GMAT burning out few days before exam, what to do??

Hi juhishah02,

I generally recommend that test takers not do too much in the last week. So maybe solve a few questions and revise your notes, but nothing too "heavy". Leave the remaining questions if you don't want to do them. Most importantly, try to get a good night's sleep before the test.

All the best.

Hi juhishah02,

Considering the heavy number of study hours that you have been putting in recently, it's possible that you are starting to 'burn out' a bit (which is something that we want to avoid since you are so close to your Official Test Date). In these last few days, you should limit your studies to general practice and light review (NO CATs and NO 'cramming') - you would be better served by getting some extra rest so that you can go into Test Day calm, clear-headed and ready to work.

1) How have you been scoring on your CATs/mocks?
2) What is your overall Goal Score?

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

Contact Rich at: Rich.C@empowergmat.com

Hi juhishah02

I suppose you must have taken the test today. How did it go?

Do share your test day experience with us.

It was awful. I scored 650 (Q45,V35,IR6).

Quant: I'm very disappointed with my quant score. As i mentioned before, I scored a Q50 on both my official mocks and such a low score is below satisfactory for me. My aim was Q49 minimum. I had trouble finishing the paper, and I had to guess the last 3-4 questions. Maybe that affected my score a lot, I have no clue. Math skills are something i've always prided myself on and math just comes easily to me. In all the mocks i've given till date, I've never gotten more then 6-7 questions wrong. Q45 usually means I got at least 12-15 questions wrong and i didnt think that was possible. Q45 is an average score and I'm way above average when it comes to quant. I'm thinking of ways to get past this and study strategy cause I'm definitely giving the exam once again. I guess since this was the official exam, I was cross checking the answers even more, especially data sufficiency ones, and that affected my score. Looks like I will have to work harder on medium level questions instead of advance questions hahaa, the irony. Maybe I fell for the traps. I'll just have to practice more and pay more attention to my time management skills.

Verbal: My aim for verbal was V37/38 and i'm kinda satisfied with my score. Obviously its not the score I aimed for but while giving the exam, I felt like i did worse on verbal than on quant. The difference between V37 and V35 is less consecutive mistakes and 2-3 fewer mistakes. I missed out on last two questions on verbal too. I never really had to struggle with time while giving mocks, I almost always finished 1-2 mins before time but maybe because this was the official exam, I second guessed my answers a lot so will have to work on that.
I got 1 small, 2 medium and 1 large rc. SC i feel like i did a good job. Questions based on modifiers, idioms, parallelism, tenses, etc were there. CR i gotta say half the time i had no clue if my answer was right or not, cr questions were more difficult i feel.
I gave quant first since i was confident it would go well but since i had to guess last 3-4 questions, I was a little shaken up at the start of verbal.

IR: IR was normal i guess. I skipped the msr questions and score 6 isnt bad and i wasn't expecting a higher one so its fine. Few questions were easy, few a lil more difficult but not something I would be scared of.

AWA: it was a relatively easy topic, found adequate faults and finished it on time.

Hi juhishah02,

Some test takers like to look the actual GMAT as just another practice test (it helps them relax). I'm not sure whether that would work for you, but being more careful than usual is definitely one of the reasons for timing issues, so we probably should try not to cross-check answers.

I'm confident that you'll be in a much better position to hit your target score if you work on your time management skills. All the best for the retake.

My exam is in 15 days and i feel the same. Not putting more than 5 hours a day but i have the same feeling when i do tests. I get tired half way. Any other sugestions?

Hi juhishah02

I can understand the feeling of getting higher scores on GMAT official mocks and not being able to reflect the same in the actual test. I can see that you are almost there. So, don’t lose hope. Just a little brush up/guidance will help you understand what is holding you back. Let me help you.

Scoring high on mocks but not able to reflect the same in actual GMAT may be because of multiple reasons. You may find this article useful:
https://blog.gmatwhiz.com/scored-low-on-gmat/

Your individual score break-up indicates that there is still room for improvement in both Quant and Verbal.

For Quant, you should focus a little more on right application of the concepts learn and consider spending time in analysing the solutions to learn the right methodologies. This should help you to score Q50/51.

Your Verbal score suggests that you are good enough with two of the three modules (SC, CR and RC) and need to work on the other one. You should consider identifying the weaker module, analyse your setbacks and turn them into your strengths.

Let me tell you that the improvement to 650+ is all about identifying the core pain points not only from a conceptual standpoint but also from a methodical standpoint. Let me elaborate.

You're probably doing decently well on the easy and medium questions but when it comes to hard questions the issues start surfacing. What it means is that the methods that you might be using are not efficient. There is a need to improve the methodology and focus on logic. Using the right methodologies and strategies to approach the questions should ideally help you to avoid the traps set by the test makers. If you do so, it is possible to improve your score to 700+.

In short, if you work slowly on your approach and focus on learning from each question you should see a significant improvement in your score. This way, when you would be confident about your approach, may be you won't need to spend extra time in cross checking the answers.

Having said this, I would like to know what is the approach you followed during the test along with a few other things (including your exact pain points) so that I can suggest you a more structured plan and help you with advanced strategies. It would be great if we have your ESR available at the time of discussion. If you wish to discuss this over a call, you can schedule a free consultation call using the below link. Considering the effort, you have put, I would really like to know the concerns and help you improve your score.

Hi juhishah02,

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 potential issues though, 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 in total? How many hours were you typically studying each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used?
3) 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)?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

If you took your Official GMAT at a Test Center, then you might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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

Contact Rich at: Rich.C@empowergmat.com

HI juhishah02,

I see it's been a little while since your GMAT. Are you now studying for your retake?