GMAT 670(Q50 V30)

Question

I took my first GMAT today morning and got a 670 (Q50, V30). I am quite disappointed with my verbal score as this is the lowest of all the GMATPrep mocks that I gave

GMATPrep 1 Q49 V35 700
GMATPrep 2 Q49 V37 710
GMATPrep 3 Q50 V34 690
GMATPrep 4 Q49 V38 710
GMATPrep 5 Q49 V35 700
GMATPrep 6 Q49 V35 690

I am still wondering where I went wrong in verbal. I am waiting for ESR meanwhile. Being from IT background, my target was of 700. I am planning to retake the gmat, but havent decided the date. Hopefully will decide after going through ESR.

Materials Used :-
E-Gmat (Gmat Live prep, OG16).

I need advice about how should I go about my preparation for retake. Any pointers.

Kurai · Answer

Is there a chance you started to feel fatigued by the end of the Verbal?
How were your conditions in which you took your GMAT prep tests? Did you take them with AWA and IR section? Did you make sure to take it in test like conditions without adding extra time in between for a longer breaks?

These factors can significantly affect your performance (usually for the better). If you skipped AWA on all of your GMAT prep exams for example, those extra 30 minutes at the end of the test (Verbal) may suffer.

ankujgupta · Answer

I always attempted the IR but never did the AWA section. The mocks exactly mimicked the actual environment. I made sure that the breaks were of eight minutes. I didnt feel fatigue in my verbal section, but I do feel that I took some extra time for some question which led me to guess last 3 questions.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi ankujgupta,

First off, a 670/Q50 is a strong score (it's above the 80th percentile overall), so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, a retest might not be necessary. 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. There's a Forum full of them here:

ask-admission-consultants-124/

As far as your score drop is concerned, you've already admitted to NOT taking the FULL CAT each time, so your score results were almost certainly 'inflated' and unrealistic. There are other factors that we need to consider too though. 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.

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take them at home?
2) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
3) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
4) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE?

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

egmat · Answer

Dear Ankuj,

First of all, your overall score is within the range of all the mock scores that you have listed. To do a causal analysis, we need to ascertain:

What happened in the test?

Its really important that we get your ESR to figure out what happened in the test. About 3 weeks back we had a student who faltered on the GMAT (ended up with a V28) despite scoring above 80 percentile consistently on Scholaranium. Upon analyzing his ESR we were able to attribute the low score to an extremely bad start. He reattempted in 2 weeks, revised the basics, and was able to score a V40 (740 overall).

What is your true scoring potential?

Your GMAT Prep scores tell me that your true ability is around V34/35. Can you also share the ability scores from Verbal Scholaranium. That will give you a lot of insights on where you need to invest time to improve.

I understand that you probably had not planned for this but trust me, this may be a blessing in disguise. With Quant out of the way, you can focus and possibly aim for 740 or higher if you put in the effort. You just need to show a bit more resilience.

Send the data to the support team and lets take it from there.

-Rajat

JeffTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi ankujgupta,

A 670 is definitely a good start. Also, once you get your ESR, please share that with us, as it will provide a breakdown of how you scored in Sentence Correction, Critical Reasoning, and Reading Comprehension.

Since you scored a V30 (which is well below those of your practice CATs) on your real GMAT, it may be an indication that you have not fully mastered each verbal topic, or it could be an indication that you were fatigued or nervous on test day. With that said, I have a few questions for you:

1) Describe your study routine. How many hours a day did you study and for how many total months?

Also, when you were studying, do you feel as if you were able to achieve linear and targeted learning followed by focused practice? In other words, were you able to master one topic before you moved to the next? For example, when learning about critical reasoning, were you able to learn about all aspects of critical reasoning: strengthen and weaken the conclusion, resolve the paradox, find the conclusion, must be true, etc. and then follow your learning with focused critical reasoning practice?

2) When you took the practice tests, did you take them under realistic conditions (e.g. in a quiet environment, no extended breaks)? Did you complete the entire CAT, including the IR and Essay sections?

3) Describe your experience on test day. Did you feel nervous while taking the exam? By the end of the verbal section did you feel burned out? Did you take all of your assigned breaks? Feel free to include any other relevant information.

Once we have some more information about your study routine and test day experience, we can provide some more tailored advice.

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