GMAT 650 (Q48, V31) ESR Analysis

Question

Hello Experts,

I gave my GMAT on 14th August 2019 and scored a 650 (Q48, V31). 
The score was disappointing as I was scoring consistently over 700 on my official GMAT Prep Mock tests.

GMAT PREP 1 610
 GMAT PREP 2 660
 GMAT PREP 3 660
 GMAT PREP 4 700
 GMAT PREP 5 710
 GMAT PREP 6 760 (Few questions got repeated from Prep 5 Test)
 
I have solved OG, Quant OG Review, Additional Questions from GMAT Prep and used Jamboree material for Quant preparation and Egmat for verbal.
I would like to mention that I was tensed after my Quant section thinking it did not go well so it might have affected my performance on Verbal. 
Also, I travelled to the test city a day before my test for good 5 hectic hours (don't know if such things play a part or not).

My target score is 720+ and I would really like to get your inputs to help improve my score and have a strategy, especially for Verbal.
I have attached my ESR below. Awaiting your reply.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Rahulrm09,

The good news is that you scored really well on quant, right? That said, I understand that you are not satisfied with your verbal score, so the question we need to ask is why you scored so high on your practice exams but lower on the real GMAT.

Assuming that you took your official practice exams under realistic testing conditions, the results show that, on a good day, you are capable of scoring higher than V31. Thus, it’s quite possible that nerves, stress, tiredness, or a combination of all three negatively affected your test-day performance. However, it’s also possible that you have some lingering weaknesses that were exposed on test day. Although I’m unsure of how you prepared, it’s possible that, in your preparation, particularly in verbal, you did not really learn to do what you have to do in order to score high on the actual GMAT. Rather, you picked up on some patterns that were effective in getting you relatively high scores on practice tests. So, for you to hit your score goal, your preparation, particularly for verbal, probably needs to be more complete, meaning that you have to go through the various types of GMAT questions carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills.

The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. When you do dozens of questions of the same type one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better.

For verbal specifically, you have to become more skilled at clearly defining the differences between trap choices and correct answers. Otherwise, you will get stuck guessing between two choices or be surprised to find that you incorrectly answered questions that you thought you answered correctly. Becoming more skilled in this way takes carefully analyzing all of the answer choices to lots of verbal questions to develop an eye for the logical differences between the choices. In other words, you have to go beyond answering practice questions and reading explanations to doing deep analysis of questions to learn to see everything that is going on in them.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses . You also may find my article with more information regarding
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT  helpful.

If you’d like more specific advice on how to improve your quant and verbal skills, feel free to reach back out. Good luck!

AndrewN · Answer

rahulrm09  - All right, I will offer my two cents, since you took the time to post and share your ESR, which could give anyone not scoring an 800 a sense of vulnerability. I like to say that you are only as good as your worst result in practice, since you presumably were not practicing at a test center with other test-takers around to simulate the actual testing experience--first-time jitters can have a measurable effect. Your practice results reflect the same thing: the first practice test you took, presumably GMAT PREP 1, was a little uneven, since you were just getting used to the experience. Once you had gotten used to the format of an official GMAT™ CAT (and presumably studied some more), your results improved.

The actual ESR suggests that your time management is not a problem in any section--that is, unless you are too concerned about keeping pace and getting careless as a result. I read a posting not too long ago by someone who had scored above a 750, and in that post, he revealed that he had sacrificed pacing in order to stick with his plan of ensuring that he answered the first ten questions correctly, then the next ten, and so on. Sure, he scrambled at the end to click boxes and answer everything, and he also felt, according to his post, as if he had blown the Quant at the end, but it turned out fine, and his score was well above what he was expecting upon finishing. What I mean to say is that focusing on accuracy through targeted practice of weaker question areas might outweigh checking the clock each problem to ensure you were on pace.

Since you asked specifically about Verbal strategies, your ESR suggests a few problem areas that you ought to address before a retest:

CR - You are getting about 2/3 questions correct, regardless of subtype. It would be worth practicing any official CR questions you may not have encountered to see if you can pin down which question types tend to give you more trouble. If you have exhausted your official practice material, you can turn to third party questions, but that can be hit or miss. It goes without saying that if you have covered hundreds of official CR questions, you should take the time to review your incorrect/guessed on responses so that you might spot some patterns. Do not just look at the correct responses. Take the time to study what makes the incorrect responses fall short.

