Hi guys,
I just found some interesting article that I would like to share from Bloomberg regarding GMAT for those considering business school
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-19/i-took-the-gmat-with-no…
Thanks!
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....broken link
I believe OP was referring to this article:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-19/i-took-the-gmat-with-no…
Not sure how OP can infer that a 640 on the GMAT without prep means that prep is unnecessary...unless your goal is a 640...
i believe the median score is around 640 don't think anyone is saying 640 is all you should aspire to, but if you can NOT study for one of the most important standardized tests in the world and still achieve the median score, it kinda says something about the test
I thought the median score is around a 546 if you read the article. That being said, if she just studied quant a little bit, she could easily get a 45 or above and score well above 700.
The GMAT is a loosely veiled IQ test -- if studying significantly increased scores (anecdotes aside, it does not), they'd just change the test.
Median score is around ~550. Diminishing returns with study hours, but from those I know who've scored +700 they spent about ~100 hours studying and said the hours were well worth it.
Above links are broken.
http://buswk.co/1lfnI7C
I thought it was funny that she has been a professional writer for 13 years and got a 4.5 on the writing sections. Obviously most people need to study if they want to go to a top school, but you don't need to take an expensive prep course. I bought 2 study books and some DVDs, studied about 100 hours and got a 770.
which books and which DVDs?
I gave all of my study material to my sister so I can't check at the moment but I think one of the books was Kaplan.
A 4.5 on the writing section means you didn't do the bare minimum required to get a 6.0 (if you're a native English speaker). The writing section is easily gamed as long as you're a native English speaker. She probably attempted to actually write well on the essay, which is a mistake.
Weird that my link is broken too. Google "Business Week GMAT No Preparation" and you'll find the article. As for scoring the median without studying, a few points can be made.
1) The author is of above average intelligence/educational background. She went to Northwestern, which is an elite school. She probably scored high (much higher than the median) on the SAT. She is also (seemingly) a native English speaker, which leads to my next point.
2) If you're a native english speaker, and a good one at that like the writer, it's very difficult to score much lower than she did. The verbal can boost your score so much, like it did for her, that you simply won't get much below a ~600. >50% of GMAT takers are not from the US, with a great portion of those from Asia. They are simply not great English speakers, and thus bring the verbal averages down.
I think her experience is simply interesting from an anecdotal perspective. I remember how awful I felt with timing the first time I took a CAT, which I can only imagine would be magnified by actually being in the test center. I also think I got a similar score on my first CAT, even though I paused the timer a few times. The hard part for most isn't getting in the low 600s without studying, it's finding a way to improve your score those ~100 points to get a good enough score for top schools.
You got a great point here, for us non native english speakers the verbal section can be challenging. The main challenge is to still be sharp enough to think in a second language after you' ve been smashed for 2 hours with the quant section...
@"AndyLouis" @"WallStreetOasis.com"
Why are links breaking up constantly on WSO these days?
The GMAT is highly correlated with the IQ. You can increase your score through learning certain tricks and techniques, but the diminishing returns kick in very fast. I know people who've studied for many months only to achieve mediocre (sub-700) scores, while others score 750+ without any preparation.
Intelligence tests are bullshit. So is the GMAT. If you spend time and money you can boost your score. That being said, the score means nothing other than an arbitrary hoop to jump through. Grad classes are not arbitrarily times, they are not held in an austere computer lab and you are not restricted to a shitty dry erase board and calculator.
The GMAT tests high school geometry and algebra in a timed setting. I have also never encountered data sufficiency questions in my education before the GMAT or after for that fact.
Colleges require the test because it simplifies admissions. That is it.
Studying for the GMAT significantly boosted my score. My first CAT exam was around a 600. 5 months later after studying 150+ hours I scored a 760 on the official GMAT.
I am far from knowledgeable about the definition of an IQ test, but by the measure that everyone is using here, isn't any test of knowledge an IQ test? We are all eventually limited by our aptitude/IQ, so I guess I don't really understand how one defines an IQ Test. To me, if one can improve his score significantly by studying, that's not an IQ test anymore. Sure, at some point we all hit our ceiling, but that's the same for ability to achieve a high score on an Econ or History exam.
I honestly don't know, it just seems sort of funny to explain the test away when most data points refer to people improving their score by huge amounts.
The data does not show this to be true.
This site (and sites like GMATClub) is biased a bit in that the people on WSO who report GMAT scores are usually already a couple standard deviations above the mean intelligence-wise -- you expect someone who got a 2200+ on the SATs to break 700 on the GMAT, but it might require them to read up on the test format a bit.
