GRE Online Guide

1 2 3 4 5

3. How the New GRE CAT Works

The GRE is now only available as a computerized test. Instead of having a pre-determined mixture of easy, medium, and hard questions, the computer will select questions for you based on how well you are doing. The first question will be of medium difficulty (500 level questions are half-way between 200 and 800). If you get it right, the second question will be selected from a large group of questions that are a little harder; if you get the first question wrong, the second will be a little easier. The result is that the test is self-adjusting and self-correcting to your skill level.

Fig. 1.1-This graph shows how the test keeps a running score of your performance as you take the test. The student's running score goes up when he gets the first three questions right (blue) and the score goes down when the test taker gets questions wrong (red) (questions 4 & 5 on lower axis). As the test progresses, the swings caused by getting a question right or wrong progressively decrease.

Harder Questions Count More

A result of the CAT format is that the harder problems count more than easier ones. If one student does twenty easy questions, half of which he gets right and half of which he gets wrong, and then another student does twenty very difficult questions, half of which he gets right and half of which he gets wrong, the second student will get a higher score.

The student who answered ten out of twenty very difficult questions incorrectly would still get a very high score on the GMAT CAT because the harder questions are more heavily weighted. Simpler questions might be easier to answer, but they count much less. Your goal should be to get as many hard questions right because that will get you your highest possible score.

Start Off Strong

The CAT puts much more value on the earlier questions than the later questions. The computer has to make large jumps in the estimation of your score for each of the first few questions. The later questions are used to fine-tune your score. To get the best possible score, focus more time on the earlier questions than the later questions.

Fig 1.2-Get those first questions right! The blue graph shows a student who got the first 8 questions right and the remainder wrong and the red graph show a student who got the first 8 questions wrong and the remainder right. The blue student scores much higher, despite answering fewer questions correctly.
.

A skilled GRE test-taker focuses his efforts on getting early, hard questions correct. Therefore, as we'll see in the next section, the optimal strategy for the CAT is to go extremely slowly and carefully at the beginning of the test.

>>>continue to Pacing Strategies for the CAT (page 4 of 5 )