700 Q50 V34 - GMAT screwing up?

Question

I got a 700 Q50 V34.

I was SHOCKED when I saw my verbal score, it is the absolute lowest I got including the score on practice exams, which hovered around 39-41.
The weird thing is that I went through the verbal section quite smoothly, finding it pretty easy and finishing it 8 minutes ahead of time.

I cannot help myself but question whether there was a bug in the software... :S I'm really frustrated about this score I decided to retake the test.

Anyone else had a similar experience?

judokan · Answer

Sorry to hear that. Good luck but do you really need a retake?

businessm · Answer

The thing is I feel frustrated because I feel I should have gotten a much better score... I know that 700 is a good score, but my verbal is very low (69%) plus my average AWA score (4.5) did not make up for it

mbawaters · Answer

Well 700, as you said, is a good score but if you want to give it another shot just don't send out results to schools unless you score as you hope.
Good luck in whatever you decide to do!

terp26 · Answer

yea I noticed that as well but you have to trust it

Nerdboy · Answer

From this forum I get the impression that the verbal section on the real exam is way harder than any of the prep materials... scary.

Tarmac · Answer

There is simply no way to know if GMAC screwed up, they are the black hole. There is no point in even speculating.

If Q50 is higher on your math than you usually do in practice, I would say cut your losses and take that 700.

If you under-achieved on both math and verbal, then it is open to retake. 700 is still fine though.

StartupAddict · Answer

Good question... I recently rewrote as well, and my Quant score was fine, I got a 50 but I did run out of time so that was expected... my Verbal was *WAY* lower than my first time, I was wondering whether their algorithm screwed up as well, or whether they changed the weighting... I can tell you from my experience that I got brutalized on the RC, I guessed pretty much on all of them as I was exhausted, had a sinus headache, and took 5 nasal decongestants (decreased blood flow to the head), so I couldn't comprehend ANYTHING in RC. SC I absolutely killed however, along with the CR I think, but that might have been because they gave me easier questions as I screwed up the RC...

Did you have any weak areas in the Verbal?

Did you have any weak areas in the Verbal?

businessm · Answer

No, as I said, at the end of the verbal section I thought "wow no sweat, that was easy!" and was expecting a 750+! I still don't get it, and i'm afraid to make the same score on my retake! I don't know what I should focus on to up the score since I thought i did pretty well...

I guess I'll redo the verbal OG and repeat the gmatprep CATs until i get 50 on verbal

terp26 · Answer

yea im glad I got out of verbal with a 38. I honestly thought I only got 2-3 wrong.

judokan · Answer

You got only 38? My impression is that if you got only 3 wrong, you must have scored much higher.

bobinabob2 · Answer

thats odd

terp26 · Answer

well obviously that was my impression, but in reality I probably got more than 3 wrong. lol However my hit rates in practice of LSAT materials for CR and RC were 85-90% and SC 80-90% so I usually can gauge accurately how I did. I guess there were a lot more tricks in actual gmat verbal or nuances I did not catch. In addition I got 38 both tries on the test and the first try I noticeably thought I bombed the V with one RC passage I was totally dumbfounded on, probably got that one all wrong. (My guess was it was experimental) since it was the hardest RC I have ever seen LSAT + GMAT.

Also I had gotten a 38 in practice a year before when I checked an old test I took, and I definitely spent hundreds of hours doing questions between then with no improvement lol

However in quant I would say it was higher than I expected (50) so I was happy. I was hitting 48-50 in practice but that was with repeats. I did notice the actual quant was easier looking , non-wordy questions, but about 1/4-1/2 of them were really tricky were if I wasn't overly meticiulous I could have stumbled. I also guessed the last 3 in a minute and a half.

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700 Q50 V34 - GMAT screwing up?

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