GMAT: Myths vs Facts

[Anonymoose]

I think the title is pretty self-explanatory. However, what I'd like to do is not only answer each myth, but also give a "certainty" level to each point, as in truth nobody outside of GMAC itself can know for certain the deep intricacies of many aspects of the GMAT; however, other aspects are simple enough that they can be answered with certainty (e.g. how many minutes long is the break? etc).

RUMOR: Data Sufficiency questions are now more numerous than they were previously.
VERACITY: As they were apparently well below half of the math questions before, and they are much more numerous than that now, I'd say it's true.
CERTAINTY: Certain.

RUMOR: India/China/wherever has a harder version of the GMAT.
VERACITY: No, they don't. What *is* true, on the other hand, is that the application process as a whole is much more competitive if you are from these countries, since there are many talented individuals coming from these demographics. So, say, a 680 may be considered low from there, whereas from a different country a 680 may be considered high. The GMAT itself, however, is not harder.
CERTAINTY: Certain.

RUMOR: Not finishing is way worse than guessing the remainder.
VERACITY: You can guess up to the last 10 questions in quant and still get around a 48; perhaps even higher. Not finishing, however, will murder your score. Finish finish finish.
CERTAINTY: Certain.

RUMOR: The first ten questions are of the utmost importance.
VERACITY: I know that "the first ten questions basically determine your score, and the rest refine it" is false, and I know that "the first ten questions really aren't important" is also false. However, the rumor I wrote above... well, I guess the only thing I can comment on with certainty is that the truth seems to fall somewhere in the middle. I've tried answering all the verbal questions except the first five and the last five, respectively, on the official practice test, and the scores were around 36 and 44, respectively; yet other times, when I answered around ten incorrectly (but spread around - but with two in the first ten wrong), my score was 46. So while we know that the first questions are more important, we don't really know by how much (and besides that, the algorithm on the practice tests is probably not the same as the live GMAT one anyways!). It also seems that getting many questions in a row incorrectly has a much worse effect than if those questions were spread out, but again only GMAC knows for sure.
CERTAINTY: Not certain at all.

RUMOR: The verbal score is more important than the math score.
VERACITY: Well, we know that the same scaled score for math and verbal yields a higher percentile for verbal, but from this it doesn't necessarily follow that the verbal score is "more important." In fact, I've noticed that getting only two or three questions wrong can plummet your verbal score to 46, whereas with that same number wrong you'd get a 49ish score in math. So, I really don't think we can say at all here (except that if you're from a certain pool that all has very high math scores, the verbal score is the only way to distinguish yourself).
CERTAINTY: Not certain.

RUMOR: The GMAT has gotten harder recently (since August 2009).
VERACITY: I took the GMAT for the first time last week and received a score of 730. I scored 760 on the offical practice tests. I've heard similar instances of things like this since August, but as these are anecdotes, they are not good statistical evidence, so we really can't conclude anything here.
CERTAINTY: Definitely not certain.

If you'd like to list the veracity of certain rumors you've heard, please include the "certainty level" qualification. Guesses are good, but it's vital to know that they are just that -- guesses.

[snv85]

Hey...
would u also like to elaborate the difference between GMAT Verbal vs GMATPrep Verbal...

Regards,
snv