RC - Infer/suggest questions are 50/50 for you, and that is a problem, hindering any real progress in Verbal. The trick to these types of questions is to understand that regardless of the wording, the answer still has to come from the passage. There is no room for creativity. Again, targeted practice and analysis is called for. In practice, you might even not time yourself at first (if using a book), just to see if you can arrive at the correct line of reasoning. Once you get better at that, you can work on getting the correct answer faster, but you have to build a firm foundation first.

SC - Grammar is clearly a problem. I am not sure whether it is commas, idioms, or any of a number of issues, but you have to sort that out by maintaining some sort of error log. You can either pore over it yourself or get help from a friend, tutor, or teacher who might know more about specific issues that are giving you trouble. In terms of difficulty, your performance over the second quarter of the test shows that you were not ready to graduate to Hard questions. It is also interesting that this is the section in which you spent the shortest amount of time per question. What types of questions were they? I would guess you had fewer RC questions, but do you remember anything about that portion of the test? Were you rushing? Your performance over the third quarter suggests that you were mentally fatigued from that more challenging second part, with more than double the errors on questions that were not at the same level of difficulty as those from the first quarter. This is something else you can work on in practice, building sets of 27 questions or so and mixing the level of difficulty, just to see if you can focus on the question at hand instead of giving into mental fatigue.

Your Quant performance was more linear, as you can tell yourself. Good job on geometry. I guess you have that base covered. In any case, those are my initial thoughts on your performance and where to go from here.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

rahulrm09 · Answer

Couple of additional things to mention though. I gave my last mock on 24th July and gave an official test on 27th July. But unfortunately on 25th evening i got down with very high fever (103C) and gave a very unfocused attempt and scored 640 (i could not attempt al the questions on Quant as i was very weak and low). I booked my retest for 14th of August. I repeated a few mocks on which I scored 760 and 720(quant dipped to Q48). I revised all my material and error log again and went for the official test.

rahulrm09 · Answer

Thank you for your valuable inputs Scott and Andrew.

Right now I am in a dilemma. I am not sure of which study material to pick up for CR as I have exhausted all the available OG questions. Should I pick up LSAT questions available on the forum?
Also, something is definitely not right with my approach towards CR. So which book should I refer to?

For SC I am planning to go through Manhattan's SC Guide.

For RC, all I can do is practice. I am thinking to pick up the RC's available on gmatclub.

For Quant, I am planning to give gmatclub tests and solve questions from my weak areas by analysing by error log.

AndrewN · Answer

rahulrm09  - Addressing your earlier post, if you took the test ill, then yes, that can affect your cognition and, hence, your score. It is unfortunate, however, that such context does not show up on the score report, so back to the drawing board. If you have exhausted all the OG CR questions, how about the extra 80+ CR questions from the OG Verbal Review? (You did not mention the book in your original post.) Although I recommend LSAT Logical Reasoning questions for additional practice if certain students have run out of whatever official GMAT™ prep material they have access to, it is important to know that those questions do differ slightly from what you may see on the GMAT™. They also tend to be a little more nuanced, in my opinion, so they are valuable as a resource, but I would say that they are more valuable for someone who has already mastered CR questions through the Medium level and tends to hit at least 2/3 at the Hard level, and who also wants to improve that slight bit more in analytical reasoning to lift that accuracy. If you simply want new questions, then you will have to be selective about which ones you choose from the LSAT. Again, that is just my opinion.

In all honesty, I have read more solid analyses of CR questions on this site than I have through any guide I have read. To be fair, I have not read all of what is out there, so I am not knocking the work of anyone else, but the sheer volume of solid analyses you can access for free on a question-by-question basis through this site is unparalleled. You just have to be disciplined in reading through it  and taking notes . Of course, you could always google "lsat logical reasoning strategies" or "lsat logical reasoning question types" and see what you find useful. I would not be quick to buy a guide if I could get what I thought were top tips for free.

Good luck moving forward, whichever angle you decide to take.

- Andrew

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi rahulrm09,

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 issues - or 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) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) On what days did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks - including retakes or any non-Official CATs - and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
4) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Regarding verbal resources, take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for  verbal courses , and also read through some  GMAT success stories  to see what materials have worked well for other test-takers.

If you need any further advice, feel free to reach out.

Good luck!

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