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Veritas Tests: More efforts---> More Tough Test

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Veritas Tests: More efforts---> More Tough Test

by imskpwr » Sat Jun 07, 2014 2:19 pm
Veritas Tests Results: 710, 710, 660, 720, 710, TBD

Tried the free veritas CAT and scored a 710(50q 38v). The test looks easy than the others I have given so far.
Any suggestion on how to gauge my performance at this stage.
Last edited by imskpwr on Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:13 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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by [email protected] » Sat Jun 07, 2014 2:33 pm
Hi imskpwr,

The scores from 1 practice CAT, regardless of the source, is a limited sample of information, so you might be able to deduce some of your strengths and weaknesses, but that would be about it.

Based on the comparison that you noted, what other practice CATs have you taken? And how well do you do on those CATs?

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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat Jun 07, 2014 4:46 pm
Rich is certainly correct we need to know what the scores are on your other CATS, particularly on the GMATPrep practice tests.

We are proud of our adaptive Veritas CATs and the score results are based on millions of responses, however as Rich said one data point is not enough for an analysis.

Oh and you said that if "looks easier than others" - some people agree with that while some say the Veritas exams are harder and other say "about average." It really all depends on the test taker.
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by imskpwr » Sat Jun 07, 2014 6:21 pm
GMATPREP-1: scored exactly 710(q50 v41)
GMATPREP-2: scored 640(q50 v24) I totally messed up this one as I did the last 20 verbal q in nearly 15 min.

Planning to finish off all the 5 tests from veritas before purchasing additional gmatprep cats.

Specific to my weakness: I spent >4.5 min on most RC's reading(include time spent in taking notes) and similarly in some difficult CRs I spent ~3min(include time spent in taking notes). Also, some difficult SC qs are taking ~ 2.5 mins.
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by [email protected] » Sat Jun 07, 2014 9:55 pm
Hi imskpwr,

Based on these additional CAT scores, it certainly appears that your ability level is in the high 600s/low 700s. As you continue to study, you'll have to make a point to focus on your Verbal performance, so that you can remove the 'instability' that appeared in the second GMATPrep CAT.

Most GMAT Experts will offer their own versions of pacing advice, so you might see some variation in that regard. To that end, there are some things that you can do to improve your Verbal pacing:

1) Note-taking is essential on both RC and CR. Try taking notes AS you're reading. On average, an RC passage should take 4-5 minutes to read and take notes on. This will give you about 1 - 1.5 minutes per RC question. CR questions are considerably "thinner", so it shouldn't take more than a minute (on average) to read and take notes. You'll then need time to answer the question that's asked (predict an answer and evaluate the answer choices) - this will also take about 1 minute.
2) For SCs, you need a combination of grammar knowledge and pattern matching (knowing what the GMAT actually tests and spotting the patterns when they appear). A typical SC should take 1 - 1.5 minutes to answer.
3) While there are a few exceptions to the above rules, they are rare exceptions, so you'll have to become a bit more proactive with your work to improve in this area.

As it stands, you're performing at a high level. Keep up the good work.

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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun Jun 08, 2014 4:27 am
So it appears that Veritas score was not out of line with your more valid GMATPrep score!

I encourage you to take the remaining Veritas tests and do not worry if a test feels easier. If you get a question that seems easy to you it just means that it is one that you can get right so do your best, watch for any tricks and get it right!

And do purchase those other GMATPrep tests (the exam pack 1) Having additional official tests is worth it!

Remember Computer Adaptive Tests are based on actual results from other people. I have seen questions that appeared easy (maybe even were easy for me) that 80 percent of people miss.

You test scores are encouraging, so keep up the good work.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun Jun 08, 2014 4:36 am
There are different thoughts on "note taking" on the verbal section.

I think most experts agree that for sentence correction you should not really take notes. Just keep an A B C D E so that you can cross out the wrong answers.

For Reading Comprehension, I recommend that you not "take notes" while you are actually reading. Any notes that you take while reading are likely to be the kind of things that you can easily look up. People tend to write down details such as names, dates, numbers, etc. These are the things that you should NOT be writing down while reading.

What I recommend is that you stop at the end of each paragraph - or halfway through a really long paragraph. When you stop, ask yourself what the MAIN IDEA of the paragraph was. If you can write this down in 6 -12 words then you will be in a good position to move to the next paragraph. I have written all about this technique in the following article: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/08/ ... prehension

I think that 4.5 minutes may be a little too long on the reading. If this is because you are taking too many notes, you can save some time using the technique I have suggested.

Remember, if you are going to take longer to read the passage, it needs to mean that you are going to be quicker with the questions. Some people prefer to not take as long to read the passage so that they then have more time to go back to the passage to answer questions. About 75% of all questions ask you something that you can look up in the text. So it is a balance between time spent reading and time spent on the questions.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun Jun 08, 2014 4:48 am
Notes for critical reasoning depend on the type of question that you are addressing.

