mgmat

[gmat.. 750]

hi ,
i have given 4 tests of mgmat
cat 1 - 730
cat -2 - 710
cat 3- 680
cat 4- 720
gmat prep- 750(many questions i had seen before thats why it is inflated)
kaplan-4-600
all these mgmat tests have been given in the last 7 days or so ..
in cat 4 i found a surprising thing... in my first two tests all the questions in maths or verbal that i got wrong were of the 700-800 scale but in cat 3 i messed up in rc so my score got a bit low.. i am surprised at cat 4.. in maths i got several 600-700 questions incorrect and even than i got the higeset percentile score of 90 in all the exams . how is this possible ?
in cat 4 in verbal my rc was superb(i pray that maintain this on june 4 ) so i got a verbal of 39 .. i missed badly on sc
i have seen that u guys place a strong onus on rc .. and not too much on sc /cr why ?
and do the last ten questions in each section also determine the same effect on the score as the first ten do ?
some people say first ten questions are very important and one should concentrate on the first ten... but is this really true

[StaceyKoprince]

The scoring algorithm primarily depends upon the difficulty level of the questions, not the number of questions right / wrong - so, yes, you can get lots of questions wrong (and even some easier ones) and still get a very high score. In fact, you will get a lot of questions wrong - everyone does. The distinction is that higher scorers are answering harder questions.

All of your scores on our tests are within 1 standard deviation of each other - essentially, there is not a statistically significant difference in the scores you received (again, on our tests). The official test itself has a standard deviation of about 30 points, so even there, scoring within a 60 point range is essentially the same (even though nobody who takes the test really thinks of it that way).

There is not more of an emphasis in scoring on any one question type, so RC is not weighted more heavily than SC or CR.

And it is a myth that you should spend more time on the first 10 questions (or 7, as some people say). There is an enormous penalty for not finishing the test - any question you do not answer at the end is counted as though you would have gotten it wrong - so you have to make sure you move steadily through the test and have time for the questions at the end. One of the more important things is not to have a string of questions wrong in a row, and that's what will happen if you run low on time or run out completely.