Quant score low with 10 incorrect answers

Question

I gave GMAT Prep test today and scored Q38V36. How can i get a q38 when i got 10 questions wrong the first one being the 9th question?? Please someone explain. I have got Q44 once with 10 questions wrong.

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vaibhav1446 · Answer

You got 10 questions wrong out of 23, first 8 questions were correct.

Baiscally you got ALMOST every alternate question wrong after forst 8 questions.

The frequency of wrong questions is very high.

If these 10 questions were spreadout throughout the section, you would have had a better score.

With every alternate wrong answer, you are not giving algo the chance to give you higher level questions.

It would also helpful to check if you got consecutive wrong answers- how many, how many times.

Aratrika25 · Answer

I don't know what's happening. I got Q47-Q46-Q45 last week..then this happened. My scores are going down.. Absolutely NO idea how that's possible. Also, the questions I am missing out on are the same ones I am able to solve post the exam, while reviewing. HOW DO I CALM DOWN!!? ?
Is there a possibility that this is happening because I am giving too many tests? I usually sit for one full length test daily (Veritas, Experts Global, GMAT Official Prep Tests.)

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dep · Answer

First of all you need to calm down and stop beating yourself over it. The low score is most probably because of continuous string of mistake maybe in second or third section ( if you break the no of questions in sections of eight). Also there seems to be underlying certain conceptual issues which will not be solved just by giving exams daily but by addressing those specific areas to improve. The tests are measure of how much the concepts are getting clear under pressure of time. You preferably should address the concepts of your weak areas and maybe take a test weekly to understand how much are you improving.
I am sure in 7-10 days you will see a marked change in your scores.
Hope it helps

unraveled · Answer

Do realise that ups and downs are part of your prep journey. You have to analyse not only when you score low(Q38 for example) but also when you score high(Q47). 
Take my case: I scored Q50 in Gmatclub Q-test a while ago. Here I got 3rd wrong and 3 wrong in first 20, totalling 6. Pumped, I gave one more and fell flat at Q39, with more than 10 wrong. Here I got 3 wrong in first 10.

So, all in all you need to keep working on your strategy and breathe easy by taking breaks. Keeping calm during exam even if you take 4 minute in a hard question helps a lot.

IanStewart · Answer

There are some misunderstandings in this thread. First, you can't compare scores between company tests and official ones. Only trust official scores. You mention you're taking tests from several providers. If this Q38 was from a company test, you simply shouldn't care about it; there's no reason to think it represents anything important. If it's from an official test, you should care about it a lot.

Taking one test per day is not a good idea. Taking tests will only be beneficial if you also have time to review them, determine what you might improve at, and work on that for a while. You wouldn't have time to do that analysis and practice if you're taking one test per day, and you'll likely burn out very quickly at that pace, which will lead to worsening performances. If your scores are declining, it's extremely unlikely you're getting worse at Quant. It's much more likely you're just getting more and more tired. So I'd suggest taking a couple of days off (completely), and also radically changing your test-taking schedule.

There is almost no correlation between the number of wrong answers on an adaptive test and the score you will get, unless you are at one extreme of ability. A Q35-level test taker and a Q50-level test taker will often have the same number of wrong answers. The difference is, the Q35 test taker gets easy questions right and medium-hard ones wrong. The Q50 test taker gets medium-hard questions right and very hard questions wrong. Because the test adapts, the Q35 and Q50 test takers are simply seeing different questions.

There are persistent myths about how the scoring algorithm works. There is no special importance attached to the first eight or ten questions. If those questions are easy, and you get a few of them wrong, that will hurt you quite a lot, since high-level test takers almost never get easy questions wrong (so if you do, it's persuasive evidence to the algorithm that you are not a high-level test taker). If they're very hard, it won't hurt you much at all if you get a few questions wrong (since that's what most test takers do, of any level, on very hard questions). It's question difficulty that matters, not where the question shows up in a test.

Some of the official practice tests draw from a question bank with a lot of hard questions in it (the free tests, or the older GMATPrep software-based tests, for example). On those tests, you can do extremely well with many wrong answers, because the questions can be consistently very hard. Other official tests (some of the paid-for ones) do not have a big database of hard questions to draw from. Then the test can be full of easy and medium level questions, and then each wrong answer can be consequential. If your Q38 was on an official test, I'd bet, based on how you describe your performance, that it was on one of the tests with an easier pool of questions. When you review that test (assuming it was official - if it wasn't, as I said above, I'd just ignore it), you should pay careful attention to your wrong answers. Several of them will have been on easy/medium questions (if that weren't true, you wouldn't have a Q38), and you might notice there are concepts tested in easy/medium questions that you could better understand. Any gaps like that are crucially important to address, so you don't run the risk of getting easier questions wrong on future tests. Of course, it's also possible that you just had a bad day, or that you were tired, and that you made more careless errors than normal. Taking a break should help with that. You should also pay attention to the circumstances in which you're prone to careless errors, so you can slow down and double-check your work in similar situations in the future.

If you were scoring in the mid-40s in Quant on other official tests, that is very likely your true level right now, so don't be discouraged by a single anomalous score. But I would suggest taking steps, as I describe above, to minimize the chance you get a similarly unusual score in the future. Good luck!

Aratrika25 · Answer

ian dep and unraveled , thank you so much for your suggestions. I am working on my weak areas now, as you suggested. I found out that I tend to ignore essential details in DS questions and go wrong in most of them. Working on it. Hope things go well. Thanks again

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unraveled · Answer

There's a beautiful post. It is very helpful. debrief-online-format-tips-resources-online-whiteboard-770-q50-v45-328629.html Mindfulness and Meditation are big thing(at least it was for me) if you are new to it. But approach slowly and rest it would do.

Quant score low with 10 incorrect answers

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