Your First Score Isn't the END

By EMPOWERea on October 20, 2020

Your score comes back. It is not the number you wanted. Maybe not even close. You sit there at your kitchen table, or in a test center chair, and the first thought is some version of “I’m just not a test person.” The second thought comes right behind it: “I’ll book another date and try harder.”

Both thoughts are wrong. That score is not a verdict on you. It is DATA. Right now it is the most useful data you have about how you take this test. It only stays useful if you read it before you do anything else.

Read four numbers, not one

Your Executive Assessment score is not one number. It is four. Integrated Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning each get a score from 0 to 20. Those roll up into a total from 100 to 200, and all three sections are weighted the same.

Stop and think about what that means. Integrated Reasoning (IR) is the section where you read charts, tables and short pieces of information from more than one source, then answer questions about them. It counts EXACTLY as much as Quant. A point is a point. So which point is cheaper to pick up: one more in the section you already handled well, or one in the section you barely trained for?

Here is the layout. The test runs 90 minutes in three sections of 30 minutes each. IR has 12 questions. Verbal has 14, a mix of Sentence Correction (fix the grammar and meaning of a sentence), Critical Reasoning (pick apart a short argument) and Reading Comprehension (answer questions about a passage). Quant has 14, split between Problem Solving (regular multiple choice math) and Data Sufficiency (decide whether the facts you’re given are ENOUGH to answer a question). The test is adaptive section by section, so how you perform shapes what you see next. GMAC lays it all out on its assessment structure page.

Stop reading for one minute

Seriously. Grab a sheet of paper and write down three reasons you lost points. Not “I’m bad at math.” That is a feeling, not a reason. A reason sounds like “I guessed on the last few IR questions” or “I changed two Verbal answers I was sure about” or “I did the Quant arithmetic in my head.”

You run teams. You read reports. You don’t accept “no idea” from the people who work for you, so you don’t get to accept it from yourself. And I’ll bet that at least one of your three reasons has NOTHING to do with how hard the questions were.

A runner standing on a track after a lap, looking at a stopwatch and writing in a small notebook. — A slow lap is something you study, not something you quit over.

The mistakes people make after a disappointing first score

Booking the retake tonight. That is a reaction, not a plan. If you change nothing about how you work, the test will hand you back the score you EARN, which is about the same one you just got.
INSTEAD: Diagnose first. Pick a new date only once you can name what you are fixing and you’ve seen it improve in practice. Then go to the registration page.
Blaming the ‘hard’ questions. It feels better to say the test was brutal. But most missing points live in questions you COULD have gotten: a misread word, a dropped negative sign, a chart you skimmed.
INSTEAD: Take a full practice test under real conditions, then review EVERY question, including the ones you got right. Tag each miss: didn’t know the rule, misread, ran low on time, or silly mistake. Count the tags. The biggest pile is your real problem.
Calling it a ‘pacing problem.’ Do the math. Thirty minutes for 14 Quant questions is a little over 2 minutes per question on average. IR gives you 2.5 minutes per question. That is enough time when your process is clean. Running out of time is a symptom. The disease is rereading, working in your head, or taking the long way.
INSTEAD: Time each practice question. Look at the slow ones and ask what you were DOING during those minutes. Rereading the prompt three times is fixable. So is grinding out algebra when testing the answers would take thirty seconds.
Doing the work in your head. You do mental math in meetings all day, so you think you don’t need paper. That is pride, and pride is expensive on this test.
INSTEAD: Notes on everything. Write down the numbers, the exact question being asked, and any values you test. It feels slower. It is faster, because you stop rereading and stop making little mistakes.
Writing off IR. Plenty of people treat Integrated Reasoning like the warm up act. It is a third of your score.
INSTEAD: Train IR like you train Quant and Verbal. Practice reading tables and graphs with a pen in your hand, writing down what each column means before you touch a question.
Piling up new questions. Doing 500 fresh questions feels productive. What’s more powerful: being an acquaintance of 500 questions, or being the commander of 150?
INSTEAD: Redo the questions you missed until you can explain every step out loud. It is not about the right answer or the wrong answer. It is about WHAT YOU’RE DOING to get there.

What a ‘gettable’ point looks like

Here is the kind of question where points quietly disappear. Not because it is hard. Because people solve it in their head and trust the first thing that pops up.

Try it

Data Sufficiency. Is x > y?

(1) x² > y²

(2) x > 0

Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) alone is not sufficient.
Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) alone is not sufficient.
BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient.
EACH statement ALONE is sufficient.
Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are not sufficient.

Show the answer

First, a Data Sufficiency rule: a statement is ‘sufficient’ if it gives you ONE definite answer. Always yes counts. Always no counts too. Sometimes yes and sometimes no means not sufficient.

Statement (1): x² > y². Test values on paper. Try x = 3, y = 2: 9 > 4 is true, and 3 > 2, so the answer is YES. Now try x = −3, y = 2: 9 > 4 is still true, but −3 > 2 is false, so the answer is NO. Yes and no. Not sufficient. Cross off A and D.

Statement (2): x > 0. Try x = 1, y = 2: is 1 > 2? NO. Try x = 2, y = 1: is 2 > 1? YES. Not sufficient. Cross off B.

Both together. Now x is positive AND x² > y², which means x is farther from zero than y is. Test it. x = 3, y = 2: 3 > 2, YES. x = 3, y = −2: 9 > 4 works, and 3 > −2, YES. x = 0.5, y = 0.1: 0.25 > 0.01 works, and 0.5 > 0.1, YES. Try to break it with a big negative y, like x = 3, y = −5. That gives 9 > 25, which is false, so those values aren’t allowed. A positive number that is farther from zero than y will always beat y. Always YES. Sufficient.

The answer is C.

The trap: Most people glance at x² > y², think ‘so x is bigger,’ and pick A. Squaring hides negative signs. One test value written on paper, x = −3, kills answer A in five seconds. Doing it in your head is exactly how that point vanishes.

Notice what happened there. No fancy math. Just testing values, writing them down, and refusing to trust a gut reaction. Do you remember a question like that on your real test? I’ll bet you can think of a few spots where you went with your gut.

Your move today

Before you book anything, take that sheet of paper. Write your four numbers across the top. Circle the lowest section. Under it, write the three reasons you came up with earlier.

Then do 10 practice questions from that circled section. Time each one. Take notes on paper for every single one. When you’re done, tag every miss with its cause. If you can’t name the cause of a miss, you’re not ready to pick a date. Once you can name them and you’re watching that pile shrink, you are.

Your first score isn’t the end. It’s the first page of your notes.