GMAT Strategy

Prasanna wrote:puniaball

All questions carry equal weightage on the test. The notion that the initial questions carry more weightage is false. In fact GMAC has clarified on this advising students to treat all questions with equal respect. The test is adaptive and your score can drop drastically if you dont do well in the last 10 questions. So there is no point in wasting practice tests.

Prasanna

jamess wrote: This is so because the score moves more in due to the first few questions (when it has less information) than later (when it has more information).

mayonnai5e wrote:

jamess wrote: This is so because the score moves more in due to the first few questions (when it has less information) than later (when it has more information).

I think you're assuming that the algorithm freezes your score in place once it serves you a question and never recalibrates again. Since no one is really sure how the algorithm works, we cannot make this assumption.

If the algorithm constantly recalculates your current score based on ALL previous questions (you have answered 10 questions that when combined you are considered a 550 person and, after getting this question correct, the algorithm gives you a 575 rating based on the last 11 questions), then your assumption would be wrong.

Stacey Koprince wrote: This is true IF you don't have to spend any extra time on those first few questions - because that time has to come from other questions. It's also true, by the way, that IF you do exactly as you would have done on the test anyway but somehow manage to get a couple more questions right ANYWHERE on the test, you'll get a higher score. But that's not a strategy. That's a hope.

Stacey Koprince wrote: In other words, it's a nice theory, but it does nothing for you in practice. Any time you spend extra time, that time has to come from somewhere. Lack of time leads to wrong answers.

Really - don't play with the time (much, anyway - obviously you'll do some in 1.5 and some in 2.5). If you go in with the mindset that you "must" get the first 3 questions right, then you will get sucked into spending way more than that to "make sure" that you get them right - and now you've already blown the entire section.

Stacey Koprince wrote: Not if those seven questions were at the same exact difficulty levels, no. The factor that matters in this regard is not the placement of the question but the difficulty level of the question.

No question is worth more than any other question solely based on placement of that question. If you take the exact same question and place it first vs. last, that question will be worth the same amount.

Stacey Koprince wrote: If you and I were both to get the exact same question at #11, but you went into that question "scoring" 700 and I went into that question "scoring" 650, its impact on our scores would be different even if we both got it right (or both got it wrong). It isn't the case that, at #11, your score moves a certain amount up or down solely (or even primarily) due to the fact that you're on #11.

A better way to think about the wider range of possible difficulty levels on the questions offered to you earlier in the test is simply that, because the test has less data on you, it's allowed to be a little less precise in deciding what to give you next from its database. It's problematic to think of it as "the test is choosing the question based upon the current score it is calculating for me" because that leads people to think things like "the early questions are worth more." They're not.