Score Dropped, But Avg. Difficulty Correct went up.. ?

[EdwinG888]

Hi MPrep Community,

I recently took my third CAT exam, and I was disappointed to find out that I had scored a 590, whereas a month before I had scored a 600 on my second CAT exam; however, upon comparing the Avg. Difficulty Score correct and incorrect for both the quantitative and verbal sections between the two exams, I was surprised to see the following:

CAT EXAM #2: (Scores presented as average correct/average incorrect) [Q37, V35]
Quant
PS: 520/620
DS: 530/620

Verbal
CR: 660/750
RC: 660/700
SC: 640/710

CAT EXAM #3 [Q38, V34]
Quant
PS: 700/690
DS: 670/690

Verbal
CR: 740/720
RC: 690/730
SC: 710/750

As you can see, the difficulty of questions that I was getting right and wrong jumped significantly between my 2nd and 3rd CAT exams; however, the time I spent on average on each question type also went up on my 3rd CAT compared to my 2nd, except for SC. My hypothesis for why my score dropped is related to time management - I think I spent too much time on certain problems (in both Math and Verbal), which allowed me to get more difficult questions right, but I rushed towards the end of each section and had to guess on a string of questions, which ultimately led to a drop in my score.

I wasn't quite sure about what to take away from my 3rd CAT exam, so any clarity on would be sincerely appreciated!

[StaceyKoprince]

You've got it! The GMAT is a "where you end is what you get" test—so, yes, if your score drops by the end of the section, that's what you get (even if you lifted to quite a high level during the section).

The good news: Your underlying skills have improved. You did earn harder questions earlier in the sections. Good work!

The bad news: You hit the wall that everyone hits—namely, you can't answer everything in the given time. No matter how well you do, you are still going to be offered questions that will take too long to answer (or that you simply can't answer, no matter how much time you take).

Your goal now is to be able to recognize more quickly when this happens so that you can get out of those questions much earlier—and then you'll be able to finish the section out normally and you won't experience that big score drop at the end.

Take a look at this (fast read):
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning

And this (longer):
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

That's your new GMAT mantra. Figure out how to incorporate it into everything decision that you make. (The webinar linked at the beginning of the second article gives some more detailed examples of how to do this.)

Tell me what you think about the above!

[EdwinG888]

Stacey,

Thank you for your prompt response and words of encouragement. The articles you suggested are spot on - I think I'm still stuck in the mindset that I have to get everything right.

After looking at the times I spent on each question for both Math and Verbal, it seems like I was more comfortable moving on from difficult math questions, but I spent a long time on verbal questions because I consider them to be points of strength for me.

I will keep your advice in mind when I take my next practice test!

Thanks,
Edwin

[StaceyKoprince]

You're very welcome!

Good luck—let me know how it goes!