Bombed my first GMAT - Help Please

Question

I've been lurking on GMAT Club for months, and you guys always provide sound advice/support. I've been studying for the GMAT intensely for the last 3 months. My diagnostic, which I took completely cold, was a 650. I was let go from my job at the onset of Covid, and since then, have been devoting all of my time to mastering the GMAT. We're talking 5-6 hours per day, 6 days a week. I understand the concepts, but more importantly, I understand what the GMAT is looking for. I mean, at least I thought I did?

I'd taken 5 practice tests leading up to today's real deal, all ~3 months after the original 650 score, with hundreds of hours of studying under my belt. I scored:

710, 700, 710, 750, 730

The 750 and 730 were real GMAT practice tests, the two 710's and 700 were through Kaplan. I figured I'd likely be aiming for somewhere in the 740 range, knowing Kaplan's tests are usually a bit tougher.

Well, today I scored a 610. 20 points below my original diagnostic score. I honestly don't even know the Q/V breakdown because I cancelled it so quickly. I was shaking for the whole test, sweating profusely. It was such a nightmare. I've always had test anxiety, but I figured with the intense amount of prep I was doing, I knew my stuff cold. I can't believe this happened.

Can somebody, anybody tell me that it's going to be OK? I have more tests coming up, but I don't know how to feel right now. I'm shocked, I'm heartbroken and I'm confused. It feels like all my studying was worthless.

antartican · Answer

Hey,
Dint get disheartened. You will improve.
First thing which I would say is not to rush into next test. Wait and analyze.
As you dont remember your breakup, i assume you dont know where did you do mistake. 
I think you should order an ESR and take a hard look on it. 
It will tell you what you were missing and where you need to improve.

Its not tough, you just did few mistakes or fell into the trap.

Posted from my mobile device

TopTierMBA · Answer

Hi UnlikelyRooster,

Shoot happens. Your post indicates your commitment for the exam to make a transition. Don't worry, things will look better next time. 
The format of GMAT is designed to test your concepts, and ability to answer questions correctly under a time constraint. To do that most effectively, the candidate must be in the best of mental state.

You probably are not weak on the concepts, having put up hours of preparation and scored well on the mocks. We would suggest the following steps to improve your chances at a higher score:-
1. Figure out which are the areas where you performed poorly, and where you fared well. Does that corroborate with your mocks? If yes, you need to put in some effort here. If not, probably it was just a difficult day
2. Figure out the reason for your anxiety - Are there any latent conditions? While its completely natural to be anxious, see what reduces your anxiety levels. Are you better off taking an exam at a particular time?
3. Are you taking time off your studies? Its not just about studying hard, but studying smart. You need to relax, engage in activities that free up and recharge your mind
4. Lastly, relook your mocks. Are you practising from the same set of questions, and come across repeat questions in mocks? That may boost up your score artificially.

Before you take your next official GMAT, make sure you rest well so that you can perform to the best of your abilities.

Losing a job can be hard, particularly in such uncertain times. But things are starting to look better, and you have taken the right steps to go for an MBA to make sure you are better equipped to handle an uncertain world order.

All the best. If you need help on any phase of the journey towards your MBA, get in touch with us  here .

Cheers!
Team - TopTier

GMATinsight · Answer

Hi UnlikelyRooster While I know that since you are feeling devastated so you need more emotional support to get over this fiasco than rational support. Yet, I would like to tell you that you are not alone who has experienced this. 1) Many a times Official Prep tests give a score that is on higher side than our performance because many practice questions are designed around those prep questions and you have fair idea about them. But when you come acress a question in real test which is different than most other practiced question then the element of surprise is not taken well sometimes by test takers. This might be one possible reasoning. 2) Kaplan scores are good indicative of quant score but they are not as good an indicator of verbal scores hence I would encourage you to look forward to taking more better tests such as Manhattan GMAT tests, which are good indicative of Quant as well as Verbal. The scores of Manhattan mock exams may be conservative but it offers an outstanding practice exercise. 3) Some test takers do NOT do well in actual test conditions and this could be a sole reason. However if that be the case then taking it again in short gap will be a good idea. There may be many more issues with such disparity of practice and actual scores however if you could state more about your mental situation during tests then I might be able to give you more inputs and way forward. FOr Practice tests comparison, please refer to the link of FREE tests in my signature All the best!

shameekv1989 · Answer

I thought I was the unique one. Ditto Buddy!!

