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Penalty for incomplete Quant and Verbal sections

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Penalty for incomplete Quant and Verbal sections

by melguy » Tue Aug 27, 2013 8:19 pm
Hello All

I gave a CAT yesterday but due to bad internet there was a lot of disturbance during the exam and also was not able to complete both Verbal and Quant sections. I could complete only up to Quant Q 31 and Verbal Q 36.

Just out of curiosity I would like to know how much would be the penalty of not completing a total of 11 questions. I know its a silly Q but my exam is coming up and its just so I can avoid a panic attack :P

Thanks!
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by David@VeritasPrep » Wed Aug 28, 2013 11:14 am
This is not a silly question. The GMAC has done research on this using actual students on actual exams.

You can read the entire report here. https://www.gmac.com/~/media/Files/gmac/ ... hat.pdf%20

On average, not answering 5 questions on the verbal would cost you 3 - 4 points on the scaled score. If you score was higher, then not answering actually hurt you more since you had more to lose.

On Quant not answering 6 questions would cost you 4-5 points on that scaled score.

Now this is all averages and speculation, but it should give you some idea of where you might have been if you had not had to omit those questions.

Hope it eases your mind a little.
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by melguy » Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:58 pm
Hello David

I have sent 1-2 specific Q's about Veritas in PM. Would be great if you could please reply! Thanks
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by ganeshrkamath » Thu Aug 29, 2013 1:43 am
melguy wrote:Hello All

I gave a CAT yesterday but due to bad internet there was a lot of disturbance during the exam and also was not able to complete both Verbal and Quant sections. I could complete only up to Quant Q 31 and Verbal Q 36.

Just out of curiosity I would like to know how much would be the penalty of not completing a total of 11 questions. I know its a silly Q but my exam is coming up and its just so I can avoid a panic attack :P

Thanks!
There IS a penalty for not completing a section. This is mentioned at the beginning in OG.

It is also mentioned in the official site:
https://www.mba.com/the-gmat/test-struct ... rview.aspx

What if I do not finish?
Pacing is critical, as there is a severe penalty for not completing these sections of the exam.

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https://www.beatthegmat.com/first-attemp ... tml#688494
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by David@VeritasPrep » Thu Aug 29, 2013 5:27 am
I learned that the test in question was one of the new Veritas practice tests. https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat/free-gm ... tice-test/

So I had a chance to log in as an administrator and learn the details of this exam.

I can say that on the Quant section, you lost 17 percentile from your score due to not answering those last 6 questions. This happened to be 6 points from your scaled score based on the range that you were in. The 17% is the key number for people to remember. You did not answer 6 out of 37 questions. That is about 1/6 of the questions unanswered and 1/6 is 16.6% This illustrates what GMAC hints at -- you lose the percentage from your score that corresponds to the percent of questions you did not answer.

On the verbal the same held true, you lost about 10 - 15% from your score. This is due to not answering 5/41 questions which is 1/8 or else 12.5%.

The moral of the story is told by GMAC - if you are above the 50th percentile (which you were) it is better to rapidly guess at all of the questions as opposed to leaving them blank. Something that I detail in this article from the Veritas Prep Blog https://www.veritasprep.com/blog/2012/12 ... -the-test/

Here's hoping you do not have an computer problems on the real test!!!!
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Fri Aug 30, 2013 7:27 am
As everyone is suggesting, guessing is MUCH BETTER than leaving questions unanswered. In fact, it's possible to guess the last 10 questions and still get an awesome score. This is worth remembering if you find yourself considering whether or not to cancel your score on Test Day. You never know if those guesses helped, hurt or had no effect on your score.

Side story: When I was a high school math teacher, I used to make all of my students participate in the country-wide math contest each year. Of course, some students resented this, and I once had a girl complete the 20-question, multiple-choice test in about 30 seconds and then read her book for the remaining 59 minutes (much to my annoyance).

When the results came back, she had the highest mark in the school. It was uncanny how she guessed so many correct answers.

Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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