Hello!
After a very intensive study session for the past two months, today, I finally took the official GMAT. After walking in with high expectations of scoring 700+, I came out feeling destroyed and dejected with a score much lower than expected.
The unofficial score was (thinking about it still makes me sad
): 640 (Q45, V31)
I expected a lower score than what i was getting on the mocks because I was really nervous at the beginning and ended up with poor time management (left one question blank at the end). But I was most shocked by the verbal section. I was definitely nervous, but I felt I was doing ok (I thought maybe I'd get within the 35-40 range, but didn't think I'd do so badly...).
The test experience through Examity was fine. There were no issues until IR, when my screen froze and I had to restart everything to get back into the test then had to resume taking the test with some time lost.
My previous mocks were scores were:
1st Mock, Official (May 15; pre-studying): 660 (Q44, V35)
2nd Mock, Manhattan (June 13, only studied quant): 640 (Q42, V36)
3rd Mock, Manhattan (June 19, only studied quant): 650 (Q41, V37)
4th Mock, Official (June 27, only studied quant): 680 (Q47, V37)
5th Mock, Official (July 4, verbal-focused studying): 710 (Q49 V38)
6th Mock, Official (July 11, verbal-focused studying): 730 (Q49, V41)
My studying was focused in all areas for quant, going over each topic and repeating questions until I felt comfortable with variations of 700 for each section. For verbal, my studying was solely focused on SC (CR and RC, I was getting under five wrong total in the practice exams so I didn't focus as much on). I used the
MGMAT study guides, solved all the
OG questions for the guide and did several/most of the questions on the additional verbal and quant books, solved questions from the GMAT Club question banks and supplemented my studying with some webinars from GMAT Club, GMAT Ninja, Veritas Prep, etc.
This site and everyone on here has been an invaluable source for me in my studying and I wanted to hear your tips / suggestions / advice for my retake (I'm hoping to do it in 2-3 weeks). I'm not completely sure how I should move forward. Are drops like these common on the actual exams (vs. the practice exams)? Are the real exam questions harder? (I've read that the official tests should help predict scores decently for the real deal, but felt that the real test was more difficult -- not sure if that was my nerves or that is a common experience for most test takers). Any tips / suggestions / advice would be immensely appreciated.
Thank you!
(PS -- this is my first post so if I'm breaking some posting etiquette, please do let me know)