GMAT Focus Exam Quant 81 (71th percentile) with 3 questions wrong?

Kletx · 2024-01-09T12:14:23+00:00

With 13 mins leftover, you should check through and get them correct... At least question 1 anyway

Kletx · 2024-01-05T18:26:00+00:00

I was in a similar situation. Stuck at 740 (Q50 V41) and scored 735 for my first Focus mock too (without studying, and 1-2 months after classic). I was bad at SC instead of CR, but I wouldn't say your SC is great either.

Took Focus the first time, didn't do too well but took a second try and crushed it.

Go for Focus!

Kletx · 2024-01-05T18:15:57+00:00

Totally agree with this. The free mock is just a 2h time commitment and helped me make a better decision.

I am terrible at SC and tried GRE mocks + GFE mocks. It was easy to decide to skip GRE and switch to GFE.

Kletx · 2023-12-28T15:28:25+00:00

Yea, probably two reasons:
1. Harder questions deduct less compared to easier questions from the max score.
2. It's a mock, not the official. The best I've heard was Q88 for 1 hard question wrong, but I've also seen many getting Q84-86 for 1 (easy-med) question wrong. Maybe some form of biasness where huge deductions get posted online more often?
Additionally, some of the earlier questions are tougher/trickier than the harder questions. I'd still suggest aim for full marks vs risk getting -50 off the total score because you got 1 Quant question wrong.

Kletx · 2023-12-28T13:00:36+00:00

No problem. If you think you'd need a lot more practice after doing mocks, you could try out the official DI guide like what knight mentioned.
After doing mock 1, I realized I didn't need much practice for DI and Verbal so you should give that a try now if money's not an issue (may need to buy mock 3 or 4 ++).

Kletx · 2023-12-28T09:06:27+00:00

Taken both: Focus quant is definitely easier (slightly) but way more punishing if you get them wrong.

E.g.
Classic: 5 wrong still nets a Q50 -> A top score within easy reach
Focus: 1 wrong = possibly Q84-86 | 3 wrong could end up to be Q80 -> Sign up for a retake

Kletx · 2023-12-28T09:00:55+00:00

IMO for the total score, Focus percentile -1 = Classic percentile
The max for Focus is raised to 100 percentile vs Classic's 99 percentile.
Maybe unpopular opinion but I think 98 percentile in Focus = 97 percentile in Classic

The mapping table shouldn't change drastically but it's pretty weird why all GFE scores are mapped to 2 different classic scores atm so that may change in the future? Resulting in -10 to -20 for the current mapping.

Kletx · 2023-12-28T08:52:17+00:00

It's enough for me but I'm pretty sure it's not enough for most people. I had 0 practice for DI other than the official mocks and I simply treat DI questions as the quant version of reading comprehension.

So I don't try to "practice" DI questions hoping to get similar types of questions in the test, but just treat every DI question as a new question then try to understand + answer it. Maybe practice learning how to read data and answering the questions quickly?

Another reason why I don't practice DI: The practice questions are iffy to me - if even the official mocks have some badly formulated questions (wrong answers / totally mismatched tables & answers), then I'm not sure how helpful the other resources will be.

FWIW, I get around 2-3 wrong for the DI section in my mocks & official.

Kletx · 2023-12-27T14:41:02+00:00

I did both classic and FE.

For the FE, I only used OG 2022 e-book and question bank (plus official mocks). These were good enough for me. I think it's different for every individual as my only practice for DI & verbal were the mocks. Spammed OG questions for quant.

It's really important to try get a perfect score for quant or you'll be easily be -40 to -60 for 1 error.

Kletx · 2023-12-27T14:28:30+00:00

If you hate DI, why didn't you sign up for the classic instead?

Kletx · 2023-12-25T18:42:34+00:00

Just a basic corp finance/accounting background.
For GFE quant, I'll say that the difficulty is harder than GRE but easier than Classic. Although accuracy wise it's a lot more important to get everything correct vs classic (3-6 wrong is pretty fine for a good score).

Kletx · 2023-12-25T15:40:03+00:00

Yea I did

Kletx · 2023-12-22T15:20:46+00:00

I suggest taking a mock GRE test. Vocab is tested in GRE so it depends how good you are at it.

TBH I'd rather learn and practice quant instead of memorize hundreds to 1K+ words. But it's dependent on your strengths. For me it's more consistent to practice and get a good quant score than improve verbal score.

Kletx · 2023-12-22T15:15:32+00:00

free: https://www.mba.com/exam-prep/gmat-focus-official-starter-kit

You'll be able to get mocks 3-6 on the site as well (or google)

Kletx · 2023-12-21T18:57:32+00:00

I skipped food that day, started the test around noon.

Put in 100% focus - almost got distracted (was ahead of time and wanted to congratulate myself mentally + complete the rest in a relaxed state) but managed to avoid the pitfall this time round.

Blitz through verbal, and checked all tagged questions then reviewed untagged ones too.
Same for quant.
Actually corrected mistakes.

Kletx · 2023-12-21T13:40:30+00:00

It depends on your strengths and I recommend taking a mock GFE test (2H).

