Veritas CAT

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Veritas CAT

by injotb123 » Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:55 am
Hey All

I am giving GMAT the third time , my previous scoreS were 660 (one year back) and 700 (9 months back).

Till now, I have given two GMAT Preps in last one month with the below mentioned scores:

750 (Q49 , V42)
760 (Q50, V 44)

I have about 20 days to go before GMAT Exam. So I am doing the Veritas CAT (I bought all 7) and then I plan to do the remaining GMATPrep CATs (the two additional ones that need to be bought).

I have given two Veritas CAT and my scores have been:

680 (Q48, V36) - 3 days back
690 (Q50, V35) - Today


These are the only tests I am relying on besides the GMATPrep and my scores, as you can see, are not crossing 700. If the Veritas CATs are really accurats, as a lot of experts claim, where I am heading? . In last one month, I focussed my energies on crossing 40 on verbal but it seems doing that on veritas seems tough. Although I have three more weeks and my scores might improve. But I would like to get an opinion from the Veritas experts. How should I approach the remaining CATs considering I want to hit 750.

Also , another thing I noted, my SC accuracies have been nearly flawless previously (90%) , but on Veritas I am hitting 60% accuracies on SC which seems to make my scores go below 700.

Thanks!

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by [email protected] » Mon Jul 28, 2014 4:47 pm
Hi injotb123,

Since your questions are primarily about the Veritas CATs, you might consider posting this directly to that company's reps in the following Forum:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/ask-a-verita ... e-f56.html

When comparing one CAT result to another, it's important to note all of the little details. Sometimes something that you consider minor (for example, the time of day that you took the Test) can have a big impact on your performance.

After reviewing these CATs, how often were you getting questions wrong due to little/silly mistakes? Too many of these errors could also reduce your score. Your scores are revolving around the 90th percentile, so you're doing well. Weed out the little mistakes and you should score well into the 700s on Test Day.

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by GMATinsight » Tue Jul 29, 2014 9:58 am
Looking at history of some scores that my students have been getting on Veritas tests and GMAT Prep, I find that Veritas give score a bit conservatively.

Veritas generally gives a score that is conservative by about 30-50 marks in comparison to the scores obtained in GMAT prep.
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by injotb123 » Tue Jul 29, 2014 12:58 pm
Thanks Rich. To account into any variation due to time of the day and so on, I am going to give another Veritas CAT in two days, hoping for a better score.

@GMATInsight: Thanks for your insight. What you have observed with your students seems to be happening with me too. What sample size are we talking about in your case? (since you've your own GMAT classes)? And would you recommend taking Veritas CAT further? I don't want to end up relying on inaccurate practice CATs to gauge my performance. I took them two times and I now I seem to be questioning my GMATPrep performance.

Thanks.

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by David@VeritasPrep » Wed Jul 30, 2014 4:57 am
the Veritas Prep CATs are based on the same principle - Item Response Theory - that the GMATPrep and the actual GMAT are based on. The Veritas Prep data base has millions of actual student responses so the level of difficulty of the questions is not something that we have guessed at or assigned, it is something that comes from actual students answering the questions in a test situation.

The Veritas exams do not consistently under or over score students. I have had many students whose Veritas scores were a little higher than there GMATPrep scores and an equal number of students whose Veritas Prep scores were a little lower than the GMATPrep. For many students it is in the same range.

I will say that the GMATPrep is the most accurate practice test since it has officially retired questions, but the Veritas tests are a great option for students who need more than the 2 free GMATPrep tests.

I have one question about your GMATPrep scores - are those scores from a retake of the exams? Since you are giving the GMAT for the third time I suspect that you may have used the GMATPrep tests before???

Or have you been doing problems here on Beat the GMAT and perhaps seen a few of your test questions before?

If you have this might explain the difference in the scores and you should give more weight to those Veritas exams since you have not seen those questions before. Your score is probably closer to that 690 level.

If you have not seen the GMATPrep questions before then I would say that your score is nearer to the 750 mark since that is what you got on the two GMATPrep tests.

In either case do not discount the Veritas Prep exams. These are not "inaccurate tests" but are the cumulative effort of dozens of instructors and tens of thousands of students who have taken the exams or answered questions in the free question bank.

If you have been studying for a long time, beware of the tendency to learn how to do all of the questions that are out there and inflating your verbal scores. There are a limited number of verbal questions in the world and many unofficial questions are based on the official ones so that a student can learn to recognize copies of questions and get a higher practice test score that way. Of course the official exam is not a copy of anything that has been released and scores can come back to earth on test day!
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by GMATinsight » Wed Jul 30, 2014 5:43 am
injotb123 wrote:Thanks Rich. To account into any variation due to time of the day and so on, I am going to give another Veritas CAT in two days, hoping for a better score.

@GMATInsight: Thanks for your insight. What you have observed with your students seems to be happening with me too. What sample size are we talking about in your case? (since you've your own GMAT classes)? And would you recommend taking Veritas CAT further? I don't want to end up relying on inaccurate practice CATs to gauge my performance. I took them two times and I now I seem to be questioning my GMATPrep performance.

