GMAT Strategy

Hi bdelfino,

The scoring algorithm on the Official GMAT is far more complicated than most people realize. As such, you shouldn't be spending time trying to figure it all out. You'd be better served working on building up your skills.

A far more useful gauge would be to review each CAT and determine how many questions you SHOULD have gotten correct, but didn't (due to a silly/little mistake). Those mistakes are the things that you have to fix to score at a higher level.

1) What practice materials have you been using?
2) What is your goal score?
3) When are you planning to take the GMAT?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Your scores are not based on how many questions you answer correctly; they're based on the level of difficulty of the questions you answer correctly.

To illustrate this, I'll share an experiment I performed.

When I was writing the article Taking the GMATPrep Practice Tests Multiple Times (https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/tak ... iple-times), I took GMATPrep Practice Test #1 four times, and each time I answered every second question correctly (I did this for the quant section only)

Given that I correctly answered exactly HALF of the questions each time, you'd expect my quant scores to be roughly the same for all 4 tests.

My 4 scaled scores were: 19, 23, 26 and 42

This represents a percentile range from approximately 8th percentile to the 63rd percentile.

So, don't worry about how many questions you answered correctly. It has little to do with your score.

Aside: If you're interested, we have a free video explaining the GMAT scoring algorithm: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gener ... es?id=1251

Cheers,
Brent

Hi bdelfino,

For free math practice and help, I recommend that you set up an account at Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org). The site is completely free and makes the learning a bit more fun and 'game-like' (as opposed to the dry academic approach taken by most books). While the site is vast, you should limit your studies to basic Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry. After spending a little time re-building those skills, you can start your GMAT studies.

While these materials are not GMAT-centric, they should help you a great deal to hone your math skills.

As far as your broader timeline is concerned, your current plan gives you just 1.5 months of additional study time, so you will likely have to adjust your plans to hit your score goals.

If you have any additional questions, then you can feel free to contact me directly.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich