A weird GMATPrep 710 - 47Q 41Q

[mleviko]

I wrote my weekly CAT, GMATPrep2 this time, and the score was weird.

First, 710 is the highest I've ever got so far and I broke my previous records both in Q(47) and in V(41).

The reason I consider it to be bizarre is that I felt during Q that I sucked, and that I was hitting only about 50% correctly, in addition I had to guess the last 5 questions as I ran out of time.

Maybe I obtained a good score because I focused on the first quant 10 questions and answered 8/10 correctly?

Or is it the nice verbal score that pushed my score above 700 ?


Another crucial question : I have scheduled the real deal to May 5, do you guys think that I should change the date to somewhere in the next month, as it seems that I'm getting better? I'm afraid to decline during the 50 days until the original date. What do you think?

[lunarpower]

that's an impressive trajectory; congratulations. whatever you're doing to study appears to have paid impressive dividends.

may 5 is still a rather long way away. rather than giving you a definitive answer, i'll respond to your query with another question: do you think you'll put in comparable numbers of study hours per week, from now until 5/5, as you have thus far?

if the answer is no - you feel like you've prepared sufficiently for the content, and all you're doing at this point is marking time, taking practice tests, and going over the results - you should probably schedule an earlier test date. especially because you've not yet taken the gmat (or so i infer from your post), an earlier test date would give you the opportunity to take a second gmat, if necessary, on or about 5/5 - letting you stick to your original timeline with no hassles.

if the answer is yes, then you might consider leaving the test date as is - but that's still an awfully long time away.

if i were in your shoes, with that score trajectory, i'd probably move the date up a bit, reserving early- to mid-May for a second attempt if that proves to be necessary.

--

when you interpret your scores, be sure to mind the 30-point standard error. that means that, 70% of the time, your scores will be within 30 points of your 'true' aptitude - and, the other 30% of the time, your scores will be more than 30 points away from your 'true' aptitude!

therefore:
* the increasing trajectory of your scores is, beyond all doubt, genuine. you have exhibited marked improvement.
* it's possible, though, that the latest set of scores is extra-high because of random variation. on the other hand, it's also possible that you genuinely outdid yourself yet again, and that you're still improving tangibly.

--

final comment:
this just goes to show how completely unreliable your self-assessment is during the exam. due to the adaptive nature of the test, you'll often feel as if you're doing terribly precisely when you're doing wonderfully, because the test will kick in with extra challenge at those times. don't bother to evaluate your performance during the test! just take it question by question.

good luck!

[lunarpower]

also, this may be a stupid question, but i noticed that you've taken the gmatprep tests multiple times. are you seeing repeated questions?

if you're seeing more than 1-2 repeated questions when you redo the gmatprep tests, then the significance of those tests' results is seriously compromised.

[mayonnai5e]

I wrote my weekly CAT, GMATPrep2 this time, and the score was weird.

First, 710 is the highest I've ever got so far and I broke my previous records both in Q(47) and in V(41).

The reason I consider it to be bizarre is that I felt during Q that I sucked, and that I was hitting only about 50% correctly, in addition I had to guess the last 5 questions as I ran out of time.

Maybe I obtained a good score because I focused on the first quant 10 questions and answered 8/10 correctly?

Or is it the nice verbal score that pushed my score above 700 ?


Another crucial question : I have scheduled the real deal to May 5, do you guys think that I should change the date to somewhere in the next month, as it seems that I'm getting better? I'm afraid to decline during the 50 days until the original date. What do you think?

lunarpower is right. Don't evaluate yourself in the middle of the exam - I did the same thing on the real test. I seriously thought I failed quant (I thought I might have gotten a 38 at best) because the questions I was seeing were simply too easy - I knew how to do each and every one within seconds of looking at them. During my break between Q and V, I actually thought I had failed miserably so I went into the V portion thinking it was totally pointless so I shouldn't even try that hard on V. Well turns out I just got lucky with the questions I was given because I actually scored a 49 on Q and that was with 5 questions that I randomly guessed at the end.

DO NOT think for one second that the score bump was due to you scoring 80% of the first 10 correctly. That is just perpetuating the myth that even the OG book states is false.

Keep in mind Verbal weighs more heavily than Quant because the test makers recognize that it's far easier to have dramatic improvements in Quant independent of language and origin. A 3 point increase is Verbal is far more signifcant than a 3 point increase in Quant.

Also, as lunar mentioned, your score is suspect due to the repeat of the same test - the gain you've seen may just be the extra points you've received from seeing repeated questions from the first time you took the test or from the OG books.

And finally, ask yourself, "Am I ready to take the real test?" If the answer is yes, then move the date forward because you want to take the test at the peak of your confidence. Imagine if the next cat you took dropped in score due to standard deviation or some other reason - that would be a hit to your self confidence and that is not what you need going into the real exam.

[mleviko]

also, this may be a stupid question, but i noticed that you've taken the gmatprep tests multiple times. are you seeing repeated questions?

if you're seeing more than 1-2 repeated questions when you redo the gmatprep tests, then the significance of those tests' results is seriously compromised.

Regarding repeated questions - I only took GMATPrep2 once before and saw only one question that I recognized from the first take, so I guess that repeated questions didn't have much influence on my score.

[mleviko]

Thank you both for your interesting comments,

I decided to leave the test date as it is, mainly because of work reasons. I'll have a peak of workload in mid-late April and I feel that it could damage my score, so I've decided to use the following strategy in order to keep the current tension level:

1. I will continue solving 20-30 questions / day until mid-April, so for the next four weeks. Mainly from OG11 which I haven't touched yet.

2. Once every two weeks I'll do another CAT, I have 4 Kaplan CATs that I didn't do yet.

3. Last 14 days strategy will be:
3.1 First 7 days I'll redo 4 CATs and review them(2 GMATPreps, 2 PowerPreps)
3.2 Then for 4 days I'll wake up early (my test is scheduled to 9:30AM and I need to leave home about 1:30 hours earlier) and do 60 questions
3.2 Last 3 days: rest and review all the basic principals + flashcards.
3.3 D-1: solve 20 questions and sleep well.