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In Episode 4 of our GMAT Ninja CR series, we tackle the most intimidating CR question type: Boldface & "Legalese" questions. If you've ever stared at an answer choice that reads, "The first is a consideration introduced to counter a position that...- May 14
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Most GMAT test-takers are intimidated by the hardest GMAT Verbal questions. In this session, Target Test Prep GMAT instructor Erika Tyler-John, a 100th percentile GMAT scorer, will show you how top scorers break down challenging Verbal questions..
05 Nov 2021, 01:29
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Apologies for misguiding you with a sensational 'topic name'. Although the same is not too far from the thought that I am going to share with you.
For info - I will be writing GMAT two weeks from today and like most of you guys, I used the first free prep test as a diagnostic test and have the second one saved for the last phase of my prep.
While giving one of the third-party mocks, a thought came to my mind during the 8 min scheduled break (yeah right!). I began wondering that these third-party websites use such high-quality analytics that just by me giving a single mock (and maybe sometimes by only few sectional quizzes) they know so much about my strengths and weaknesses - topics that I absolutely dread and topics that I breeze through easily! NOW imagine that by just clicking submit on each of our answers, how much data we are feeding to GMAC!. GMAC - father(s?) of this "ENIGMA" - with its team of brilliant psychometricians, how much they know about my prep, my thinking, my psychology, my shortcomings, my level on each(/most) of the sub-topics of both Verbal and Quant.
My main point is that GMAT, with all the gained knowledge from prep tests, can adapt even before the first question is given to me, to make or break my score. And additional 'P&C' question in quant and a few more than usual 'Inference' questions in Verbal can really put a dent in the confidence, and hence in the final score of most of the test-takers.
Please note that all of this is part of my imagination and I am sharing this just out of curiosity and not at all do I doubt the process and more importantly the intentions of this exam or the people behind the test. Also note that a 'company' which tests one's proficiency in the English language is known for such malevolent intentions- so that a student will reattempt the same test to 3-4 times; More attempts mean more $$$.
I would really like to know how others feel about this hypothesis.
Best Regards
ktzsikka
For info - I will be writing GMAT two weeks from today and like most of you guys, I used the first free prep test as a diagnostic test and have the second one saved for the last phase of my prep.
While giving one of the third-party mocks, a thought came to my mind during the 8 min scheduled break (yeah right!). I began wondering that these third-party websites use such high-quality analytics that just by me giving a single mock (and maybe sometimes by only few sectional quizzes) they know so much about my strengths and weaknesses - topics that I absolutely dread and topics that I breeze through easily! NOW imagine that by just clicking submit on each of our answers, how much data we are feeding to GMAC!. GMAC - father(s?) of this "ENIGMA" - with its team of brilliant psychometricians, how much they know about my prep, my thinking, my psychology, my shortcomings, my level on each(/most) of the sub-topics of both Verbal and Quant.
My main point is that GMAT, with all the gained knowledge from prep tests, can adapt even before the first question is given to me, to make or break my score. And additional 'P&C' question in quant and a few more than usual 'Inference' questions in Verbal can really put a dent in the confidence, and hence in the final score of most of the test-takers.
Please note that all of this is part of my imagination and I am sharing this just out of curiosity and not at all do I doubt the process and more importantly the intentions of this exam or the people behind the test. Also note that a 'company' which tests one's proficiency in the English language is known for such malevolent intentions- so that a student will reattempt the same test to 3-4 times; More attempts mean more $$$.
I would really like to know how others feel about this hypothesis.
Best Regards
ktzsikka
05 Nov 2021, 21:32
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ktzsikka
Hi ktzsikka,
Properly analysing data from tests is expensive! This is something that GMAC invests in (much more than non-official test providers do) during the question development and testing process, but doing it all over again after pulling a question out of the question pool ("retiring" it) just doesn't make any economic sense.
So you don't have anything to worry about here. This is not meant to dismiss your points, although I think that you too don't really think that GMAC targets individual test takers. All I mean is that with two weeks to go, it's important that we focus on the exam itself. Maybe come back to this after your exam?
All the best for the test.
Fun fact: GMAC wants the GMAT to be fair (and to be seen as such), and that's one reason why they don't use data from previous attempts. That is, if someone takes the GMAT more than once, the algorithm, apart from making sure that questions aren't repeated, treats every attempt as a "fresh" test.
07 Nov 2021, 14:10
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I see a lot of theories about the GMAT where the underlying premise is "GMAC is out to get the test taker". These come in a lot of flavours -- for example, one theory that used to be popular was that on "which of the following?" Quant questions, GMAC would put the answer near the end (D or E) so test takers would waste the maximum amount of time working through the answers in order from A to E. That's not true (which I've confirmed by looking at a lot of official questions like that, and seeing how often D or E are correct -- it's about 40% of the time, as you'd expect if answer position was completely random). But it's really the premise that is wrong: GMAC has no interest in trying to "get" the test taker. If anything, the opposite is true -- all of the changes to the test over the last 5-10 years have been designed to make the GMAT more approachable to test takers, and a more accurate assessment tool. They shortened the test so fatigue wouldn't play as big a role. They changed their score cancellation policy so test takers could freely eliminate low scores from their history, so that test day pressure would be minimized. And they let test takers customize section order so test takers can proceed in whatever way they find most comfortable.
The point of the GMAT is to give information to MBA (and some other) programs about a test taker's academic potential. If GMAC did anything to compromise the integrity of GMAT assessment, the test wouldn't be serving that goal, and programs would move on to the GRE or some other test. So if you encounter any theory that GMAC has some kind of sinister desire to make test takers get low scores, those theories are based on an incorrect premise. I've never seen a theory starting from that premise that had a correct conclusion.
And about your specific questions, there is no chance GMAC is using information from your diagnostic tests in any way that would influence your real test. I can't imagine they'd use that data for any purpose at all, in fact; the questions in those tests have already been calibrated, so they don't even need to use test taker data to refine their estimates of question difficulty.
The point of the GMAT is to give information to MBA (and some other) programs about a test taker's academic potential. If GMAC did anything to compromise the integrity of GMAT assessment, the test wouldn't be serving that goal, and programs would move on to the GRE or some other test. So if you encounter any theory that GMAC has some kind of sinister desire to make test takers get low scores, those theories are based on an incorrect premise. I've never seen a theory starting from that premise that had a correct conclusion.
And about your specific questions, there is no chance GMAC is using information from your diagnostic tests in any way that would influence your real test. I can't imagine they'd use that data for any purpose at all, in fact; the questions in those tests have already been calibrated, so they don't even need to use test taker data to refine their estimates of question difficulty.