I refer to Strengthen, Weaken, Assumption, and Most useful to know in order to evaluate questions as "normal" questions.

I call them normal because they are likely to have a conclusion in the stimulus. For these questions you will want to focus on the conclusion. You can start by writing down that conclusion (remember every word matters on the conclusion, so abbreviate but do not paraphrase).

Next you can write down the evidence - I call it the Most Important Premise. And finally you can write down what would like the evidence and the conclusion. Eventually, as you get better at CR you can write down less.

Here is an article that tells you what to write down on normal questions. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... duncan-way


For Inference questions you can take down a few facts, but I would recommend not writing down anything at all. Just A B C D E and eliminate. Inference questions are a process of elimination and you are looking for the answer that must be true, so eliminate the 4 that could be false. No need for notes on these.

For a PLAN type of question - anything that involves a strategy, scenario, or plan - you should focus on the plan and the goal that they hope to achieve. Those are the things you might write down. I discuss plan questions here: https://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... -questions

For Bold-faced questions you may not write down much, but focus on three things discussed here: https://www.beatthegmat.com/bold-face-qu ... 71741.html

For paradox questions you want to focus on the "surprising statement" I discuss what the surprising statement is here: https://www.beatthegmat.com/artificial-s ... 68664.html


Hope it helps!
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by imskpwr » Sun Jun 29, 2014 10:16 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote:Notes for critical reasoning depend on the type of question that you are addressing.

I refer to Strengthen, Weaken, Assumption, and Most useful to know in order to evaluate questions as "normal" questions.

I call them normal because they are likely to have a conclusion in the stimulus. For these questions you will want to focus on the conclusion. You can start by writing down that conclusion (remember every word matters on the conclusion, so abbreviate but do not paraphrase).

Next you can write down the evidence - I call it the Most Important Premise. And finally you can write down what would like the evidence and the conclusion. Eventually, as you get better at CR you can write down less.

Here is an article that tells you what to write down on normal questions. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... duncan-way


For Inference questions you can take down a few facts, but I would recommend not writing down anything at all. Just A B C D E and eliminate. Inference questions are a process of elimination and you are looking for the answer that must be true, so eliminate the 4 that could be false. No need for notes on these.

For a PLAN type of question - anything that involves a strategy, scenario, or plan - you should focus on the plan and the goal that they hope to achieve. Those are the things you might write down. I discuss plan questions here: https://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... -questions

For Bold-faced questions you may not write down much, but focus on three things discussed here: https://www.beatthegmat.com/bold-face-qu ... 71741.html

For paradox questions you want to focus on the "surprising statement" I discuss what the surprising statement is here: https://www.beatthegmat.com/artificial-s ... 68664.html


Hope it helps!
Just finished another Veritas Test. This time I got 720 with 49Q 40V
I think this time Quant was pretty tough.
Also, Verbal was tough. Especially, the sentence correction and RC's.

Sectional break-up

Verbal: 27 correct and 14 incorrect
CR: 14 correct and 2 incorrect
SC: 6 correct and 7 incorrect
RC: 7 correct and 5 incorrect

Quant: 24 correct and 13 incorrect
DS: 10 correct and 5 incorrect
PS: 14 correct and 8 incorrect

It would please me if veritas experts give some light on the exam results.
I need >750 in GMAT and my recent scores in Veritas are 710,720. Are these scores close enough to actual test. Where do you think I stand?
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by imskpwr » Mon Jul 07, 2014 9:05 pm
Where exactly I stand? >700 or <700
If >700, then how to break 750 level threshold.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Tue Jul 08, 2014 4:56 am
You are most likely a little above 700 right now, but remember that even between official GMAT tests (not even GMATPrep but official exams) your score can move within a 30 point window.

So even if you are capable of scoring a 750 you could still get a 720 on the exam day. This can be due to variations in the exam and in whether the questions happen to match your strengths.

In order to get about 750 on test day you will likely want to see scores at or above a 750. I scored 780 on the Veritas exam shortly after scoring 770 on the real GMAT. I think the Veritas exams are pretty good at the top end of the scale!

To break 750 you need to jump over the top test-takers in the world. 720 is around 95th percentile and 750 is the 98th percentile. So you need to leap over that 3% of people who really really get it.

In order to do this you have to not just know why your answer is right, but also know why the others are wrong and why the wrong answers are attractive as well as knowing what they are doing to hide the correct answer. At Veritas Prep we call this "think like the test maker."

You also have to be very comfortable with exam and at least one of Quant or Verbal needs to not be too much work so that you can go all-in on the other section.

