GMAT 670 (V34/Q48) ESR attached - Need help

Question

Dear all,
 I took GMAT on November 6,2019 and ended up with a disappointing score of 670(V34/Q48). 
My practice mock scores are as follows 9in chronological order):
 1. GMATprep1 750 (V44/Q49)
 2. Manhattan Free CAT 650 (V36/Q43)
 3. Economist Free CAT 630 (V34/Q42)
 4. GMATprep2 720 (V39/Q49) -- This was one week before real GMAT

As you see, my real GMAT plunged in both Verbal and Quant when compared with GMATPrep mocks. The biggest shock for me was Verbal. None of my practice test scores were that low. So I ordered ESR. I found that I have scored at 15th percentile in Critical Reasoning, way below the mean score. I am sure I can do bad in CR but not below mean score!

I have been preparing for GMAT for last 4 months from July 2019 till October 2019. I prepared for 2-3 hours daily on weekdays and 5-6 hours on saturday and sunday. In total 25 hours/week which amounts to 400 hours of preparation.

Materials used: 
I self prepared.
1) I used Powerscore CR - I read this book cover to cover - but still got an abysmal score. Also used OG questions, GMAT club questions. 
2) Manhattan SC guide, GMAT Club SC questions, Official guide SC questions
3)RC - Official guide, GMAT Club questions - It was very light preparation for RC
4)QUANT - An Indian book authored by Sarvesh K Verma

My target is 740. I have attached my ESR. Experts please kindly help me with your inputs on how I should improve my score and what materials I should use.
Also Please give me your perspectives on why I was not able to match my practice scores and why it could be that I performed so poorly in CR, way below mean score. I am planning to retake GMAT in two months. FYI, I will apply to B schools for 2021 Fall intake.

Bunuel 
 nightblade354 
 mikemcgarry 
 GMATNinja 
 VeritasKarishma 
 bb 
 GMATPrepNow 
 souvik101990 
 ScottTargetTestPrep 
 daagh 
 EMPOWERgmatRichC

And any expert whom I have missed to tag, I apologise but please help me

nightblade354 · Answer

See my guide for CR and you should be fine. A 670 is a decent score!

Posted from my mobile device

AnanthRamanujam · Answer

Dear  nightblade354 , Thank you very much for the reply. I will surely go through your CR guide. Thanks a lot.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi AnanthRamanujam,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT.

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 V34. 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. Regarding your ESR, I do agree that SC and CR really dragged down your verbal score, so, if you want some further advice on who to improve in those areas, feel free to reach back out.

You also may find my article with more information regarding
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT  helpful.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi AnanthRamanujam,

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. A 670/Q48 is still a strong Score though, so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, a retest might not be necessary. There's no harm in continuing to study though - and you have an opportunity to pick up points in BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections.

Before we discuss 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:

1) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks? Did you take any others besides the 4 that you listed?
2) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

AnanthRamanujam · Answer

Dear  ScottTargetTestPrep , Thank you very much for your guidance. I have got a CR material broken down by question types. I will practice with it and get back to you. Once again, Thank you Scott.

AnanthRamanujam · Answer

Dear  EMPOWERgmatRichC ,
 Thank you very much for the reply. Here are the details:
  Practice CAT details: 
I took all the CATs under realistic test conditions.
 1. GMATprep1 - Oct 13,2019 starting time - 11 AM
 2. Manhattan CAT - Oct 20,2019 starting time - 4 PM
 3. Economist CAT - Oct 27,2019 starting time - 4 PM
 4. GMATprep 2 - Oct 28,2019 starting time - 4 PM

My actual GMAT was at 4 PM

I only took these 4 CATs.

Target School:
London Business School - Masters in Analytics and Management Program

Please let me know of your views.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi AnanthRamanujam,

I've sent you a PM with an analysis of your ESR and some additional notes.

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

My pleasure!!

