All the study material except for the official guide say that the first 10 question will determine your GMAT score. I am not really sure if this right. I took a GMAT prep test and found that even the time we consume answering a question would also contribute to our final score. Kinda contradicting !!
did anybody take the GMAT prep test? if so did anybody also saw a similiar pattern?
Hey vnbharadwaj.
According to the Official GMAT Prep book, this isn’t true, although obviously they have to say that because they’re the guys who make the test even if it is true.
The way the markings work, it sort of targets in on your score according to whether you scored right or wrong. So you start with a mid-level question and go up or down if you get the question right or wrong, respectively. This means that the first questions will determine you overall range while the last few will only count towards your specific score, so yes, the first 10 questions are more important. But at the same time, the test also measures your time per question and other variables too, and also if you spend all your time on the first questions and end up not answering everything it will significantly reduce your score.
The best way to counter this would probably be to treat all questions- if you can solve them do it right away, and if you have no idea just guess fast and move on.
If anybody has real experience though they’d like to share, it would probably be more valid advice.
Although the idea that the first 10 questions are the most important in the GMAT is a reasonable and tempting one, I tend to believe that it isn’t the case. I have this opinion for two reasons.
Firstly, it’s easier for me to envision a scoring system that works consistently during all the test instead of a system that uses the first questions to determine your overall score and the last questions to “fine tune” your score. It simply makes no sense for me. Let’s imagine this: A and B are taking the test. A performs better than B in the first 10 questions and will get harder questions from that point on. However, A starts to pick the wrong answers to much more questions than B. Is it reasonable to think that A deserves a better score because of his/her initial performance? I don’t think so.
Secondly, when I was practicing with the prep test provided by GMAC, once I lost completely the time (something like 5-6 quanti questions remain unanswered). What happened? My score decreased significantly, to an extent that put me in another “level”. It seems consistent with the idea that all questions have the same weight: as I had many “wrong” questions, they were increasingly easier and my score were increasingly decreased.
The time you take to respond the questions doesn’t seem to influence your score, but the order of the correct/incorrect questions seems to be important. Think about a decision tree: you start in the middle; if you respond correctly you go to a higher position and, if you respond incorrectly, you go to a lower position. Right-Wrong puts you in a better position than Wrong-Right because missing a difficult questions makes you lose less than missing an easier question. The opposite is also valid: a right answer to an easy question helps you less than a right answer to a more difficult question.
Fortunately, I got a good score the first time I took the exam and hadn’t to take it again :)
Hello people , I am new to this website! Here are my thoughts on the subject
1) I think it matters because that is the way the CAT system works. Starting with a mid – ranged question , if you answer the first 10 correctly then you will be at the high range. While there, you are “playing for a high grade , because if you answer wrong on a difficult question the grade impact is small while a correct answer has a higher relative weight to your overall score.
2) The time taken to answer each question seems and is likely to be completely unrelated to the points earned by a correct answer but , make no mistake , there is a hefty penalty for unanswered questions so its better to just make an educated (or not) guess.
3) I think there is a certain exploit on the CAT test which can benefit you time-wise. It looks like the last question has a bigger time margin than the others so you can answer the question before that just before the time ends and take your time with the final one! Please , do not take this for granted as I personally have not tested for its validity. If anyone knows by fact that this is true , I would like to know it :)
Edit : By CAT, I mean “Computer Adaptive Test” and am still referring to the GMAT :P
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