about the quant section

I am actually a recently graduated student looking to apply for an MSc Finance at a top british university (oxford, LSE, warwick, etc) and, given that my undergraduate degree was not highly quantitative, have been advised to take the gmat and so prove my quantitative ability (need Q49, 85%). I have been preparing for close to 3 months, intending to sit it just after christmas and have been taken 3 manhattan tests and 1 gmatprep test.

the manhattan tests, particularly the quant section, were remarkably tough in comparison to the more official OG and gmatprep practice questions (never got above Q46). ive noticed many share this particular view. if true, what is the best way to use the manhattan CATs?

as for the gmatprep test, i achieved 710 (Q48, V40). The quant section was slightly easier, although i got 7 of the first 30 incorrect and 6 of the final 7 (lack of time). dont know how i scored in the 92nd percentile, given that my quant and verbal scores were in the 78th and 90th percentiles respectively.
these forums seem to be quite divided on the predictive ability of the gmatprep tests, particularly earlier posts from around 4-5 years ago where many saw them as too easy in comparison to the actual gmat itself. any advice on this much appreciated.

i practice questions mostly from the online versions of the OG (2017) and find, even the 300+ 'difficult' questions, to generally be a touch easier in comparison to the gmatprep and manhattan quant questions. anybody else feel this way?

in general, on the gmat, is it more damaging (statistically speaking) to answer 3+ questions incorrectly in the first 10 or to answer multiple wrong in a row later on?

any all help much appreciated.

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ccooley
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GMAT 1: 790 Q51 V49
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GMAT 1: 790 Q51 V49
GRE 1: Q170 V170
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Quant section questions 13 Dec 2017, 13:00
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takasar12
the manhattan tests, particularly the quant section, were remarkably tough in comparison to the more official OG and gmatprep practice questions (never got above Q46). ive noticed many share this particular view. if true, what is the best way to use the manhattan CATs?
Show more

You're not the only one to bring this up. My own theory is that the MPrep tests are scored accurately, but they have slightly more word problems (and slightly harder word problems) than the real thing. Since word problems are a weakness for many of us, this makes the MPrep quant feel a bit tougher. That said, the GMAC won't reveal very much information to us or to anybody about how their scoring algorithm works. All we know is that our practice tests were looked over by Larry Rudner - a former head of the GMAC - and he confirmed that they're accurate to how the real GMAT behaves. I think that's enough to take them seriously and treat them as both good practice and good data, without doing anything special.

Quote:

i practice questions mostly from the online versions of the OG (2017) and find, even the 300+ 'difficult' questions, to generally be a touch easier in comparison to the gmatprep and manhattan quant questions. anybody else feel this way?
Show more

Are you doing these problems one at a time, or in sets? Are you using a timer? Doing problems in the context of a full practice test is much harder than doing them individually.

Quote:

in general, on the gmat, is it more damaging (statistically speaking) to answer 3+ questions incorrectly in the first 10 or to answer multiple wrong in a row later on?
Show more

We don't know for sure, but it probably depends on where in the test you miss those questions and how well you're doing prior to that point. In general, I can tell you that it's never good to miss many (more than 4 or so) questions in a row.

It's a little ambiguous whether it's worse to miss multiple questions at the beginning or at the end. The test makes bigger score adjustments at the beginning of each section, so missing a bunch of questions at the beginning will cause a bigger temporary drop in your score. However, you still have the entire rest of the section to recover. On the other hand, if you miss multiple questions at the end, the temporary effect on your score is smaller. But, you won't have any time left to fix the situation, so you're stuck with it.

The ideal way to take the test is to miss questions intermittently - missing one every couple of questions, rather than missing a lot in a row at any point. This will probably involve some proactive guessing.
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Quant section questions 13 Dec 2017, 16:43
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You're not the only one to bring this up. My own theory is that the MPrep tests are scored accurately, but they have slightly more word problems (and slightly harder word problems) than the real thing. Since word problems are a weakness for many of us, this makes the MPrep quant feel a bit tougher. That said, the GMAC won't reveal very much information to us or to anybody about how their scoring algorithm works. All we know is that our practice tests were looked over by Larry Rudner - a former head of the GMAC - and he confirmed that they're accurate to how the real GMAT behaves. I think that's enough to take them seriously and treat them as both good practice and good data, without doing anything special.



Are you doing these problems one at a time, or in sets? Are you using a timer? Doing problems in the context of a full practice test is much harder than doing them individually.



We don't know for sure, but it probably depends on where in the test you miss those questions and how well you're doing prior to that point. In general, I can tell you that it's never good to miss many (more than 4 or so) questions in a row.

It's a little ambiguous whether it's worse to miss multiple questions at the beginning or at the end. The test makes bigger score adjustments at the beginning of each section, so missing a bunch of questions at the beginning will cause a bigger temporary drop in your score. However, you still have the entire rest of the section to recover. On the other hand, if you miss multiple questions at the end, the temporary effect on your score is smaller. But, you won't have any time left to fix the situation, so you're stuck with it.

The ideal way to take the test is to miss questions intermittently - missing one every couple of questions, rather than missing a lot in a row at any point. This will probably involve some proactive guessing.
Show more

thanks for the speedy response.
as to the OG questions, i try to do each within a 2.5 minute timeframe, which is similar to what i would give myself in a real test.
fair enough, that makes sense. personally, i try to get at least the first 30/31 done properly and guess the final 5 if time is running out. maybe i should try guessing a in the 20-30 section to help better pace myself.
in your experience, is there a significant gap between q48 and q49?
any knowledge you may have about the gmatprep CATs would also be much appreciated.

thanks again.

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Hi there,
This topic has been closed and archived due to inactivity or violation of community quality standards. No more replies are possible here.
Where to now? Join ongoing discussions on thousands of quality questions in our Quantitative Questions Forum
Still interested in this question? Check out the "Best Topics" block above for a better discussion on this exact question, as well as several more related questions.
Thank you for understanding, and happy exploring!