What we don't see here on WSO are the hundreds of thousands of people every year who take the test, study, retake, study, yet simply aren't able to crack 600 no matter what they do. I don't have anything on hand to link to in re the GMAT (I'm at work and typing from my phone), but if you can link me a single large-scale study showing test prep to significantly improve test scores I'll be quite impressed (here's a study that focused on the SAT, I'll update this post later tonight: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/19/study-finds-east-asian-am…). There's only so much test prep can do.
I think the issue is this antiquated notion of "IQ". I've taken IQ tests when I was younger and it is mainly word association, pattern recognition, stuff like this. The GMAT is all about learning the tricks and tips. Eliminating the wrong answer, time management, put more effort in the early questions to get your adaptive score to a certain level, stuff like that.
When I think of "intelligence" I think of someone well read, someone who knows a lot of facts, can have an intelligent conversation. Someone who knows how to relate and act socially. Stuff like that. If someone said they was a rocket scientist, but didn't drop that fact and was awkward and inarticulate, not being able to discuss general things, I wouldn't consider them intelligent or smart.
I am a big believe in the multiple intelligences. Someone who can play the violin at an expert level is going to be intelligent in my book regardless of the gmat score.
Where is this data that studying and preparation cannot increase your score significantly? If so then the GMAC is making money off of a fraud.
The GMAT is entirely rule base. You learn the rules and the short cuts and you boost your score. Hence the massive amount of guides, advisers, classes, etc.
Yes, would like this data as well. As I said, I have no idea, but I do know a lot of people, all of whom improved their score signfiicantly by studying. That's clearly anecdotal evidence (as others have mentioned), so I'd definitely like to see something that refutes it.
Also, can an IQ test have actual knowledge stuff on it? As in, the GMAT tests things hard and fast rules like parallelism in sentences and pythagorean theorem. What do those have to do with IQ? Those are proven rules that one either knows or doesn't. Studying allows us to know these. I could certainly further ask what that has to do with business school, but that's not what we're discussing here.
It's not so much that the tests are the same -- it's that people who do well on standard IQ tests also tend to do well on normal standardized tests. The two are extremely closely correlated. Sort of how physics grad programs don't necessarily test for IQ, but you can bet your ass that if you gave IQ tests physics professors at top-tier schools you'd find the average to be pretty damn high.
While the GMAT isn't the most g-loaded standardized test (see the LSAT for that), the test is only game-able to a certain extent, and most people simply cannot improve their score through studying past a certain point.
@BGP -- those people you mentioned improving a lot -- were they already smart to begin with (i.e. top ~5-10% in terms of SAT, ACT, LSAT, etc.)?
The GMAT is not an IQ test. If B schools wanted to admit people based on IQ then they would have people take raw intelligence tests. The GMAT is meant to be predictive of success in business school and beyond. The correlation between success and IQ (which is very strong for most of the population) breaks down after about 130 or so. Many GMAT takers have IQs above this level so it would not make sense for elite business schools to let IQ tests guide their admissions.
That's not to say that having a high IQ wouldn't be very helpful in taking the GMAT and I'm sure there is a strong correlation. It's like strength and (American) football ability. Being very strong is a huge advantage in most aspects of the game and there is a strong correlation between strength and football ability. This is why NFL coaches are interested in players' bench press at the combine. However, they certainly don't recruit players solely based on how many times they can rep 225. There are other factors involved with playing football as there are with doing well on the GMAT and overall success in life. In each case, preparation (as well as innate ability) can help.
Took 3 IQ tests in high school and scored 129, 130, and 131. First time I took the GMAT I had spent about 20 hours studying and got a 610. Studied for about 100 hours and boosted my score to 730. GMAT is high school math. Even after 20 hours of preparation some of the stuff, particularly on the math section, looked like Greek. It took a concerted effort to turn that Greek into old English. I have no idea how non-native speakers can succeed on the verbal section. I was surprised how long it took me to get good at some of the verbal sections, particularly sentence correction. It was especially infuriating when the official study materials had provably incorrect correct answers.
Although I've not attended an MBA program, I fail to see how this test in anyway is predictive of success in business school. I think the GMAT is used as an easy way for top MBA programs to weed out candidates when they receive multiple times more applications than slots available. If they really wanted to test one's ability to succeed in business school or "business" then they'd give personality profiling tests.
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