please help! totally frustrated!want to improve score!

Hi vinayakprakash,

First off, a 640/Q47 is a really good score (it's not a 'bad' score) - it's right around the 80th percentile overall and it might be enough to get you into Business School. If you're planning to apply to Schools/Programs that are really competitive, then it's understandable why you might want to retest.

To improve from 470 to 640 in 3 months is a big improvement. At this higher scoring level though, the GMAT becomes really "sensitive" to silly/little mistakes, so you probably made just a few too many on your Official GMAT and the Test dropped your score accordingly.

When comparing your practice CATs to the Official GMAT, you have to put an emphasis on the 'realism' of how you took those CATs. For example:

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take the CAT in a realistic, test-like fashion (a 'new' CAT - not a retake, in one sitting, desktop computer with a mouse, no outside distractions,etc.)
3) Did you take the CAT at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
Etc.

The more that your CAT experiences deviate from the Official GMAT, the more likely that you'll get an 'inflated', unrealistic score. This is meant to say that MAYBE you were scoring in the 700s, but MAYBE you weren't. With this Official Score, you're actually not too far away from scoring 700+, but you will have to make some adjustments to how you 'see' (and respond) to this Test and you might need to invest in some new GMAT resources.

What resources did you use during your studies?
What were your Scaled Scores on your practice CATs?
Were you taking the ENTIRE CAT each time?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich