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CAT question - Why is Verbal so Low?

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CAT question - Why is Verbal so Low?

by bgphelps » Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:51 am
I just finished the GMAT Prep Practice Test and got the following breakdown:

Q44
V41
700

What confuses me is that on Quant I got 25/37 (67.5%) of the questions right and got a higher score than my verbal in which I got 34/41 (83%) of my questions right. I know different questions are weighted differently but on both tests the errors were pretty evenly spread throughout.

Strangely, I also only got SC wrong on Verbal. This hasn't happened before (my errors are usually evently distributed between CR and SC with little to few errors in RC) but I thought it might be worth mentioning.
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by Ian Stewart » Sun Jun 26, 2011 11:04 am
Don't compare Verbal and Quant scaled scores directly. Verbal scores are *much* lower than Quant scores, generally. To know how good you are in each section, convert your scores to percentiles using the tables at the back of OG12. A 41 Verbal score is outstanding. A 44 Quant is certainly good, but relative to other test takers, your Quant level is lower than your Verbal level right now.

Verbal scores are far more sensitive to mistakes than Quant scores, and I'm sure that's a consequence of the fact that in Quant there can be genuine "800-level" questions which won't hurt you much to get wrong, but in Verbal there are fewer questions that are genuinely at the extremes in difficulty. That means that whenever you make a mistake in Verbal, it hurts you to some degree, because the questions are never 'crazy hard'. In any case it's impossible to correlate the percentage of correct answers with scaled scores - almost anyone who is anywhere between 25 and 50 in Quant will have around 12 mistakes, it's just that the 50 level test taker only makes those mistakes on the insanely hard questions, while the 25 level test taker makes those mistakes on medium level questions (but gets the easy questions right). The 25-level test taker is just not seeing any hard questions because he or she isn't getting the medium level questions right, and the test is adaptive.
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by bgphelps » Sun Jun 26, 2011 11:14 am
Thanks Ian, that definitely helps clear things up.

Do you mind answering another unrelated question?

What would you suggest for developing consistency in the verbal section? I have a general range of verbal scores that goes between around 41 and 45. Obviously I'd like to stay on the higher end of that scale (or go higher) but I can't figure out what I'm doing differently between tests. I tend to score almost perfectly on RC so I am not worried about that, but my SC and CR varies in unpredictable ways.

Also, I haven't spent any time studying for verbal yet because of the strong difference between my verbal percentiles and my quant percentile. Do you think it would be worth taking a week out of my Quant studies to identify and fix my verbal blind spots? I have a month left to study.

Thanks again,

Brian
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun Jun 26, 2011 4:35 pm
I know this one was addressed to Ian and I will leave most of the question for him!

I just had to jump in on this one point...you said
What would you suggest for developing consistency in the verbal section? I have a general range of verbal scores that goes between around 41 and 45.
You are already very consistent!! A "41" is the 92nd percentile and a "45" is the 98th percentile. Not much variation there. A couple of easier questions missed on the "41" score is really it.

As Ian mentioned the Verbal scaled score moves much more quickly than the Quant scaled score (especially at the upper end). In fact, everything from a 41 to a 51 is all above the 90th percentile on the verbal. On the quant each "scaled score" point represents a much larger percentage move. A move from a 41 to 45 scaled score on the Quant side would be a move from the 61st percentile to the 75th.

Just as an aside - that 44 on the Quant that you mentioned is at the 70th percentile compared to the 92nd percentile for your verbal. So the verbal actually carried you on that 700-scoring practice test!
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by bgphelps » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:38 am
Alright that makes a lot of sense. Thanks again to you both for the great answers.

Brian
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by Ian Stewart » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:04 pm
bgphelps wrote:Thanks Ian, that definitely helps clear things up.

Do you mind answering another unrelated question?

What would you suggest for developing consistency in the verbal section? I have a general range of verbal scores that goes between around 41 and 45. Obviously I'd like to stay on the higher end of that scale (or go higher) but I can't figure out what I'm doing differently between tests. I tend to score almost perfectly on RC so I am not worried about that, but my SC and CR varies in unpredictable ways.

Also, I haven't spent any time studying for verbal yet because of the strong difference between my verbal percentiles and my quant percentile. Do you think it would be worth taking a week out of my Quant studies to identify and fix my verbal blind spots? I have a month left to study.
I won't give any specific advice, since without knowing your strengths and weaknesses, I wouldn't be sure the advice would be suitable. But speaking generally about the test:

* when comparing Verbal and Quant scores, as David stressed, look at your percentiles, not the raw scores. Raw scores aren't comparable, and when the test calculates your /800 score, it works with the percentiles (technically that score is based on how many standard deviations you are above or below average in each section), and not the raw scores.

* at the high level of the test, Verbal scores are far more sensitive to mistakes than are Quant scores. You can make 12 mistakes and still get a 50 in Quant, but if you make even 2 mistakes you won't get a 50 in Verbal. So you'll see bigger swings in Verbal raw scores than in Quant raw scores (though not necessarily in percentiles).

* if you're well above average in both sections and were given the choice to add 3 points to either your Verbal or Quant scaled score, adding them to Verbal will help your /800 score more. That's because you 'separate yourself' more from average test takers by adding points to Verbal at the high end of the score range; there are a lot of people who score in the very high end of the Quant score range, and very few scoring in the high end of the Verbal range. So if it's possible through study to gain a few Verbal points, it can be very worthwhile.

* That's a big 'if' however. I find that RC and CR in particular are much harder to 'learn' than Quant or SC. The one part of the Verbal section which is substantially knowledge-based is Sentence Correction, so it would often be worthwhile devoting time to that area if you could foreseeably improve at it. Devoting time to RC and CR, however, might not make much difference to a test taker already in the 90+ percentile range (provided your pacing strategy is good and you're generally familiar with the logic of GMAT questions in those two areas).

* I certainly would not recommend taking a week off from Quant, since you're likely to regress during that time. It would be much better to study Verbal, if you choose to, as a break from Quant, but to maintain a study schedule which has you doing at least some Quant each day. That's especially true in your case since you have much more room to improve at Quant than at Verbal.
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