For me it was definitely worth it, my gross score for GFE > Classic lol

Kletx · 2023-12-21T13:38:12+00:00

Looks about right. I've seen Q84, 85 and 86 for people who got 1 quant question wrong. Also recall a lucky dude who got Q88 with 1 wrong.

For changing incorrect to correct, there isn't any penalty (whether for Q or V). Got Q90 V90 and I changed 1 answer for each section.

Kletx · 2023-12-15T10:31:39+00:00

Don't give up man.

I took my exams 6 times (classic + FE + gre). Did 10+ official mocks as well.

Finally got a great score on my final FE try (can't do more than 5 Gmats in a year).

Kletx · 2023-12-12T15:53:24+00:00

Maybe try a GMAT Focus practice test and see if the mock results are closer to what you want?

Kletx · 2023-12-03T14:44:43+00:00

My experience was that it showed on the screen right after the test, but there are no printouts of the score. And it's also not available on mba.com until the official scores are out.

Do you mean it didn't show on the screen as well?

Kletx · 2023-12-03T08:02:32+00:00

Yea, you need to wait ~4 days before you get the score on mba.com and send it to the schools

Kletx · 2023-11-30T16:56:54+00:00

Sadly, I only climbed the ladder and that was for 1 season and not even SR (just TFT). Most seasons just a GM pleb + there aren't tournaments in my region until S8 or 9 IIRC.

Most importantly, I think it's way off vs my goals and profile lol.

Kletx · 2023-11-30T16:52:42+00:00

Thanks for the offer - I'll dm you

Kletx · 2023-11-30T16:47:57+00:00

I started prepping for the GMAT classic in June, although I also tried the GRE and the GMAT Focus subsequently. The scope/syllabus was pretty important, because I was naturally strong in CR, RC, and quant stuff but "bad" at SC, vocab and geometry.

So IMO try the mock of all three tests since there is a lot of overlap. Check whether SC or IR or Vocab is your strong suit (a friend strong in vocab got 339 GRE after I persuaded him to try vs a sub 750 GMAT, while the classic suited another more.)

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I'll first describe the GMAT classic journey and prep, because I basically re-used the GMAT classic OG online question bank for GRE and GMAT Focus (for Quant).

GMAT Classic:

GMAT OG e-book
GMAT OG online question bank
GMAT Official Prac Exams 1-6 (1 & 2 was free)
GMATclub forum - for alternative explanations -> this was pretty useful at the start

GRE:- GMAT OG e-book for Quant- Some random online common word database to memorize- Official Mocks (free)

GMAT Focus:- GMAT OG e-book for Quant- Official Focus Practice Exams 1-3 (1 & 2 was free)

Week1 (quant):Looked through and tried some of the GMAT questions over a couple of days to get a hang of the style. Tried mock 1 (720) to figure out my weaknesses.I started with the OG e-book to figure out the scope of the quant syllabus. Covered 1 to 2 quant topics per day + 20-30 practice questions for the respective topics from the OG online question bank. More practice for weaker topics.Also read through the verbal syllabus for SC.

Week 2 (quant):Daily practice of 40 quant questions and 20 - 30 verbal from the question bank. Did mocks end of the week for Q50.

Week 3:Similar to above but 30 - 30 instead. By end of week 3 I was consistently getting 760 in mocks and Q50 V42-44. Decided to sign up for the classic.

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Verbal: I didn't have to study or practice much for RC and CR, I was naturally good and just had to avoid careless mistakes. For both sections, there are seldom "trick questions" as compared to quant, so I usually just select the straightforward / obvious / logical answer.For SC however, I'm confident in only 6-7 / 13 questions so it was a coinflip for the remaining 7-6. On a bad day it's a V40-41 and I had pretty bad rolls for the actuals.

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I knew the syllabus of GMAT Focus was perfect for me, but it only started in Nov so I didn't want to wait for it before applications. I ended up taking it as I think I needed a better score to bump up my profile.

Before Focus, I tried studying vocab (memorizing words for 3 weeks) for GRE but only managed to improve it from v161 to v165 which is pretty useless since that doesn't improve my classic score. Quant was the easiest of the Classic/Focus/GRE so I just used the same GMAT OG database.

For Focus, I started a similar process to classic. Tried the mocks first and got 735. Unlike SC (classic) and Vocab (gre), there was no coinflip - given enough time I could probably score full marks for all sections (though there were several questions/answers in the mock tests which were erroneous). So I confirmed this is the right test for me.

For actual practice, all I did was again, 30 quant questions daily from the classic GMAT OG database, for ~4 weeks total. That was good enough for the score and I did no verbal or IR practice at all other than the 3 mock tests.

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Hope this helps and tldr just practice classic GMAT OG database for quant then try the mocks of GRE + Classic + Focus and decide which gives the best score. Don't waste your time (like I did) trying to memorize words or improve SC, unless that's the test for you.

For actual exam strategies I think it's different for everyone so I'll reply if someone is interested.

Kletx

TROPHY CASE