GMAT Verbal fail - analysis : General GMAT Questions and Strategies

Stn · 2016-08-26T07:06:32-07:00

Hi guys, Abstract: I took the GMAT test on August 25 and scored a very disappointing 630 (Q47,V30). This is the worst verbal I ever did in any CAT, even in the first one that I took before starting to prepare. Why did this happen and what to do now? Long story: I started to prepare full time 6 days a week about 3 weeks and a half before my test. I used OptimusPrep to prepare (course+questions) and questions from this forum (especially the tricky ones). My CAT scores were the following: Date CAT Name Total Q V IR 26/07/2016 GMATPREP1 630 44 33 7 ->> this was with 0 study to see where I am. 02/08/2016 OptimusPrep CAT1 660 49 33 7 23/08/2016 OptimusPrep CAT2 720 50 38 5 24/08/2016 GMATPREP2 710 47 41 5 ->> one day before the real exam, same time of the day. I tried to simulate the exam conditions as good as possible. 25/08/2016 Real GMAT Test 630 48 30 7 Now, I need your help to figure out what happened here and what I should do in the future. My analysis: I did my best Q score from any GMAT test (2 CAT+real) and my worst ever verbal and I am not able to explain that. I slept and ate well before the test, was not nervous or anything else to affect my performance. And this can be seen as my Q and IR scores were decent. How is it possible to register such a big drop in V? Didn't feel tired or bad during the verbal section and took all breaks. Is a mistake from the GMAC/Pearson VUE software a possibility? Can I challenge this score? What should I do now? I am planning to apply next year for the 2018 intake, but I took the GMAT now because I'll switch jobs to another company where I'm going to work a lot and there will be less time available for GMAT. LE: Test center in Bucharest, Romania. I cancelled my score. As a consequence I can't find it anywhere in my mba.com account and I don't have an official/unofficial report.

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26 Aug 2016, 09:34

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Thanks for replying.

1. I would say everything worked as usually. I would not rush through questions and finish all but 2 within time, therefore I random guess the last 2. I found some (2-3) RC/CR (where I had good performance, SC was my weak point) harder than usually, this is the only red flag. Otherwise, nothing special to be mentioned, everything business as usual compared with GMAC CATs.

2.ESR. I assume I should pay the usual $25, no matter if I cancelled or not, right? I am hesitating to request one because I don't see what exactly I am going to get from it. I mean, I can see for example that I screwed up one section much more than usually. But what should I take from that? Am I so bad in that particular section, CATs were misleading and I should study that section more for 2nd attempt?

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26 Aug 2016, 10:22

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Hi Stn,

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. If you can answer a few questions, then we should be able to figure this out:

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) 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.)?
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE?

It's possible that you just had a "bad day"; but if we can figure all of this out quickly, then you might not have to wait too long to retest.

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Rich

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26 Aug 2016, 10:29

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1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)? -> Yes. Always did IR (scored as indicated above) and wrote AWA when did the GMAC CATs, OptimusPrep doesn't have a AWA section
2) Did you take them at home? -> Yes
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT? -> Yes
4) 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.)? No, actually you can't as far as I know
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE? No and No.

I ruled out a "bad day" since Q was very good (even better than GMAC CATs). No surprise on the test day, I did my homework to see what to expect from the test day, no surprise at all.

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26 Aug 2016, 10:54

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Hi Stn,

The process of taking (and reviewing) a CAT requires a significant amount of energy and effort - and takes time to 'recover' from. This is one of the reasons why you typically shouldn't take more than 1 CAT per week. By taking two CATs right before your Official GMAT, there's a reasonable chance that you experienced some 'burn out' on Test Day (even if you didn't "feel" tired).

Beyond that, it's important to remember that Test Day is a rather specific 'event' - the details are specific and they matter, so you have to train as best as you can for all of them. The more realistic you can make your CATs, the more likely the score results are to be accurate. The more you deviate, the more "inflated" your scores can become. Two of your CATs didn't include an Essay section, so you took a shorter Exam that required less work from you - and you likely received scores that were not realistic (so we have to ignore those 2 results). This means that you really only had two FULL CAT score results - and that's not enough to define your actual ability level.

There are some other potential 'red flags' in how you took your CATs, but before we talk about those details I have a few additional questions about the lead-up to Test Day and Test Day itself:

1) What did you do in the 3 days before your GMAT?
2) How did you sleep the night before your Test?
3) How long was the ride to the Test Center from your home?
4) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test?
5) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks?
6) Did you finish any sections early?
7) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)?

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1) What did you do in the 3 days before your GMAT? -->1 day before took a GMAC CAT. 2 days before das way off, relaxed, walked into parks, stuff like that. 3 days before was the last day of studying, re-read my materials, common mistakes, math formulas, grammar rules
2) How did you sleep the night before your Test? -->Slept well, 8h
3) How long was the ride to the Test Center from your home? -->25min and I arrived 30 min before my appointed time
4) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test? -->No
5) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks? -->walked around, went to the bath, stretched myself
6) Did you finish any sections early? -->No
7) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)? -->Random guessed last 2 in Verbal, same in the 2 GMAC CATs

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26 Aug 2016, 12:04

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The entire story of real GMAT attempt depends on whether you were able to ace the 4 sets (made up of 41 questions) in such a way that you could get higher difficulty level question. So if in first set of questions your accuracy was not good then you would get questions with less difficulty in second set. If you again fail to gain on accuracy here then it goes on like this. So ESR would tell the exam day story very well. Get the ESR as soon as possible so that your exam day memory help you do the analysis better.