Good luck!
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by imskpwr » Fri Jul 11, 2014 10:53 pm
David@VeritasPrep wrote:You are most likely a little above 700 right now, but remember that even between official GMAT tests (not even GMATPrep but official exams) your score can move within a 30 point window.

So even if you are capable of scoring a 750 you could still get a 720 on the exam day. This can be due to variations in the exam and in whether the questions happen to match your strengths.

In order to get about 750 on test day you will likely want to see scores at or above a 750. I scored 780 on the Veritas exam shortly after scoring 770 on the real GMAT. I think the Veritas exams are pretty good at the top end of the scale!

To break 750 you need to jump over the top test-takers in the world. 720 is around 95th percentile and 750 is the 98th percentile. So you need to leap over that 3% of people who really really get it.

In order to do this you have to not just know why your answer is right, but also know why the others are wrong and why the wrong answers are attractive as well as knowing what they are doing to hide the correct answer. At Veritas Prep we call this "think like the test maker."

You also have to be very comfortable with exam and at least one of Quant or Verbal needs to not be too much work so that you can go all-in on the other section.

Good luck!
Thanks sir,

I haven't got very favorable replies from my friends as far as VERITAS tests are concerned. But I think at 750 above all tests companies scores are good enough. I am relying heavily on veritas nowadays, also GMAT prep additional 2 tests. Any comment on this?
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by imskpwr » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:15 am
Veritas Cat-3: 660
Quant: 48
Verbal: 33

I had doubt regarding the scoring in Verbal Section.

Verbal: 33(30 correct and 11 wrong)

CR: 11 correct 1 wrong
SC: 11 correct 3 wrong
RC: 8 correct 7 wrong

I know number of correct questions has little relevance to one's score. But, this much variation looks totally ILLOGICAL.
Request any VERITAS expert to explain what went wrong this time.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Mon Jul 28, 2014 4:01 am
The explanation for getting more verbal questions right, but getting a lower score is that you missed some easier questions early and never really faced the tougher questions.

I was able to go into the exams and look at the computer's estimation of your score throughout. At no point during the exam did you face a question above the 75th percentile. Your peak estimated score was at question 16, when the computer estimated that you were at about the 75th percentile, but then you missed 4 of the next 5 questions and the computer began giving you questions at about the 55th percentile again. After that you worked your way up to the 67th percentile by the end of the exam.

Every test is different and sometimes on the verbal you just do not face the tough questions early on, in which case you need to get those mid-level questions right so that you can get to the tough questions. The turning point was questions 17 - 21. You were on your way up and would have been over the 80th percentile and heading back to another good verbal score. The 4 out of 5 you missed moved you right back down and you had to start from scratch again.

So that is the reason for the lower verbal. For this exam you needed to be more consistent on those 55- 75 percentile questions.
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by imskpwr » Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:57 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote:The explanation for getting more verbal questions right, but getting a lower score is that you missed some easier questions early and never really faced the tougher questions.

I was able to go into the exams and look at the computer's estimation of your score throughout. At no point during the exam did you face a question above the 75th percentile. Your peak estimated score was at question 16, when the computer estimated that you were at about the 75th percentile, but then you missed 4 of the next 5 questions and the computer began giving you questions at about the 55th percentile again. After that you worked your way up to the 67th percentile by the end of the exam.

Every test is different and sometimes on the verbal you just do not face the tough questions early on, in which case you need to get those mid-level questions right so that you can get to the tough questions. The turning point was questions 17 - 21. You were on your way up and would have been over the 80th percentile and heading back to another good verbal score. The 4 out of 5 you missed moved you right back down and you had to start from scratch again.

So that is the reason for the lower verbal. For this exam you needed to be more consistent on those 55- 75 percentile questions.
Great Insight into the exam. Now, I know what went wrong, but it raised further doubts.
Does GMAT also work like this way? OR is it just veritas?

If so, then with this exam I can't be sure of about my individual(SC,CR,RC) performances.
I think it is not possible to answer every q correctly on GMAT. So even if I got 11 out of 13 questions correctly in SC, I am not sure about whether my recent efforts/strategy worked. Same for CR.

For RC, it is clear that I need to work out a lot more.

ALSO NEED TO SEE WHAT WENT WRONG WITH EASIER Qs
I was able to go into the exams and look at the computer's estimation of your score throughout. At no point during the exam did you face a question above the 75th percentile. Your peak estimated score was at question 16, when the computer estimated that you were at about the 75th percentile,
Just checked your analysis with the exam.
So as per your explanation, At question 16 I was at 75%le. that means, Question 16 was of 75%le and the HARDest question faced by me in the whole exam. Fortunately, i answered this one correctly. BUT the exam review at veritas portal is not showing this question in the "list of HARD q answered correctly" by me.
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