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11 Dec 2019, 23:10
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Hi,
I've been an active follower of gmatclub and can't thank this place enough for the support it provides to students. While I had envisioned writing a positive post explaining how this forum helped me land my 700+ score (had a target of Q49/V38 as minimum benchmark), unfortunately I am having to write a rather depressing post about how the exam just didn't go my way.
This post is going to focus on the QR section (a shocking Q44) because I attempted that first and it only went downhill from there.
Cutting straight to the point - below are my 6 Official GMATPrep mock scores - After such scores I believe I had realstic a target 700+
1) 700 Q47/V39
2) 720 Q48/V41
3) 660 Q49/V31 (Lost focus in verbal)
4) 710 Q49/V38
5) 740 Q49/V41
6) 710 Q49/V38 (Should be a 720 since it was under harsh environment with drilling noise for 3 hours)
Important Point - I DID NOT FACE ANY time issue in quant in the mocks.
I'd also like to say I'm not someone who comes under pressure during an exam or faces a blackout where I forget alot of things.
However, I did get into a crazy negative thought bubble during the exam - the reason being - I was bombarded with tricky questions from the first moment
Now - the concepts behind the questions that came in the exam weren't "unknown" or "tough" - many of them were just posed in very manipulative language compared to the official material - questions which ideally would take 1 min 30 seconds took 3 mins 30 seconds - because I was not even solving what it had asked - and some questions - simple percentage / ratio / ap / time work questions - concepts I am good at, even after multiple readings I could still not understand what exactly they were asking - or for some reason couldn't get an answer which was even there in the options - something unusual since they usually trick you into getting a wrong option. It almost seemed as if they had combined CR with Quant! For example in two of the percentage questions - It seemed almost impossible to figure out what they wanted me to do!
While I didn't think too much about the "first 10 question" strategy - I had definitely decided that on the exam - questions on concepts I am sure off , I will make sure I carefully read and check my answers because I had the ability to get a Q50 if I minimised my silly mistakes (50%+ of my mistakes in mocks were silly and not conceptual). It's a strategy I believed would work also because I did not face much time issue and always believed I can catch up lost seconds in easier questions as done in mocks
However, if you see the Performance Progression parts of the QR section in my ESR (was not eligible to upload attachments)- I was challenged with HIGH level questions from moment go - instead of getting flustered, I thought - Ok let me take a bit of time but let's get these right - Only to realise I'm not getting ANY MEDIUM QUESTIONS?! In the mocks I'd always get some questions which would just take upto 1 minute which meant I could catch up for lost time but it seemed as if during the the real exam I wasn't getting any medium questions (as can be seen from my ESR).
Is it common to be tested with probably 25+ HIGH questions? I have seen ESR's of 700+ scores and Q51s where average difficultly line seems to be lower than mine!
All this caused me to be in an impossible situation of less than a min per question for the last 15, which basically meant I guessed in the end as can be seen from the accuracy.
So much of my mental stamina went waste into stuff like - thinking whether to spend time on a question or not? If I do, whether I can recover from this or not? Why am I not being able to clearly understand the question? along with multiple solving of the same question. I was so flustered and surprised after the Q section , I lost all focus for the remaining part of the exam so Verbal was also much worse than my average.
I am now wondering how to tackle this situation as I am running on tight deadlines for Round 2 applications and have a retake on 27th. Since most of my concepts are pretty clear , I'm going to focus on stamina building and exam mentality by giving 3rd party mocks everyday.
Any guidance would be of great help.
Thank you
I've been an active follower of gmatclub and can't thank this place enough for the support it provides to students. While I had envisioned writing a positive post explaining how this forum helped me land my 700+ score (had a target of Q49/V38 as minimum benchmark), unfortunately I am having to write a rather depressing post about how the exam just didn't go my way.
This post is going to focus on the QR section (a shocking Q44) because I attempted that first and it only went downhill from there.
Cutting straight to the point - below are my 6 Official GMATPrep mock scores - After such scores I believe I had realstic a target 700+
1) 700 Q47/V39
2) 720 Q48/V41
3) 660 Q49/V31 (Lost focus in verbal)
4) 710 Q49/V38
5) 740 Q49/V41
6) 710 Q49/V38 (Should be a 720 since it was under harsh environment with drilling noise for 3 hours)
Important Point - I DID NOT FACE ANY time issue in quant in the mocks.
I'd also like to say I'm not someone who comes under pressure during an exam or faces a blackout where I forget alot of things.
