Discrepancy in GMAT Online score

Hello, utkarshnayak123, and welcome to GMAT Club. Since you took the Online Exam, you will not be able to order an ESR or get any insights into what you may have missed on each section. If you noticed anything during the exam itself, any kind of glitch, then you can report it to GMAC™. Someone will follow up with you once you have made a claim, although it may not be timely. The entire testing experience is recorded, so if anything seemed out of the ordinary, that might help your case. Apart from that, though, unless there is an extreme discrepancy—something I have seen with the Online Exam before, in which someone apparently got no questions right on Quant—you cannot really fall back on your practice test results to make your case. Plenty of students see their scores drop from practice exams to the official exam, if for no other reason than that nerves got the better of them on the day.

If you do follow up with GMAC™, do so right away—the longer you wait, the less likely the outcome will go in your favor—and once you do get a response, please let us know about the decision. Such information will prove useful to the community.

If I were you, I would focus on the next test and train like there is no tomorrow. Good luck.

- Andrew

Hi utkarshnayak123,

Given that your quant score was in line with the quant scores of your practice exams, I don't think there was a glitch related to your online GMAT. Chances are you had a bad day on GMAT verbal. That said, if you want some advice on how to improve your GMAT verbal skills prior to a retake, feel free to reach out. Lastly, here is a helpful article:

[url=https://blog.targettestprep.com/gmat-score-lower-than-practice-test-scores/Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?[/url]

Hi utkarshnayak123,

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) When did you take your Official GMAT?
2) How long have you studied in total? How many hours did you typically study each week?
3) What study materials have you used so far?
4) Did you take just those 4 CATs/mocks or were there others? 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?

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

Hi utkarshnayak123,

Sorry about how things went with your GMAT. But, I don't think there might be any discrepancy as the score is calculated based on the algorithm. The drop in the score might be because of the test day pressure or may be due to inconsistency in your application skills.

If it's because of the test day pressure, then I suggest you to take a couple of mocks, get used to the test environment and give the test. But if you have somehow got the right answers in the mocks without using the right methods or if you got lucky with a few questions, then I would suggest you to focus more on the methods and then give the test only when you are confident.

Make sure you think about it and take the right decision because there's no point wasting another $250 unless you are confident. All the best

Thanks for your responses guys!!! Can you suggest me some good material to practice Verbal questions, (Other than the GMAT Official guide)

Hi utkarshnayak123,

If you are struggling with verbal, then I would suggest you to first identify your weak areas, work on them and then practice questions. Just practicing questions doesn't help improve your accuracy. If you have finished learning the concepts and are still struggling to solve questions, then it's the application of concepts on which you have to focus.

There are certain methods and strategies to solve Verbal questions. The answer choices can be very tricky as they are worded similarly. So, unless you use the right methods to solve the question and the right strategies to eliminate incorrect answer choices, you will most likley end up getting stuck between two or more answer choices.

The path ahead:

So, I suggest you to first identify your weak areas. Once you do that, learn the right methods to solve questions of those topics. Once you are done with a certain topic, practice a few questions without any time limit so that you get comfortable with the methodology. Start taking timed quizzes only after you are done with all the topics.

And regarding the resource, you can check out the verbal course of GMATWhiz. There is a proper structure which we follow. You will be taught the concepts first, then the methodology and then you will have a couple of quizzes for every topic so that you get used to the methodology. And if your accuracy is not great in a certain topic, the platform automatically suggests you improvement modules so that you can work on your weak areas right away. You can check the free trial to understand it better.

If you need any help in identifying your weak areas, I can help you with that. We can get in touch over a call so that I can analyze your approach towards solving questions and identify the flaw if there's any. This will help me get a clear picture and I can guide you in a better way. You can use the below link to get in touch with me.

Hello again. I agree with GMATWhizTeam that aimlessly plowing through questions will not lead to any substantial gains. If you have exhausted the questions in the OG, then why not go back over the ones you missed—look them up in this forum—and see what others have to say about them? Read enough responses by GMATNinja, for example, and you will start to think like GMAT Ninja. Or read those by other Experts or community members to see what resonates with you. The best thing you can do to increase your Verbal understanding is to get to the bottom of what makes the wrong answers incorrect. When you can spot common traps, then you will better position yourself to avoid them in the future. Assuming that you have also exhausted the Verbal Review, you can try certain high-quality third-party questions, such as those by Manhattan Prep or Veritas Prep, but again, you should be spending plenty of time reviewing questions from the OG. Finally, if you feel up to it, you can purchase the four extra official practice exams to give yourself the most realistic questions in the most realistic of settings (a CAT). Although I think Quant questions can be studied from many sources with just as much effectiveness, Verbal questions are best kept official.

I hope that helps. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew