Bell Curves Blog

The following post is from Lawrence Watkins’ blog. It’s very insightful.

Last week, CNN aired a special entitled “Black in America – Part 2″ profiling the lives of different African-Americans all around the nation. I watched with anticipation as the CNN crew was profiling an organization in which I am affiliated, Management Leadership for Tomorrow. MLT is a program that helps aspiring minority business school applicants attain their dream of attending a top notch business school. Out of all the underrepresented minorities at Cornell’s business school, well over half went through the rigorous MLT program.

As we tweeted last week, GMAC finally released the exact dates for the first full-scale testing of potential question types for the Next Generation GMAT. Along with info on the upcoming testing period, they also released a list of FAQs and provided a first look at interesting new question types they’ll be testing.

Recently we’ve decided to share some GMAT-related questions we’ve received (as well as our answers) in hopes that the information may be of benefit to others. Today’s question deals with how multiple GMAT scores may be interpreted by admissions officers.

Q: Is there a penalty for taking the GMAT multiple times, meaning do the schools see all your scores?

From time to time we get questions from prospective GMAT test-takers we feel the answers to which might benefit others. This particular question came from an attendee at a recent webinar presentation given by Akil Bello for The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management (CGSM).

Q: What is the typical improvement for a second test?

For many GMAT Test-takers, Sentence Correction questions are both welcome and frustrating. Sentence Corrections are the shortest verbal questions, and often consume, on average, the least time per question. Moreover, Sentence Corrections are designed to test a relatively clear and finite set of grammar rules that make it similar to Quantitative questions in some respects. Given this, test-takers often have a greater affinity for Sentence Correction questions.

Many GMAT test-takers are often confused by how scores are generated for the test. Lots of this confusion stems from the seemingly straight-forward, but not easily explained, notion of a Computer Adaptive Test (CAT).

The confusion is pervasive enough, it seems, that GMAC often makes a point to clarify what a CAT is and does at various conferences, on their website, and on their official GMAT Blog. In a recent blog post, Dr. Eileen Talento-Miller provided some information about how CATs are designed and how they function in a way that even us lay-people can understand. Dr. Talento-Miller is a Ph.D.-certified psychometrician, and in many respects she does a sound job laying out the CAT basics in an easy-to-digest fashion.

A few weeks ago, co-founder Akil Bello presented the above topic at GMAC’s Annual Industry Conference. The session was well attended and garnered positive responses from many of the industry professionals in attendance.

With over 20 years of test-preparation experience, as well as a focus in the last 10 on helping underrepresented minorities excel at standardized tests, Akil was well-positioned to provide the insights interested parties where there to hear. After significant research, and analysis of a wealth of survey data provided by GMAC, Akil brought his observations and conclusions to sunny San Diego.

On June 25th a short press release from GMAC provided the first details on the previously announced changes to the GMAT that were announced late last summer. The press release coincided with the company’s Annual Industry Conference (AIC) in sunny San Diego, California. As is often the case, the AIC was a gathering place for the GMAC member schools and business school industry members. Our very own Akil Bello not only presented a workshop at the conference, but was also able to learn more about the upcoming Next Generation GMAT.

Here’s what we know so far about the new GMAT:

As we discussed a few weeks ago in Making the Jump Part 1, there are some general rules that everyone can apply to improve their scores or break out of the range they’re stuck in. For each type of scorer (low, medium, high), however, a modified approach would also be beneficial. In today’s post, we’re going to tackle some strategies that higher scorers can use to help them break through the often difficult 650 point barrier.

First, we have a testimonial from a student was able to break out of his range and get the higher score that would get him into the schools he wanted:

Any given GMAT score for an individual is really a specific value that can (and should) be seen as part of a range. What this means is that when you “think about” or “talk about” GMAT scores, you should do so in the context of a GMAT score range. To better understand what we’re talking about, consider that GMAC indicates the standard margin of error for the GMAT is 40 points, meaning that a person with a certain defined ability will score within 40 points of that ability from one test to the next (assuming no additional preparation between tests).

For more, see the following link: