How much do unanswered questions count against you?

[Cornhog]

I took the test today and scored a 720 which is good I guess. I had a 99 percentile on English and 66 on math. But on the math I didn't answer the very last question. I got to the question and had about 30 seconds left, so I quickly scribbled some numbers on my scratch paper so I could make an educated guess. But when I looked back up the last second ticked away.

I know I shouldn't worry about it, but how many points do you think I lost there? I scored a 42Q.

[VP_Jim]

Unanswered questions are more heavily penalized than are wrong answers, so it's possible you lost, say, 10 points. Probably not enough to worry about - 720 is a fine score!

[lunarpower]

did you get a chance to fill in one of the bubbles?

if you fill in a bubble on the last question, then that answer will count even if you don't have the opportunity to click "confirm" for that answer.

if not, then, as jim says, the effect of leaving one problem blank is minimal, and is almost certainly indistinguishable from the effect of getting that one problem wrong.

in fact, my understanding is that leaving questions blank at the end is more or less identical, score-wise, to getting them all wrong. still, when you consider that the test is adaptive - which means that those wrong answers would be coming on easier and easier and easier questions - that's really not a good thing at all, no matter how you look at it.