So, it seems that getting a few easy questions wrong (regardless of their location in the test) causes the scoring algorithm to quickly reduce the difficulty level of the questions you see, and this reduces your chances of a decent score. Conversely, for tests #3 and 4, many of the questions I got wrong were easy or medium questions, and the scoring algorithm seems to have punished me for that. The same can be said about tests #2 and 5, in which most of the incorrect responses were for difficult questions. Note: At the end of the article, I discuss the limitations of using GMAT Club's difficulty ratings as well as other factors that could affect the results of these experiments.īelow are the results of the five practice tests with the difficulty ratings included:įor test #1, you can see that getting only the difficult questions wrong resulted in a solid Quant score of 49. For the remaining four tests, I incorrectly answered the same questions (#3, 4, 5, 10, 13, 15, 20, 23, 25, 30 and 31) for consistency.

On my first practice test, I intentionally answered difficult questions (as noted by GMAT Club) incorrectly, and this resulted in my Q49 score. Those with ratings of 25 to 45 are considered 600 to 700 level questions, and those with ratings of 55 to 95 are considered 700+ level. Questions rated as 5 or 15 are considered sub-600 level questions. Given the huge range of scores, I think it’s safe to say that, if question placement plays a role in your score, that role isn’t very significant.Īn important feature of my experiments, which I haven’t yet mentioned, is that for each question I encountered, I located that question on GMAT Club’s forum and noted its difficulty level as defined by GMAT Club’s question difficulty algorithm, which assigns a difficulty rating from 5 to 95 (in 10-point increments) to each question. My five scores were: Q49 (74th percentile), Q49 (74th percentile), Q27 (10th percentile), Q31 (14th percentile), and Q49 (74th percentile). You might also be surprised to learn that I didn’t get the same quant score for all five tests even though I incorrectly answered the exact same 11 question placements each time. Given the placement of my 11 incorrect responses and the fact that I correctly answered only 6 of the first 10 questions, you might be surprised to learn that I received a Quantitative score of 49 (74th percentile), which is the third highest score possible. I completed the Quantitative section of the official GMATPrep test #2 five times and intentionally got the same 11 questions wrong each time. So, rather than examine extreme scenarios, I tested a much more realistic scenario. Very few test-takers can correctly answer the first ten questions, and very few test-takers are incapable of answering any of the first ten questions. The main problem with those experiments is that they’re unrealistic. This belief is largely based on experiments with the official GMATPrep practice tests in which the scores resulting from getting questions 1 to 10 all correct are contrasted with scores resulting from getting questions 1 to 10 all wrong. In fact, in every GMAT Official Guide (aka OG), you’ll find the following statement:ĭespite this warning, many students feel they should devote extra time to the first 10 questions. Many students believe that question placement plays a significant role in the calculation of their scores, and that the first 10 questions impact their scores much more than the later questions do. In this article, we’ll examine (and test) the two most popular answers to that question. In fact, students who score 450 (14th percentile) on the GMAT often have the same number of correct responses as students who score 650 (72nd percentile). Since each test-taker sees a different set of questions, it wouldn’t be fair to calculate scores based on the number of questions answered correctly. This means the specific questions you see on test day will be different from the questions other test-takers see. The GMAT is computer adaptive, which means each question you see on test day is tailored to you, based on your previous responses to earlier questions in the test (along with other factors). With most tests, the more correct responses you get, the greater your score. The quick and easy response is that the GMAT doesn’t work the same way most tests do.

Shouldn’t my score increase when I get more questions right? On my second practice test, I scored a 46 with 10 wrong. On my first practice test, I scored a 49 on the Quantitative section with 12 questions wrong.

A common question on the GMAT forums goes something like this:

Gmat quant