When you get your ESR , Please post it here as well ---> https://gmatclub.com/forum/information-on-new-gmat-esr-report-beta-221111.html

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26 Aug 2016, 21:47

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Here it is.
Q is 47, not 48 (although I remember 48, but let's say i was shocked with V and that's why i don't recall it correctly)

Look at RC in verbal section.

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HKD1710

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26 Aug 2016, 23:34

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Quote:

Here it is.
Q is 47, not 48 (although I remember 48, but let's say i was shocked with V and that's why i don't recall it correctly)
Look at RC in verbal section.

As i earlier posted, The problem lies in the difficulty level. Here is the Analysis:

Q49: First set gave you medium difficulty level questions and you got 6/7 questions correct in first set. This led difficulty level from Medium to Medium-high and you got medium-high level questions in quant section thereafter. Because you faced tough questions and marked sufficient number of questions correct, you got a Q47.
So you need to practice 700+ level questions to perform better in quant. Look at Bunuel's signature collection for such questions.
Here is the link also for practice questions difficulty wise: https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-ps-question-directory-by-topic-difficulty-127957.html

V30: Test started with medium difficulty in first set and you got 5/8 questions correct. In second set also you performed fine. But Imagine if you could get 1-1 questions correct on both the 1st and 2nd set, difficulty level would have risen. The lower accuracy in 3rd and 4th attempt severely brought your score down. you would definitely need to practice RC & CR.

Time Management:
Move the mouse over the pie charts under "Time Management" area in ESR, you will get the average of correct & incorrect questions separately. As i can see you invested more time on wrong questions. It could also be the case that you invested more time on a single question. You sure can relate AVERAGE with NUMBER of incorrect questions in every set to get the fair idea of timing. Use your exam time memory on this to be very clear what did you actually go wrong on.

Hope this helps

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27 Aug 2016, 10:56

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Hi Stn,

From the information that you've provided, there are enough little details that, when taken in total, can explain your Official Score result. From your ESR, it certainly looks like you got 'killed' by RC though, so I'd like to know more about how you prepared for that part of the Verbal section:

1) How long did you prepare for RC (you studied for just 1 month in total; how much of that was really focused on RC?)?
2) What materials did you use?
3) What 'steps' do you go through when dealing with a typical RC prompt?

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28 Aug 2016, 00:39

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HKD1710 thanks. No particular question where I spent significantly more time than the average. Still no clue what happened with that RC section.

EMPOWERgmatRichC
1.preparation was something like this RC-15% CR-15% SC-30%, PS+DS=40%
2.OptimusPrep course+their questions+questions on this forum+the 80 free questions from GMAC
3.Read the questions, read the whole paragraph, read the question+answer choices, return to the paragraph is necessary.

Thanks!

No that i got the ESR, my main questions is what happened with that RC section. In the 2 GMAC CATs i did 70-90% of RC correct.

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28 Aug 2016, 11:48

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Hi Stn,

Many Test Takers spend 3 months (or more) of consistent study time before they repeatedly hit their 'peak' scores, so the likely 'overarching' explanation is that you didn't put in enough time and effort to have scored higher on the Official GMAT. Much of this will likely improve with time, but there are some proactive steps you can take that could speed up the process. The description that you provided for how you handle RC seems 'thin' - it's not really a strategy, it's what someone who was looking at RC for the first time would do. While the content and 'sophistication' of RC passages will vary, the structure of the prompts, the types of questions that are asked and even the wrong answers are all predictable. With the proper resources and Tactics, you could potentially make some huge improvements to how you handle the entire Verbal section.

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

Stn

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28 Aug 2016, 12:27

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EMPOWERgmatRichC, thanks, but can you, please, be more specific? What would be proper tactics?

And something else, I was consistently doing well with RC during my practice, no matter the source of questions (GMAC CATs, official questions, this forum, other sources, etc.). But somehow this didn't happen during the exam day. I agree, I spent 1 month to prepare (I understand some people spend more time, 3 months, for example, but I spend 4 weeks full time, so a lot of hours), but I am not sure the entire explanation for catastrophic RC score is the fact that I didn't put more time or did have a strategy to solve RC that is not actually a strategy. Seems like this broke strategy worked during preparation.

Problem is that now I won't have time to study for a while and when I'm back I have to have a very good strategy because time will be very-very limited. Thus, I have to figure out what happened on test day with RC and make a strategy to avoid that happening again.

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28 Aug 2016, 19:37

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Time limited. Hmm.... Are you willing to drop money on a tutor? There are many ways of studying for the GMAT, and of all options, studying with a tutor is the fastest way to improve.

Stn

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29 Aug 2016, 10:01

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Maybe, but not decided yet, really depends on value for money.

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