Hi,

Recently took a practice MGMAT exam with a quant score of 40. However, I left the last question blank cause I ran out of time. It was a question I could have gotten right too. What is the loss of points for leaving it blank, versus getting it wrong and the gain of points for getting it right. Had I gotten right, would my quant score have gone up to a 41? 42? Just wanted to visualize the the difference made. Thanks a bunch.

The only circumstance for which there's a single hard number is leaving a question blank. On our test, the penalty is 4 percentile points. On the official test the penalty is 3 percentile points (we make it a even harsher than the real thing to train you NOT to do it!).

The penalty for answering but getting it wrong or answering it correctly is a complex function based upon the difficulty level of that question combined with your current scoring level up to that question - there's no way to say "oh, it equals x percentile points" for sure. Generally speaking, though, if it's a question that is lower level than your current score, the "ding" is likely to be between about 2 and 2.5 percentile points (if you guess but get it wrong).

So the lesson: guess something. Guess anything. Just don't leave it blank. :)