ESR analysis and Gmat Strategy

I think I was not as much relaxed during the exam as I was during the mocks and I also found the big exam monitor to be quite intimading as I was used to solve questions on 13 inch screen

do you think if I was able to get an accuracy of around 75% in the last section, I would have scored somewhere around V34 ?

There are multiple things that are taken into consideration such as the difficulty level of the questions. In all 4 quarters of your attempt, for example, the question difficulty level given to you was Medium.

Hi Aman.

The following is interesting.

Here's why it's interesting. The verbal verbal questions on the actual GMAT are of about the same difficulty as those on the official practice tests.

So, the question becomes that of why you found the questions on the actual GMAT harder than those on the practice tests, and the most likely answer is that something about the way in which you have been preparing for GMAT verbal has resulted in your being prepared for the official practice tests but not for the actual GMAT.

There are two common reasons why people have experiences like yours.

One is that whatever resources they used to prepare were based on the verbal questions on the official practice tests. In other words, those resources basically prepare people specifically for the questions on the practice tests. So, of course, in such a case, you'd find the questions on the official practice tests relatively easy, whereas the questions on the actual GMAT would seem harder to you.

The other is that you may have prepared in a way that involved learning what the GMAT has done in the past rather than developing fundamental reasoning skills that you could use to answer GMAT verbal questions from the past or from the present or future.

So, the key to increasing your score is to develop such fundamental skills that you can apply to correctly answer any GMAT verbal question you see.

For in-depth discussion of how to do so, see the following posts.

How to Score High on GMAT Verbal

Three Key Practice Tips for Mastering GMAT Verbal

Hi Aman,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned, although a 640/Q49 is still a solid Score (and it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School). Depending on the Schools that you plan to apply to, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. Those Experts should be able to answer your Admissions questions and help define the specific areas of your profile that could use some improvement. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admissio ... tants-124/

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 - and the data in your ESR - 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 first 2 Official GMATs?
2) How long did you overall? For this third 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)?
5) 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

Contact Rich at: Rich.C@empowergmat.com

Hi amangupta207,

Were the questions in practice tests 5 and 6 "fresh"? If they were, we're looking at very good scores (82% and 88%) here. Unfortunately, given the 27%, 45%, and 45% scores, the questions you saw on your actual GMAT were most likely quite easy (relatively speaking). This is just how an adaptive test like the GMAT works.

I'd say that normally, the kind of gap we see here indicates some problem either with concepts or with test day issues like anxiety/timing strategy. You'll have to think hard about why your scores dropped so much, but the point about the monitor should not a concern going forward, as it's a relatively easy problem to fix (get a bigger monitor or take the GMAT online).

Hi amangupta207,

Sorry about how things went with your GMAT. There could be a couple of reasons for the drop in the score. Please go through the article below to find out the probable reasons.


Having said that, it would be too early to conclude anything without knowing the actual reason. To understand what could have led to the drop in the score and to suggest you the plan of action, I need a little more information about your GMAT preparation. I would like to know more about

• the way you prepared till now (your study strategy)
• your weak areas
• your approach of solving questions
• the resources you have used

Answers to these questions will help me guide you in a better way. And I personally suggest to go for the retake only after you prepared well and are 100% confident.

Having said that, I would like to have a one-on-one conversation with you. The discussion would be mostly around the answers to the above questions, the approximate time you have for the next attempt and the plan of action. Since you have an ESR with you, that will be even more helpful to get the insights about your performance. You use use the link below to schedule a call with me.