So. As promised, I am putting up another post about the GMAT percentiles. I have posted an image of my results from my 2nd test taken on MGMAT website. The reporting structure of MGMAT is pretty impressive. I don't really know if others provide this. But here's my take on the results.
I had run out of time in this section which forced me to guess answers to the last 3 questions. Expectedly, I got all of them wrong. However, I was surprised to see that the last 3 questions brought my percentile down from 94 to 86 ! I had always read that it is important to get the first questions right and it didn't matter if you got the last questions wrong. But this theory seems to be incorrect.
I also read that GMAT penalizes you heavily for getting consecutive answers wrong. This is evident from the Q35-37 and Q4-5. That is something to think about. This means that it is not really necessary to get all answers correct on the GMAT. You just have make sure the perfornance is consistent and you don't get too many answers wrong in a row.
For e.g., you can see that on Q2, I took over 4 minutes and still got the answer wrong. It brought my percentile down heavily but if I performed consistently after that, I could still get a 95+ percentile. This reinforces the theory that you should guesss a question and move on if you are taking too much time on it. Its not worth it. In my case my use of over 4 minutes on Q2 cost me 6 percentile points in the end!
The fact that you need not get all questions correct, does not mean that you can slip on you preparation. To get a high score, you have to get a lot of the "700-800" questions correct which means that your preparation must be top notch. What it does mean is that it is not the end of the world to get a few questions wrong even if you want to get a super high score.
My 2 bits.
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteIts a nice blog..keep up the good work.
I was going through your percentile scan and I realized that even after 13-14 mistakes in quants, you still managed to get 48. Is same the case for Gprep as well.
All the best for your prep.
Hi Shveta,
ReplyDeleteThanks. Yes, its the case with GPrep also, however I would imagine number of mistakes you can afford there is much lower because MGMAT Quant is quite tough. Somebody from GMAC said that people get 800 even after making some mistakes.
Are you planning to take the gmat too?
Thanks for the reply. Yes i am taking the exam in first week of September but am not planning to apply this year. Just want to get done with GMAT coz the format will change next year and dnt want to risk it :)
ReplyDeleteWell, best of luck! I hope I am being of some help.
ReplyDeleteCracking GMAT with good score is important because Top B-Schools only consider those who score crack the GMAT with exceptional score.
ReplyDeleteRegards
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ReplyDeleteGreat blog you've got here. It's packed full of lots of information!
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Having read this I believed it was extremely enlightening.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you taking the time and effort to put this content together.
I once again find myself spending a lot of time both reading and posting comments. But so what, it was still worth it!
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