Grading curve

Question

How many questions can you exactly (or, approximately) miss to score a V 45 ?

From what I read, top scorers routinely miss 20% of the questions - is this a fact or a myth?

geometric · Answer

This really isn't worth considering, IMO. You could miss 20 questions in a row, then get every question correct after that, and still end up with a decent score. Or you could get the first 35 questions correct, then miss the last 6, and end up with something in the high 30's.

CAT is a tricky animal. You've got to try to put 100% of your focus on each question in turn without considering the bigger picture. There is no "strategy" except to answer as many questions as you can correctly.

Edvento · Answer

Well, don't. I repeat DON'T think about leaving ANY question. It is better to attempt remaining questions incorrectly if time runs out, rather than leaving those unattempted. Missing responses demands a higher penalty than incorrect response.

If you are really concerned about the scoring of negative penalty, think of it like this. The penalty on a wrong response is directly proportional to the percentage of questions remaining in the exam. And the negative weight is more on unattempted than incorrect.

KyleWiddison · Answer

Unfortunately, there actually isn't an answer to your question. Because the GMAT is adaptive, the difficulty level of the questions is different for each test taker. The questions do NOT carry equal weight. You get more credit for getting hard questions right (compared to getting easy questions right) and you get a steeper penalty for missing easy questions (compared to getting hard questions wrong). Additionally, up to 1/4 of your questions will be experimental and not part of your score, so you could miss all of those without impacting your score at all!

If you are trying to maximize your Verbal score, make sure you start from the bottom up. Get everything correct that is below your ability level, try to get 75% correct at your ability level and shoot for 50% on the questions above your ability level. I've not heard about the 20% correct statistic, but I do know that the GMAT tries to have the average test taker miss about 40% of questions.

-KW

Grading curve

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