Penalty for not finishing?

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Penalty for not finishing?

by meanjonathan » Thu Jul 05, 2012 5:06 pm
Does anybody know if there's a penalty for not finishing the section?
-mj.

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by eagleeye » Fri Jul 06, 2012 12:53 pm
No there isn't. IR is not computer adaptive. So you get marked for only the ones you answer correctly. There is no penalty for not finishing.

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by Branham24 » Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:59 pm
I just received my score report and got an 8, and I didn't finish two of the problems. Figured that would be the best piece of evidence to answer your question.

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by meanjonathan » Mon Jul 09, 2012 6:16 pm
Disco.

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by KapTeacherEli » Tue Jul 10, 2012 11:46 am
Branham24 wrote:I just received my score report and got an 8, and I didn't finish two of the problems. Figured that would be the best piece of evidence to answer your question.
That's pretty good evidence!

Let me expound on eagleeye's explanation for a moment. Once upon a time, when CATs were a brand new idea just getting off the ground, folks were trying to find holes in the system, ways to exploit the computer grading method. One theory was to intentionally skip the last few problems. After all, if you spent more time on the first 32-33 problems you could "raise your level" in the adaptive system, and even a few blank answers towards the end wouldn't offset the gains that you made! Now, it's not clear if this theory could ever work; most of the "decision tree" explanations of GMAT adaptive scoring are oversimplified. But the penalty for leaving answers blank at the end helps negate this attempt to bypass the testing system.

Since the IR section is not adaptive, it in turn means that the blank penalty isn't as necessary, so it's not there!

Regards,
Eli Meyer
Kaplan GMAT Teacher
Cambridge, MA
www.kaptest.com/gmat

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