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isn't it "critical" to start off well on the Verba

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isn't it "critical" to start off well on the Verba

by jdciaravino » Fri Jul 13, 2012 12:58 pm
Before I start, this post isn't about raising that old question, "does the algorithm score earlier questions more than later ones...". I get it that the algorithm scores everything equally. However I wanted to ask something specific to the Verbal Section of the exam, specifically as it applies to the reading comprehension questions.

I remember reading it somewhere, in an official text, that when a the GMAT gives you a string of reading comprehension questions, these questions are all "locked" into a specific difficulty. It is too complicated to give you the first two questions on the passage as low, and the last two as medium. so all of the questions are around the same difficulty. So...

doesn't it necessarily follow that a GMAT test taker should be certain to start off strongly in case he/she gets an RC passage early, he/she will want to take full advantage of this opportunity and use this block of 4 non-adaptive questions to be locked into "hard" questions rather than 4 "low" questions.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri Jul 13, 2012 3:18 pm
It is always a good idea to start off strong, if possible. It is also good to be strong in the middle and at the end as well!

You make an interesting point concerning reading comprehension. The only problem is that according to this statement from the official GMAC representative, "The level of difficulty of questions you receive is based on your performance on that same type of question, only. So, your ability to answer high-level sentence correction questions will not affect the difficulty level of critical reasoning questions you receive. I hope that answers your question."

So that means that your Reading Comp question difficulty level is based only on your performance on those questions.

Here is the link to the thread referenced above. https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-rc-ques ... 14330.html
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by tutorphd » Fri Jul 13, 2012 4:11 pm
I have played with the GMATPrep algorithm for the QUANT section. I guess it's similar for the verbal, although as you said, some questions come in sets there.

My experiments with GMATPrep showed that the scoring algorithm is indeed more sensitive to errors on easy questions, in a row, in the begining vs tough questions, not in a row, at the end of the section.

The reason for that is that the algorithm is basically doing random swings in question difficulty with big amplitude in the begining and smaller amplitudes at the end of the section, trying to zoom on your level. So if you answer wrong a few easy questions in the begining, in a row, it 'decides' it is going to give you easier questions later and it doesn't really drift up in difficulty as you answer those correctly. So it may happen that it totally misses your level, because of a few careless mistakes in the begining. It is less sensitive to mistakes at the end of the section because it already gave you questions corresponding to your level and the question difficulty swings at the end of the section are smaller in amplitude.

The algorithm treats the different types of verbal questions as if they belong to different sections, according to GMAC.
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by jdciaravino » Fri Jul 13, 2012 4:22 pm
David@VeritasPrep wrote:It is always a good idea to start off strong, if possible. It is also good to be strong in the middle and at the end as well!

You make an interesting point concerning reading comprehension. The only problem is that according to this statement from the official GMAC representative, "The level of difficulty of questions you receive is based on your performance on that same type of question, only. So, your ability to answer high-level sentence correction questions will not affect the difficulty level of critical reasoning questions you receive. I hope that answers your question."

So that means that your Reading Comp question difficulty level is based only on your performance on those questions.

Here is the link to the thread referenced above. https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-rc-ques ... 14330.html
Oh ok that clears things up then. I guess you then the first RC passage everyone receives at first is medium difficulty and then based on those 4 questions it increases or decreases the difficulty. so then it places more emphasis on be able to doing Reading comp efficiently and correctly, because it would be a shame to be locked into 4 lower tier RC questions that do little to increase your score, when you near the end of the test.
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