Thanks.
Yes, I would certainly recommend Veritas tests. Your objective is to get maximum exposure and get the desired score in final GMAT and not just in Veritas tests or in any other practice test for instance.

I would say focus on number of mistakes you are making in Quant and Verbal section rather than keeping an eye on score and try to minimize the number of mistakes in every next test you take.

The Sample size that I mentioned isn't big enough to generalize my statement in previous comment nor do I want to comment anything adversely on any Coaching and it's content. I only intended to convey the experience of a few student (sample size of about 5-10).

You can search more on google and on other forums and find some more experience which will probably support my finding about the scores.

All the best!!!
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by injotb123 » Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:29 pm
Thanks David for your detailed reply. I do not intend to undermine Veritas CATs but I want to get a clearer picture on how soon or how much should I improve to get my target score in next 15-20 days.

As per your question, this time I have given my GMATPrep first time after September 2013 , about 9-10 months gap. Frankly, I would say I did not remember a single question on Quant but I had 1 RC passage I had read before on Exam 1 and 2 known CR questions on Exam 2. But having seen them before, I still did do mistakes on them I think, so I am not sure whether knowing them beforehand really inflated my scores.But I understand where you're coming from.

If you ask me a single reason I felt Veritas CAT differed was time management on my behalf. I have been able to finish both GMATPrep's 2-3 mins in advance. But on Veritas, I always end up guessing last 2-4 Questions, especially on Verbal.

For the next 15-20 days, I plan to give remaining 3 Veritas CAT as well as GMATPrep ExamPack 1 CATs *two extra ones* . Since I will get all unseen questions on these CATs, I guess the next 5 CATs would give me a better picture on my preparation and projected score.

Let me know how you suggest I should go about it. Thanks!

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by injotb123 » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:40 am
Hello David

I took my 4th CAT today from Veritas and scored a 740 (Q 50 , V 42) .

The only difference today was better time management as compared with last two Veritas CAT. I believe this result is more in line with my GMAT Prep results.

I will keep updating on next two Veritas CATs that are left.

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by sidgupta23 » Sun Aug 03, 2014 10:55 am
Hi injotb123,

Congrats on the great Veritas prep scored. Even I'm taking the GMAt for the 3rd time and am using Veritas CATs for my mocks.
I gave one yesterday and scored a low 700 (Q50, V36). Like you, even I'm aiming a high score in the real GMAT. I completely agree with you
in that the time management is most important aspects. I also had to rush in the last 6-7 question, in which I got most of them wrong.
However, I have a couple of questions:

1. Did you get 4 RCs in the Veritas CATs? I only 3RCs, and I think this leads to wrong time management as the real exam has 4 RCs.
2. In my 700, I scored 27/41 and still scored V36. Can you share your accuracy on the 680 score ?
In my case I got 6/10 (in the 1st 10 questions correct) and 5/11 (in the last 11 questions) and therefore think that I ended up with a
V36.
3. If possible can you shed some light as to how did you manage your time and scored 740 in your last CAT ? I might get helpful tips.
My GMAT is in 3 weeks.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,

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by injotb123 » Wed Aug 06, 2014 11:15 am
Took the 4th Veritas CAT , scored a 710 ( Q50, V 38). So the scores have been:

680
690
740
710

David@VeritasPrep , I have one more Veritas CAT to go and 2 GMATPrep (additional ones). How would you grade the performances so far with respect to the GMATPrep scores.

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by injotb123 » Tue Aug 12, 2014 12:04 am
Giving GMAT in four days days. These are the latest scores on two recent CAT's

GMATPrep Exam Pack1 : Test 1: 750
Veritas CAT (Last one) : 770

I will give the last GMATPrep day after tomorrow.

Hoping to keep the inertia going.

Cheers.

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by David@VeritasPrep » Tue Aug 12, 2014 5:24 am
Wow!

Those are some great scores. It looks like the Veritas scores are consistent with what you are seeing on the GMATPrep. 750 is the 98th percentile on GMATPrep and then the 99th percentile on the Veritas exam. My bet is on you scoring at least a 750 on test day if you can carry this through.

Four more days until your victory celebration!

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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Thu Aug 14, 2014 2:40 pm
Two words of caution here:

(1) You shouldn't be scoring between 640 and 770 in the span of a week unless you were half asleep or seriously distracted during the first test. (770 is like 99.5 percentile, 640 is like 72.) Can you think of anything you're doing to prompt this? (Are you taking breaks during the exam, turning the timing off, reviewing notes, Googling CAT questions during the exam, etc.?)

(2) It's interesting to read complaints that our test scores conservatively; I use it with a half dozen tutoring students per month and if anything, I think it scores a little generously, particularly in math. Please let us know how you end up doing on the real thing; we always love more data to help hone our accuracy.