EMPOWERgmatRichC,
ScottTargetTestPrep,
GMATNinja,
Businessconquerer,
bb,
Bunuel,
egmatHi all,
First off, I would like to thank the experts on this forum - it's definitely THE best platform for anyone taking the GMAT.
I have been studying from a long time now and my prep was consistent from last 4-5 months. After 4-5 months of focused work, I scored a dismal 500 (Q42,V18). This was quite shocking because I had been performing much better on the mocks. I have attached my ESR here. I plan to re-take the GMAT in couple of weeks. I would really appreciate if I could get some help in understanding the ESR.
All the mocks were taken with 8 min breaks, at a stretch, where I tried to replicate the real environment as much as possible.
Some additional key points:
1) How long have you studied in total? 8 months
2) What study materials have you used so far?
E-gmat for verbal with
OG and Gmat Prep. Quant gmatclub and a
TTP trial with GC tests,
OG and Gmat prep questions
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs/mocks (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
Chronologically, all taken within 3 - 4 days of gap between each:
- GMAT Prep 1: 760 (V42, Q51)
- Kaplan CAT 1 : 650 ( V34 , Q46)
- Kaplan CAT 2: 680 ( V 36, Q 48)
- Kaplan CAT 3: 680 ( V 38, Q 46)
- kaplan CAT 4: 700 (V 38, Q 48)
-
E-Gmat CAT 1: 720 ( V 38, Q 49)
-
GMAT Whiz CAT 1: 680 ( Q48, V 34)
- Veritas CAT 1: 680 (Q 49, V 34)
- Manhattan CAT 1: 650 (Q46. V34)
- GMAT Prep 2: 730 (Q50, V38)
Goals:
4) What is your goal score? 700
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School? (Round2)
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to? NUS, Tepper, Emory, Oxford, Cambridge, IMD
Appreciate all the help I can get, because I am really finding it hard to understand where I have gone so terribly wrong!
Thanks in advance!
Your timing looks quite rough. In both sections the average time per question at the end plummets.
Topic-wise, Reading Comp (especially 'inferences') and 'Value/order/factors' (basically 'number properties') seem to be the biggest hitches. But what happened to your timing that day? How were your nerves?
Your practice tests show capabilities much higher than what your test showed. This means what took over were timing or nerves.
You should really spend the next two weeks working on mindset, here. You don't need to be doing GMAT problems and learning GMAT material--you've demonstrated the ability to handle these. Make sure you understand how the GMAT algorithm works. Nerves tend to cause people to tunnel-vision into the problem they're working on, terrified that they might miss it... As if you shouldn't miss problems on the actual test (you should and you will. I missed 11 questions on an official practice test once and got a Q50...)
Practice mindfulness, plan on what you'll do when your nerves start to take over, remind yourself to skip questions and keep pace.