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Penalty of unanswered question in GMAT

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Penalty of unanswered question in GMAT

by vivekkapoor73 » Sun Feb 08, 2015 4:11 am
Is there penalty on unanswered question in GMAT?

As I was practicing GMAT prep Mock, I accidentally left last question unanswered in Quant Section,(was running short on time). I got 7 incorrect total and My score was 49 and total I scored 740(49Q, 41V, 5 IR). Actually My Target score is 760. Can some help me in understanding if there could be any penalty on Quant section for leaving it unanswered? I usually consistently score 50 in Quant, this time also was no different in terms of difficulty of Quant section.

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by akhilsuhag » Sun Feb 08, 2015 5:07 am
The penalty of not finishing a section on time is much greater than getting a question incorrect.

I am not saying that is the difference between your 49/50- I just mean its much better to guess than to leave something unanswered.

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by vivekkapoor73 » Sun Feb 08, 2015 7:22 am
Thanks. I guess I have to look somewhere else to touch 760 :(
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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Sun Feb 08, 2015 9:18 am
GMAC actually did their own study on the question of what happens when you guess randomly vs. what happens when you leave questions blank at the end.

https://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/20 ... d-skipping

What they found, in essence, was that on verbal, there was no difference between guessing randomly on the last few questions and leaving them blank. (This doesn't mean that the two scenarios would be perfectly balanced for everyone. Presumably, the penalty for missing the question was a little greater, and some of those random guesses would result in correct answers. On average, the two forces canceled each other out.)

On quant, however, leaving questions blank resulted in a larger penalty than guessing randomly.

It's worth considering that there are other variables in play. The study in question looked at random guesses, so it's probably safe to assume that if you're able to eliminate a wrong answer choice or two, you're better off guessing, even in verbal. And then there's the question of where you are in the scoring range at the time you have to make this decision.
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by vivekkapoor73 » Sun Feb 08, 2015 10:24 am
Thanks for the info Dave.
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by [email protected] » Sun Feb 08, 2015 3:40 pm
Hi vivekkapoor73,

First off, a 740/Q49 is an outstanding score (it's well above the 90th percentile overall) and it's a score that will make any Business School happy.

Since you were curious about this specific situation, here's some information and perspective:

Any question that is left unanswered in the Quant and Verbal sections is marked as 'incorrect' AND is 'penalized.' On that last question, if you bubbled in a one of the answers before time ran out, then you are credited with answering the question (even if you have not submitted the answer). If you didn't bubble at all, then you did not answer the question and were penalized accordingly.

It's tough to say whether that one question impacted your score at all, for a couple of reasons:

1) It might have been an experimental question (which means it did not count).
2) We would need to know how you were performing on the prior few questions (were you getting them correct, incorrect, in a "string", etc.) to know how this one question impacts the "path" that you were on.

The short answer is that if it impacted your score at all, it likely would not have been by more than 10 points.

The article that David references actually refers to an old study (from 2009) and if you look into it, you'll find that there are some questionable elements to the study and the deductions that were made from it.

All of this is moot, of course, since you've earned an amazing score.

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by ceilidh.erickson » Sun Feb 08, 2015 5:46 pm
Because the GMAT scoring algorithm is complicated (and because you never know which are experimental), it's hard to say exactly how much you're penalized for a skipped answer. But based on data from GMAC, it's at least double the penalty for a wrong answer. For example, missing 5 questions at the end could drop someone who would've been around a 70th percentile down to around a 55th percentile.

That said,
a) missing one question at the end wouldn't hurt your score considerably. It would be a 10 point difference, if any at all.
b) the difference between a 740 and a 760 is negligible. A 740 already shows very impressive capabilities, so there's no school out there that would accept you with a 760 but reject you with a 740.
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by vivekkapoor73 » Sun Feb 08, 2015 9:23 pm
Hi Rich,

Thanks for the reply. The questions i got wrong are 7,15,23,27,34,35,37(left unmarked, didn't fill the bubble). It was a mock. I have been consistently scoring Q50 in previous GMATprep Mock. I am curious about this because I want to push my score above 50 and this time it actually went below. Since I am weak in Verbal, I dont want to spend too much energy on Quant Section. Please let me know if you have any tips for me that will help me to move my score to 51 in Q.

PS: In my previous attempt at GMAT(long time back I scored(710(Q50 V 37))). This time I want to cross the threshold of 760. I have my GMAT exam in next 3 days

Thanks,
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by [email protected] » Sun Feb 08, 2015 9:51 pm
Hi Vivek,

Of the 7 questions that you got wrong in the Quant section, how many of those questions were "gettable" and how many were just "too hard"? If you want a Q51, then you have to nail all of the "gettable" questions.

Since you got 3 of the last 4 questions incorrect (and that last question went unanswered), that "string" at the end of the Quant could have cost you some points (again, not many, but you asked).

With 3 days before your GMAT, I would recommend that you not do too much. Do some light review, but try to relax a bit and make sure that you get a good night's sleep before your Exam.

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by vivekkapoor73 » Sun Feb 08, 2015 10:10 pm
Hi Rich,
Thanks for your reply.
Q7- Silly mistake
Q15- Do-able, but seemed energy intensive so guessed
Q23- Silly mistake
Q27- Was energy intensive so tried with normal time then moved on
Q34- Wrong, still not sure why
Q35- Doable, but was running short on time, so wrapped up in rush
Q37- Did not marked, On Q36 I thought this is the last one

I attempt Quant section with little ease, as I want to save my energy for Verbal section. I usually face some time crunch for last few questions because of this.
Since I have entire 3- 4 days(taken off from work), I can do some work on Quant Section.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions regarding time management or any other thing.

Thanks,
Vivek
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by [email protected] » Sun Feb 08, 2015 10:20 pm
Hi Vivek,

The silly mistakes that you admitted to on the earlier questions likely had a far greater impact on your score than not answering the final question (assuming that all of those questions 'counted"). So if one of your goals is to score a Q51, then eliminating the silly mistakes is a MUST. That almost always involves taking slightly more notes than you normally do.

As it stands, taking notes actually SAVES time, since having the proper notes will save you the trouble of having to re-read the prompt.

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by vivekkapoor73 » Sun Feb 08, 2015 11:04 pm
Thanks Rich
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