Please need advice

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Please need advice

by Win_the_gmat » Wed Jan 23, 2013 2:57 pm
Hi All,
I would like to know for a 700 + score in GMAT how many questions in a RC passage needs to be attempted correctly.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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by Tommy Wallach » Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:28 pm
Hey Win,

All of them! You have to attempt to answer all of them correctly if you're trying to break 700. Do you need to get them all right? No. But you need to try all of them. Here's why: To answer any of them, you need to have read the passage and understood it. At that point, answering the individual questions seldom takes more than a minute-1:15. So why not try? If you're really trying to save time, you're better off skipping a CR question or two (average time 2:15).

Good luck!

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by brianlange77 » Sat Jan 26, 2013 6:25 pm
Tommy's answer brings up a good point, that is not directly related to your initial question, but I'll take the leap of faith here and definitely consider it related.

What happens if I am running out of time on verbal? Look.. it happens. Generally, I think that people feel more time pressed on quant than they do on verbal .. but it's good to have spent some time thinking about that scenario in case it presents itself.

Take a look at these two links -- gives you some good tips about how to prepare for a time when educated guessing comes into play.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... s-on-quant
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/08/ ... -on-verbal

Hope this helps!

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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Mon Jan 28, 2013 7:05 am
Win_the_gmat wrote:Hi All,
I would like to know for a 700 + score in GMAT how many questions in a RC passage needs to be attempted correctly.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Scoring 700 on the GMAT has more to do with the difficulty level of the questions answered correctly than with the number of questions answered correctly.

To see what I mean, consider an experiment I performed.

While writing the article Taking the GMATPrep Practice Tests Multiple Times (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/03/ ... iple-times), I took GMATPrep Practice Test #1 four times, and each time I answered every second question correctly (I did this for the quant section only)

Given that I correctly answered exactly half of the questions each time, you'd expect my quant scores to be roughly the same for all 4 tests.

My 4 scaled scores were: 19, 23, 26 and 42

This represents a percentile range from approximately 8th percentile to the 63rd percentile.

So, don't worry about how many questions you answered correctly. It has nothing to do with your score.

If you're interested, we have a free video explaining the GMAT scoring algorithm: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gener ... es?id=1251

Aside: We also have a free set of videos that cover all aspects of Reading Comprehension: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat- ... prehension

Cheers,
Brent
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by varun289 » Fri Feb 01, 2013 6:08 am
hey can u guys sum up - u mean to say that GMAT is not THAT adaptive

it will simply put questions on various difficulties and SCORE u accordingly

even if i Wrong answer the LOW difficulties and right answer the Tought one I will score better ????

dear brent plz reply

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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Fri Feb 01, 2013 7:43 am
varun289 wrote:hey can u guys sum up - u mean to say that GMAT is not THAT adaptive

it will simply put questions on various difficulties and SCORE u accordingly

even if i Wrong answer the LOW difficulties and right answer the Tought one I will score better ????

dear brent plz reply
The questions aren't displayed randomly (difficulty-level wise). So, for example, you won't get a 250-level question followed by a 750-level question followed by 500-level question.

So your question (Wrong answer the LOW difficulties and right answer the Tought one I will score better ????) isn't that applicable here. For example, if you incorrectly answer 10 easy questions in a row, you aren't going to then see a super hard question. If anything, the algorithm will try to give you even easier questions.

Given the computer-adaptive nature of the test, practically everyone is struggling within 5 or so questions. In other words, regardless of who you are, the questions you see will be difficult for you. So, in many ways it doesn't really matter how the scoring algorithm works. Try to answer the questions the best you can, and try to manage your time effectively.

Cheers,
Brent
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