670 in Veritas, 600 in actual

Question

Hi Guys,
This is my first post on GMAT Forum Club and is one filled with disappointment.

I gave my Online GMAT exam on 2nd October and scored a 600 (Q47, V26). While I was expecting somewhere around Q47-49, a V26 was very shocking. I took the Veritas mock and consistently scored in the range on V35-37 (Q47, a total score of 670-680) for all the seven tests yet ended up with just a 26 on the actual test.

On the Official GMAT Prep tests, I scored a Q49 on both and a V36/V37. I don't understand the drastic difference in the verbal scores of my mocks and my actual exam. I was aiming for a 680+. My application deadline is 31st October and I was wondering if it is worth giving the GMAT again sometime in the next week.

Few things I am particularly concerned about is that the test itself is very expensive, should I rush into another one? The Online GMAT exam can only be taken twice, and given the pandemic situation, there is no clarity whether or not regular GMAT would resume next year if I was to apply again next year. In this case, I would have wasted my shot at another Online GMAT exam.

My main disappointment comes from the fact that my consistent efforts for verbal were being reflected in my Veritas mocks, but somehow failed to show in my actual GMAT. (I studied the Manhattan and PowerScore books thoroughly).

Someone please guide me as to what I should do next! I am absolutely clueless because there is no ESR available for the Online GMAT. I have no idea what my next step should be.

GMATaxe001 · Answer

Hi,

It happens sometimes that you feel you are marking a right answer but it might have been a trap. How many mocks did you take in total and what were the scoree?

Do not worry, prepare again, use another mock this time, probably official since it gauges your ability really closely, and once you score consistently on three mocks, book your exam date

Posted from my mobile device

SaumyaaSinha2020 · Answer

Hi! 
The scores on my mocks were:

GMAT Prep 1: 680 (Q49 V33)
GMAT Prep 2: 640 (Q49 V28)
Veritas 1: 690 (Q51 V34)
Veritas 2: 670 (Q49 V33)
Veritas 3: 650 (Q46 V34)
Veritas 4: 710 (Q50 V37)
Veritas 5: 680 (Q47 V36)
Veritas 6: 670 (Q47 V35)
Veritas 7: 670 (Q46 V36)
GMAT Prep 1 (Retake- I took the retake a month and a half after the first time I took GMAT Prep 1, and I didn't recognise or remember any questions from before): 700 (Q49 V37)

I'm genuinely demoralized at this point. I'm confused whether any more mocks will show my true potential.

Posted from my mobile device

GMATaxe001 · Answer

Hi Saumya,

I can totally understand that this might be disappointing. However, please note that most people take 2 or more (sometimes 5) attempts to reach their target score. In your case, you have a baseline and you can improve upon that. Here is what I will suggest :

1. Identify your weak areas : You can use any mock like ExpertsGlobal to identify your weak areas to a very detailed level (Example : you might be weak in Evaluate type questions on CR ). You can also use the data from your Veritas Mock analysis.

2. strengthen the weak areas : I generally do this by solving questions from GMAT Club forum. YOu can use the below link :

https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-ps-ques ... 27957.html

on the top of the above post, there is a link for CR,SC,RC,PS and DS questions. Try to solve questions from 500,600 and 700 difficulty levels from weak areas. Then record your mistakes and also record why you made those mistakes. Make sure you solve at least 25-30 questions from each weak areas, spread evenly across difficulty levels.

For SC specifically, GMATNinja videos are generally helpful so you might try them. For RC, Practice official questions. in general for English, Stick to official questions only.

3. Once you have worked on your weak areas, give another mock, then repeat steps 1 to 3. Also, I have heard from many folks that Veritas mock scores are generally not so accurate. you might wanna take Manhattan, Experts Global or Official mocks this time.

Dont lose hope, keep working towards your goal and I am sure we will soon read your debrief with your target score very soon

Cheers!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi SaumyaaSinha2020,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT.

Assuming that you took your official practice exams under realistic testing conditions, the results show that, on a good day, you are capable of scoring higher than V26. Thus, it’s quite possible that nerves, stress, tiredness, or a combination of all three negatively affected your test-day performance. However, it’s also possible that you have some lingering weaknesses that were exposed on test day. Although I’m unsure of how you prepared, it’s possible that, in your preparation, particularly in verbal, you did not really learn to do what you have to do in order to score high on the actual GMAT. Rather, you picked up on some patterns that were effective in getting you relatively high scores on practice tests. So, for you to hit your score goal, your preparation, particularly for verbal, probably needs to be more complete, meaning that you have to go through the various types of GMAT questions carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills.

The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. When you do dozens of questions of the same type one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better.

For verbal specifically, you have to become more skilled at clearly defining the differences between trap choices and correct answers. Otherwise, you will get stuck guessing between two choices or be surprised to find that you incorrectly answered questions that you thought you answered correctly. Becoming more skilled in this way takes carefully analyzing all of the answer choices to lots of verbal questions to develop an eye for the logical differences between the choices. In other words, you have to go beyond answering practice questions and reading explanations to doing deep analysis of questions to learn to see everything that is going on in them.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses .

You also may find it helpful to read the following articles:

how to score a 700+ on the GMAT

Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?

If you’d like more specific advice on how to improve your quant and verbal skills, feel free to reach back out. Good luck!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi SaumyaaSinha2020,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How long have you studied? How many hours did you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks?
4) When are the next application deadlines after October 31st?

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

SaumyaaSinha2020 · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC

1) How long have you studied? How many hours did you typically study each week?
For about 2 months I would study between 20-22 hours. For the last 2 months, I studied for 30-35 hours.

2) What study materials have you used so far?
Official Guide, official guide for verbal, Manhattan for CR, PowerScore for SC, briefly went over Kaplan in the first two months, practise questions online on official prep.

3) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks?
Started on August 30th, kept a week gap between each mock.

4) When are the next application deadlines after October 31st?
I am applying for ISB Hyderabad. It is a three stage application process. Stage one starts in March of every year. So I can apply again in March 2021, and after clearing that, I can give my GMAT scores around 31st Oct 2021.

Would be helpful to know if I should attempt again before 31st of this month!

SaumyaaSinha2020 · Answer

ScottTargetTestPrep

Thankyou for the insightful comment. I guess I'll have to go through a detailed prep again. How much prep time should I put in until my next test?

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

My pleasure.

Why don't you work for another 4 weeks or so and then see how you feel. I don't think you need to make any decisions today.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi SaumyaaSinha2020,

I've sent you a PM with some additional questions.

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

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