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Leonard C
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OK, a friend and I have been trying to figure out how this GMAT scoring system works by playing around with GMATPrep many many times. Here are some thoughts so far (all based on the quant section only):
1. Have you ever noticed that sometimes GMAT throws you a ridiculously easy question? Eg. on one test I got the first 12 questions correct. Question 11 was a hard geometry PS, and question 12 was a moderately hard DS question. I answered both of these correctly. Question 13 was: What is (-3)^(-2), a question that we can pretty much do in our heads. What's the explanation for this? My mate and I think that it can be one of two things: (1) GMAT sometimes throws you a weird question (we consider this unlikely); (2) it is an experimental question (more likely).
It is our belief that these experimental type of questions come up when GMAT believes it "knows" your difficulty level. Eg. by getting the first 12 correct, GMAT is sufficiently confident about your level and starts to throw experimental questions at you. However, if your performance in the first 15 questions was patchy, you will only start to see these "weird" questions from 15 onwards.
2. What of the belief that later questions are worth less than earlier questions? Some GMAT tutors believe this but others don't. However, I will say this: if my conclusion in 1 above is correct, then we can naturally assume that there are less experimental questions (which are not scored) in the first half compared to the second half. All other things being equal, this makes the first half more valuable than the second half.
To prove this point, I have been trying to deliberately do two tests: get the first 10 questions wrong, but the remainder incorrect and compare this with the situation where I get everything correct except for the last 10 questions. I haven't managed to do this properly yet, however in my experimentation I have found that if you do poorly on the first 10 questions, you will most likely score lower than if you had not.
3. Lastly, a friend of mine after doing the test maybe 8 or 9 times believes that this is rougly a guide to how you will score in the quant section. Note that this assumes you only make a maximum of 3 mistakes in the first 10 questions.
6-10 incorrect = 50
10-12 incorrect = 49
12-15 incorrect = 48
After this, it becomes a little bit unpredictable.
Anyway, please note that I am not saying this is gospel. I just wanted to share my observatgions with the group and get some feedback.
Finally, I borrowed Cracking the GMAT 2007 from Princeton Review a few days ago. They say that their instructors regularly sit the test, try to reverse-engineer the scoring system, etc, etc. The view is that earlier questions count more than later questions.
1. Have you ever noticed that sometimes GMAT throws you a ridiculously easy question? Eg. on one test I got the first 12 questions correct. Question 11 was a hard geometry PS, and question 12 was a moderately hard DS question. I answered both of these correctly. Question 13 was: What is (-3)^(-2), a question that we can pretty much do in our heads. What's the explanation for this? My mate and I think that it can be one of two things: (1) GMAT sometimes throws you a weird question (we consider this unlikely); (2) it is an experimental question (more likely).
It is our belief that these experimental type of questions come up when GMAT believes it "knows" your difficulty level. Eg. by getting the first 12 correct, GMAT is sufficiently confident about your level and starts to throw experimental questions at you. However, if your performance in the first 15 questions was patchy, you will only start to see these "weird" questions from 15 onwards.
2. What of the belief that later questions are worth less than earlier questions? Some GMAT tutors believe this but others don't. However, I will say this: if my conclusion in 1 above is correct, then we can naturally assume that there are less experimental questions (which are not scored) in the first half compared to the second half. All other things being equal, this makes the first half more valuable than the second half.
To prove this point, I have been trying to deliberately do two tests: get the first 10 questions wrong, but the remainder incorrect and compare this with the situation where I get everything correct except for the last 10 questions. I haven't managed to do this properly yet, however in my experimentation I have found that if you do poorly on the first 10 questions, you will most likely score lower than if you had not.
3. Lastly, a friend of mine after doing the test maybe 8 or 9 times believes that this is rougly a guide to how you will score in the quant section. Note that this assumes you only make a maximum of 3 mistakes in the first 10 questions.
6-10 incorrect = 50
10-12 incorrect = 49
12-15 incorrect = 48
After this, it becomes a little bit unpredictable.
Anyway, please note that I am not saying this is gospel. I just wanted to share my observatgions with the group and get some feedback.
Finally, I borrowed Cracking the GMAT 2007 from Princeton Review a few days ago. They say that their instructors regularly sit the test, try to reverse-engineer the scoring system, etc, etc. The view is that earlier questions count more than later questions.
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