However, I did get into a crazy negative thought bubble during the exam - the reason being - I was bombarded with tricky questions from the first moment
Now - the concepts behind the questions that came in the exam weren't "unknown" or "tough" - many of them were just posed in very manipulative language compared to the official material - questions which ideally would take 1 min 30 seconds took 3 mins 30 seconds - because I was not even solving what it had asked - and some questions - simple percentage / ratio / ap / time work questions - concepts I am good at, even after multiple readings I could still not understand what exactly they were asking - or for some reason couldn't get an answer which was even there in the options - something unusual since they usually trick you into getting a wrong option. It almost seemed as if they had combined CR with Quant! For example in two of the percentage questions - It seemed almost impossible to figure out what they wanted me to do!
While I didn't think too much about the "first 10 question" strategy - I had definitely decided that on the exam - questions on concepts I am sure off , I will make sure I carefully read and check my answers because I had the ability to get a Q50 if I minimised my silly mistakes (50%+ of my mistakes in mocks were silly and not conceptual). It's a strategy I believed would work also because I did not face much time issue and always believed I can catch up lost seconds in easier questions as done in mocks
However, if you see the Performance Progression parts of the QR section in my ESR (was not eligible to upload attachments)- I was challenged with HIGH level questions from moment go - instead of getting flustered, I thought - Ok let me take a bit of time but let's get these right - Only to realise I'm not getting ANY MEDIUM QUESTIONS?! In the mocks I'd always get some questions which would just take upto 1 minute which meant I could catch up for lost time but it seemed as if during the the real exam I wasn't getting any medium questions (as can be seen from my ESR).
Is it common to be tested with probably 25+ HIGH questions? I have seen ESR's of 700+ scores and Q51s where average difficultly line seems to be lower than mine!
All this caused me to be in an impossible situation of less than a min per question for the last 15, which basically meant I guessed in the end as can be seen from the accuracy.
So much of my mental stamina went waste into stuff like - thinking whether to spend time on a question or not? If I do, whether I can recover from this or not? Why am I not being able to clearly understand the question? along with multiple solving of the same question. I was so flustered and surprised after the Q section , I lost all focus for the remaining part of the exam so Verbal was also much worse than my average.
I am now wondering how to tackle this situation as I am running on tight deadlines for Round 2 applications and have a retake on 27th. Since most of my concepts are pretty clear , I'm going to focus on stamina building and exam mentality by giving 3rd party mocks everyday.
Any guidance would be of great help.
Thank you
11 Dec 2019, 23:31
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi kabsar,
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 was your Score on the Official GMAT (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?
2) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
3) What study materials have you used so far?
4) 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)? Did you take any other CATs besides the 6 Official CATs?
Goals:
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
6) 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 have purchased the ESR, I will be happy to analyze it for you. Before you can include attachments with your posts/PMs, you need at least 5 posts in the forums. If you would rather not go through those extra steps right now, then you can feel free to email me your ESR directly (at Rich.C@empowergmat.com).
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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 was your Score on the Official GMAT (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?
2) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
3) What study materials have you used so far?
4) 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)? Did you take any other CATs besides the 6 Official CATs?
Goals:
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
6) 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 have purchased the ESR, I will be happy to analyze it for you. Before you can include attachments with your posts/PMs, you need at least 5 posts in the forums. If you would rather not go through those extra steps right now, then you can feel free to email me your ESR directly (at Rich.C@empowergmat.com).
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
12 Dec 2019, 17:05
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi,
The Quant section in real GMAT is a bit tougher than the GMAT Prep mocks. Like you said the language is quite confusing.
However, what you should have avoided is analysing too much about what to do for each question during the exam which I assume would have consumed lot more time than you realised.
Coming to how to tackle these questions on 27th, I would suggest to get the advanced question bank released by GMAC which only consists the toughest questions of GMAT and practise the same.
If timing is not too much an issue in quants, you can try to follow the initial 10 questions and final 5 questions strategy.
All the best
Posted from my mobile device
The Quant section in real GMAT is a bit tougher than the GMAT Prep mocks. Like you said the language is quite confusing.
However, what you should have avoided is analysing too much about what to do for each question during the exam which I assume would have consumed lot more time than you realised.
Coming to how to tackle these questions on 27th, I would suggest to get the advanced question bank released by GMAC which only consists the toughest questions of GMAT and practise the same.
If timing is not too much an issue in quants, you can try to follow the initial 10 questions and final 5 questions strategy.
All the best
Posted from my mobile device
