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Need Help Understanding GMAT Scoring System???

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Need Help Understanding GMAT Scoring System???

by Cinji18 » Sun Aug 08, 2010 4:51 pm
So, I've taken three practice exams in the last couple months from GMATPrep. I know basically how the scoring works as it is preached from this site and other legitimate sources, yet I still find the results confusing. Here are my score:

(7/5/2010): 570 (Q42, V27) (Q: Incorrect 18, V: Incorrect 15)
(7/17/2010): 640 (Q47, V31) (Q: Incorrect 18, V: Incorrect 16)
(8/8/2010): 640 (Q46, V31) (Q: Incorrect 15, V: Incorrect 15)

As you can see, the first two has a 70 point difference, yet I missed one more problem the second time. The major difference is that I gave myself the two minute time-limit per problem during the first test, then I gave myself as much time as I needed on earlier problems during the second because I understood that earlier problems have more points.

Now, this is where I get confused. For the second and third time, the overall scores are the same, with quant one point lower, and yet, I have fewer incorrect answers. If I have fewer incorrect answers, then shouldn't my score increase?

This is frustrating because I thought I was making improvements in my study. I should be happy that I am answering more problems correctly, but the overall score sure doesn't show it.

Can someone please explain?

Thanks.
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Aug 09, 2010 9:38 am
Hey Cinji,

First of all, congratulations on that 70-point improvement, and then another similar score to prove that it wasn't a fluke!

GMAT scoring is pretty sophisticated, but rest assured that it's very responsible - the director of the entire GMAT project is a Statistics PhD, and his main role is to ensure the validity of your scores, so if nothing else please know that even if the scores seem a little tough to understand, they're calculated responsibly and in a way that ensures fairness!

Because of the adaptive scoring system, your number of questions answered correctly/incorrectly is only one part of the way in which your score is calculated. The difficulty level of the questions is arguably even more important than the simple number or percentage correct, and there are also the unscored, experimental questions in there, too - theoretically you could miss all of those with no penalty.

Akil over at BellCurves did a pretty extensive study of practice test scores that might interest you: https://gmat.bellcurves.com/blog/2010/08 ... -the-tail/

Essentially, he found that answering 21 questions correctly could result in a range of scaled scores from the low 20s to the high 40s - you could answer 21/37 and be well below average or almost perfect in the computer's eyes, depending on the difficulty level of the questions!

Hopefully that explains the scoring a bit more, but I think even more importantly than that you should know:

1) You can answer plenty of questions incorrectly and still do well! Ultimately, the scoring system's goal is to get you to a point where it's "found your level", which means that you should be getting every other question right and every other question wrong (e.g. "750 level - wrong; 730 level - right; 750 level - wrong; 730 level -right ---> 740 score). So don't sweat difficult questions or the need to guess once or twice if the clock is ticking.

2) Understanding the scoring system:

a) Is not required in order to succeed on the GMAT
b) Will not significantly help you succeed on the GMAT

Think of it this way - you could spend a few hours explaining to Usain Bolt how seconds are calculated (dividing the length of the day into hours, then minutes, etc.) and how electronic timing works, but knowing how time is calculated won't help him set world records - he just needs to run fast! Yeah, understanding that the time stops when he breaks the plane of the finish line might help him realize that he needs to lean forward at the finish, and that will gain him a few hundredths of a second, but if he's not within that range of winning, it won't matter - most of his success is because he's insanely fast, and the knowledge of timing may be a subtle difference if anything.

Same for you - you need to know that you should answer every question and not leave any unanswered, but outside of that your job is to answer questions correctly. It's much easier said than done, but if you focus your energy on the questions themselves and not on trying to determine their difficulty level or figuring out how to beat the scoring system, you're putting yourself in a much better position to succeed.
Brian Galvin
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by selfmade » Mon Aug 09, 2010 10:09 am
Hi Brian,

This is a really helpful information.

I always had one question in mind loking at my scoring pattern. Getting coouple of questions wrong in a row - does it affect the score specially if its at the end of the section. Actually last 3 tests I took, I am consistenly having this problem in Verbal. When I am doing practice problems, my accuracy is good. But during the test, my verbal accuracy as well as speed both goes down. I couldnt finish my section in time and had to take some wild guesses ( even without reading the question itself).. What can I do to improve this. My Quantitative score is constant in all 3 tests 45-46 range and verbal is constant 24-25 range :((((


Please help.
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Aiming for 780
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Aug 09, 2010 11:20 am
Hey selfmade,

Good question - I won't pretend to be completely inside the mind of the scoring algorithm, but it stands to reason that consecutive wrong answers will pull you down a little bit (wrong --> easier question ---> wrong ---> even easier question). If you guess on the last 2-3 questions, it shouldn't be too big a drag since you'll already have proven to the computer that you're pretty sharp early on, but if it's much more than that you get get dragged down more substantially.

One strategic point that this brings up - if you know that in a best-case scenario you'll have to guess on 3-4 questions, you'll probably want to:

-Plan so that you guess intermittently (don't guess directly on the last four...maybe guess on problems 36, 38, and 40 instead of on 39, 40, 41 so that you don't risk that many wrong concurrently)

-Use your guesses a bit earlier than later - this is based on the idea that, if the test has an interest in punishing you for not finishing, you won't likely see the unscored, experimental questions on the last one or two. That would bail you out of poor pacing, so the test really can't do that, and it's much more likely that question 41 counts than that, say, question 39 does.

That said, in my "Usain Bolt" example, that's like leaning at the tape...it can help you by a point or two, but isn't going to be your 600-to-700 strategy! Work on pacing so that you can hopefully answer the questions with a little time to spare, and that's how you'll know you're on track for success.

Since you mentioned verbal, I think a hugely important concept is to make sure that you don't have to spend much time rereading. Before you read any passage/question, know why you're reading so that you're focused that first time through on what's important.

Lastly, one more pacing strategy - again, looking worst-case but hopefully you can do better than that! - if on the verbal section you know that you'll have to guess, know also that the different question types will take different amounts of time (on math they should be a lot closer) and that your strengths/weaknesses may vary. If you know that SC questions typically take a minute but CR questions may take more than 2, you may want to use a guess earlier on a CR problem so that you have time for SC. Getting to the last question having guessed on the previous one to have ~1 minute for a CR problem may not help you, so you may want to be strategic with the types of questions on which you start to use your guesses as you get closer to the end...
Brian Galvin
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Veritas Prep

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