I scored 760 thrice, 720, 710 in my 6 practice mocks. And scored 640 on 2nd. Gave another VERITAS mock a day after my actual exam and scored 740.

I guess we just need to keep our calm and stay positive. Instead of brooding over what happened on the test day, make notes of what went wrong. In my case, I believe it was the test center experience. So I feel now that I am accustomed to the conditions I might do well.

I also ordered ESR and understood areas I faltered. So my plan is to strengthen those areas over the next few weeks and reappear.

Stay Strong and stay healthy!! See you on the other side

Best of Luck!!

UnlikelyRooster · Answer

Thanks for the support yall! Providing some extra color here, particularly to hit on some of the questions from  TopTierMBA . My breakdown officially was a 39Q, 35V.

Answers to these:
1. I purchased an ESR and combed through each detail. I didn't perform poorly in any area specifically. I didn't run out of time or spend too much time on a certain question. I did poorly on CR and RC (I can usually get through a verbal with maybe missing 1 CR and 2 RC), and just blew it on quant across the board. My SC was perfect, so I guess that's nice?
2. On the anxiety piece, I wish I had more here. I took it at the time I usually take my practice tests. I practiced deep breathing, mindfulness--but once the test started going, it was nonstop shaking and sweating that I couldn't snap out of. I was going through the motions of the questions, but ultimately just guessing on each (rather than solving to the end) to make sure I didn't fall behind. I don't know why I did this, but I applied that same "strategy" with quant/RC/CR.
3. I am not really taking time off...I don't feel jaded or burnt out. Actually, after the test, I feel like I have some underlying weaknesses that I should/can only expose with more practice
4. I am not recycling questions, that would defeat the point!

Broadly, I'm examining the best strategy I can deploy from here on out. I'm not under any sort of time crunch, and I can put in 6/7 hours a day. Do I retrace my steps through each concept? I could certainly strengthen work problems/ratios/CR/RC. Do I just keep drilling down on questions and get my timing to a place where I no longer worry about the clock? For reference, in my practice tests, my verbal hovers between 41-45, and my quant from 45-49. Thanks again guys!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi UnlikelyRooster,

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:

Studies:
1) What study materials have you used so far?
2) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
3) What is your overall goal score?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). Since you purchased the ESR, I'll be happy to analyze it for you. Before you can include attachments with your posts/PMs, you need to have at least 5 posts in the forums (and right now, you have just 2). If you would rather not go through those extra steps right now, then you can feel free to email me your ESR (at [email protected]).

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

TopTierMBA · Answer

Hi UnlikelyRooster,

Thanks for the additional inputs.
You're pretty good on Verbal. Hold on to this position and improve further if possible. 
Your real pain-point is Quant. A low score in quant really hurts, both on GMAT and GRE - something that becomes clear when you look at the charts. We would suggest that you get your accuracy up in Quant to a level of 49-51 instead of 45-49. If you stay consistent for a couple of tests while you hold on to your verbal score around 35, you will surely get an awesome score on your actual exam.

Don't loose heart. Just hang in there. Anxiety is a human trait that has been ingrained in our genes. It happens when you think too much about the outcome.  Forget about the outcome, just enjoy the journey  !

Cheers!
Team - TopTier

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi UnlikelyRooster,

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 610. 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.

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 article:

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!

fauji · Answer

Hi  UnlikelyRooster ,

First of all, Don't get disheartened and stay cool.

Identify your weak areas and target those step by step. Start with Concepts of a topic > Work on Sub 600 problems(Target 85%+ accuracy) > Work on 600 - 700 level and so on. All in all enjoy your preparation and avoid too much stress for what will happen +- etc. Slowly Slowly you will gain confidence.

All the best!

Bombed my first GMAT - Help Please

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