Confusion with ESR Verbal Analysis. Help?

Question

Hi,

I scored 690 (Q49, V36) on my last GMAT Attempt, but I was aiming at a 720. I was consistently studying for the last couple of months and I just retook it yesterday. Unfortunately I went backwards and got a 630 (Q44, V33). I decided to get the ESR to try to understand what had happened, but I got really confused with the Verbal analysis mainly because it seems my accuracy wasn't that bad. I can't fathom why the difficulty of the questions didn't increase this time. Moreover, I compared it to the ESR from the attempt I got V38 and things got even more confusing because I was way less accurate and consistent when I fared way better.

Could anyone help me getting some clarity here?
Thank you

joseset1234 · Answer

I forgot to attach the esr

pintukr · Answer

The difficulty level of the questions you got wrong/correct will be the most useful parameter for a fair assessment of your score, while you analyse the ESR ..

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi joseset1234,

I'm sorry to hear that your 2nd attempt did not turn out better. 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) On what dates did you take your 2 Official GMATs?
2) How long have you studied in total? For this 2nd attempt, how many hours did you typically study each week?
3) What study materials have you used over the course of ALL of your studies? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used?
4) On what dates (or approximate 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:
5) What is your overall goal score?
6) 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). I'll be happy to analyze your ESRs for you, but I will need to see the FULL ESR for each attempt (not just the 'pieces' that you attached). If you would prefer to not publicly post your ESRs, then you can feel free to PM or email them directly to me.

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

Contact Rich at: [email protected]

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

For Verbal, consider using time markers to keep your time management smooth. On the V33, you spent 1:04 on average during Quarter 4. May be worth thinking over what happened during Sentence Correction. Perhaps you were a bit lucky during the V38 and a bit unlucky during the V33?

Sentence Correction tips

Sentence Correction tips

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi joseset1234.

It appears that the questions you missed in the first quartile of the verbal section of the second test were low difficulty questions. So, by missing them, you drove down the difficulty of the verbal questions you were seeing. As a result, the difficulty of the verbal questions you got correct on the second test was lower on average than that of the verbal questions you got correct on the first one. As a result, even though you got more questions correct on the verbal section of the second test than on that of the first test, you scored lower on the second one.

To get some ideas for ensuring that you achieve your score goal the next time you take the test, see this post.

The Best GMAT Practice Methods

egmat · Answer

Hi joseset1234 , I’m sorry that you could not improve your score this time. Here are some observations from my side: 1. For the V33 attempt, the damage probably happened in the 1st phase itself. If we compare the 1st phase of both attempts, we see that the difficulty level of questions you got correct in the current attempt is lower than that in the last attempt. 2. Your percentile ranking scores in CR and RC indicate that you did well in these areas. But SC is the main culprit. A 48th percentile ranking in SC indicates that you could not handle the medium-hard and hard-level questions of SC. This had a significant impact on your overall Verbal score. The grammar score in SC suggest that you have significant gaps in your conceptual understanding. And there is scope for improvement in communication skills as well ( i.e. using meaning and logic to approach the questions). I can try to provide more insights if we have more data points on this. If you have some time, I recommend you take our SIGma-X mock test and drop an e-mail at support@e-gmat.com (the mock test comes with an ESR+ analysis, which will enable me to dive deep into each sub-section). Here is the link to the mock test: https://e-gmat.com/sigma-x/ Hope this helps! -Sundeep

Confusion with ESR Verbal Analysis. Help?

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