AnanthRamanujam · Answer

nightblade354 
 ScottTargetTestPrep 
 EMPOWERgmatRichC

I retook GMAT today and scored a 700(V37, Q49)

My practice test scores were as follows:
1. GMATPrep1 retake - 710 (V37,Q49)
2.GMATPerp2 retake -760 (V46,Q49)
3.Princeton Review Free CAT - 710 (V41,Q47)
4.Kaplan Free CAT - 690 (V38,Q47)
5. Manhattan Free CAT only verbal - V38

nightblade354 , I practiced all the 1600+ LSAT filter CR questions. Sub-600 level accuracy was 97%+. 600-700 level accuracy was 92%+. 700 level accuracy was 68%+.
I do not have access to my ESR yet. Once I get it will post it here. Ideally, after preparing so hard, I would have liked a verbal score of 40. I don't know what went wrong. My previous ESR put me at 93 percentile in RC, 70 percentile in SC and 15 percentile in CR. This is the reason why I practiced all the 1600+ CR questions. While I am happy that the score has improved, an overall score of 720+ would have been wonderful.

ScottTargetTestPrep , EMPOWERgmatRichC  Thank you for your messages and guidance. I feel grateful for all three of you. Thank you very much.

nightblade354 · Answer

AnanthRamanujam , your improvement is a good start! A 700 is a high quality score. You say you reviewed 1600 LSAT questions. My question to you is: What did you do after you get them wrong? A 68% on difficult ones is to be expected given that LSAT questions rely on lawgic, but how you analyzed these problems should shed some light on your issues. That said, maybe CR was your strong suit? Maybe you did well and you lost some ground on RC and SC? Let us know when the ESR is in and we can evaluate where you can improve. But be proud of your 700.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi AnanthRamanujam,

This 700/Q49 is an outstanding Score - and assuming that you are still interested in LBS's Analytics & Management Program, then you can comfortably apply to that Program with this Score (while your prior 670/Q48 was a strong Score, the increase in your Quant Scaled Score as well as your Overall Score help to make this a much stronger overall performance). As such, a retest is probably NOT necessary.

I'll be happy to analyze your next ESR for you, so feel free to post it here (or you can PM it directly to me).

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

AnanthRamanujam · Answer

nightblade354 , Thank you for the reply. I followed the blind review approach you had suggested on the questions I got wrong. Then I spent a lot of time on analyzing these questions in an attempt to close my thinking gap. Sure I will post the ESR once it is ready.

EMPOWERgmatRichC , Thank you for your reply. I reached out to the LBS Masters in Analytics admissions team. They said that I am not eligible to apply to the program since I have 3 years of work experience. I am thinking of applying to an MBA program. Do you think I have a chance at Oxford/Cambridge MBA with a 700, given my background: Indian Male Engineer working in the Financial Services Industry as a data scientist?

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi AnanthRamanujam,

Since I'm not an Admissions Expert, I can't offer much of a perspective on your 'chances' of getting into any particular Program. Thankfully, there ARE Experts at GMATClub who can - and they should also be able to answer any other admissions questions that you might have. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

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

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Congrats!!! Very nice job!!

AnanthRamanujam · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC , Thank you for the Admissions Expert forum link. I have posted my profile there.

AnanthRamanujam · Answer

ScottTargetTestPrep , Thank you!!!

AnanthRamanujam · Answer

nightblade354 
 ScottTargetTestPrep 
 EMPOWERgmatRichC

I got my ESR. Please find it attached.

nightblade354 , you were right. CR and SC improved but I lost some ground on RC, actually lots of ground. As per my previous ESR, RC was at 93rd percentile but now it is at 45th percentile. It's a huge variance. Why do you think in a standardized test it happens? In my first attempt, I did not get my target score due to CR but no due to RC. Please guide me.

EMPOWERgmatRichC  ,  ScottTargetTestPrep  , please let me know of your views and input

nightblade354 · Answer

You have to continue to study all areas while you build up your weak areas. If you ignore strong areas they become weak quickly. Make sure to review a few questions in each section every couple of days to make sure you stay on top of best practices. I wrote an RC guide if you want to brush up on it.

AnanthRamanujam · Answer

nightblade354 , Thank you. Will do that!

GMAT 670 (V34/Q48) ESR attached - Need help

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