GMAT Online - What We Know [Master Topic]

After reading these stories of other pro GMAT tutors seeing their Verbal scores drop on the GMAT Online, I know that many readers are going to ascribe this "increase in Verbal difficulty" to the online GMAT itself. However, in my opinion, this is something that has been true of the GMAT for the last 3-4 years or so.

My first GMAT Verbal score (January 2012) was V48, which usually correlates to only one question wrong out of the 30 counted questions on Verbal. Since then I've scored V40, V42, V46, and V47...but I've never quite reached my 2012 peak, when (in my opinion) the GMAT Verbal was much easier.

So am I getting dumber, or is the Verbal getting harder? Draw your own conclusions. Keep in mind that since 2012, my average Quant score has risen from Q47 to Q50.

TL;DR: Yes, Verbal is getting harder, but that has been true for the last 3-4 years.

Or may be the slumdog millionaire situation happened to you in 2012.
Coz it is fairly possible.
It happened to me to but with Quant in test 6

As I scored a Q51 and then on next Q50. (2 mistakes v 5 mistakes)

I don't think verbal is getting harder at all. It was always hard - and there is a highly acceptable standard deviation for GMAT sectional scores.

Question: are the current practice exams from GMAC a good indication of the verbal difficulty. Or is the real exam harder ?

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I took the test on Monday and I recieved the scores today, 750 Q 50 V 42.
My last practise scores were a bit higher, especially on Verbal (43 to 46).
The online whiteboard was not so terrible, but I practised a lot the week before the test.

basus: I took all six official practice tests before I went in for the real thing. My Verbal scores on those practice tests ranged from 42-47, with an average of around 45. I ended up scoring a 41 on the real thing, which I think was slightly harder than the practice tests. Specifically, I found RC passages to be more dense and their associated questions noticeably harder than what the practice tests had conditioned me for. CR and SC were pretty much the same, but I have always done well on SC, so my judgment might be skewed.

My recommendation: invest $49 in Manhattan Prep tests, and take them under timed conditions. They come closer in simulating the real thing.

Agreed. I definitely wouldn't attribute my verbal drop to a drastically different difficulty of questions. If anything, the only feasible "difference" in the online format that might make sense is a a smaller, dedicated bank of questions focused more on precisely scoring middle-level performers and thus, potentially a bit more penalizing for errors among top performers. (Basically, a bank more limited in exceptionally challenging questions that skews toward a much higher accuracy level required for high verbal score-seekers.) That said, I went from missing zero questions to missing well, not zero questions. So, clearly my performance waned. That said, I definitely wouldn't let this discourage or scare other test takers. This drop was way more likely due to the fact that:

-I didn't prepare... at all. I get it, I see this stuff every day. But there's a big difference between moving through questions that you've primarily seen many times as a test prep expert, or even developing questions yourself, and practicing new questions in a test environment.

-I went in with the focus of trying to figure out procedures, expectations, and how to tackle the online whiteboard so I could pass this along to students. So, I definitely hit a few questions that I didn't love initially and pivoted past more quickly than I might have if I were looking to beat my last score. Instead, I focused far more of my effort on thinking through whiteboard use in Quant, some of the frustrations of the online format and interface, and honestly... that probably shifted my focus away from verbal in a way I hadn't anticipated or put much thought into when sitting for the test. I was definitely way too eager to get through the section and use my remaining verbal time to continue to fiddle with the whiteboard and reason through strategies and how to minimize some of the bugs I encountered.

-I likely underestimated the fatigue factor. I definitely figured that dealing with this stuff most of the day every day would be enough, but after sitting staring at the screen for an hour before the exam even started and then shifting immediately from Quant to Verbal, I definitely hit a point where I was ready to be done and reporting back to others rather than re-reading (and re-typing when, on occasion, my work was deleted). (Not to mention... I was seriously missing the snack/bathroom break that usually accompanies this point in the test!)

Is it still a little strange that my verbal score sat so much lower than it has in any practice test or official exam I've ever sat for... sure. Is it even stranger that the drop was a whopping 10 points from my most recent V51 from only about a year and a half ago? absolutely. But I *definitely* don't think that's reason to assume that the difficulty has shot up or changed in any meaningful way. While I have some suspicions that the bank size, and particularly the availability of high-level questions might have been more limited in the online format (GMAC hasn't specifically addressed this one way or the other... totally speculation on my part from how scores have been trending), I quite honestly attribute my score change to the fact that I used this test to experiment around with the format and almost definitely let the strangeness of attempting to adapt to the online whiteboard in Quant shift my focus away from the precise attention (and time!) the Verbal deserved.

Please don't stress your verbal performances on my account folks - you've got this!

Does anyone know if it's possible for GMAC to tell if you have two monitors while taking the test?

The display on my laptop is damaged so I use an external monitor. However, my webcam is on my laptop, so my laptop would have to be open and on for them to monitor me. I emailed GMAC about this and received no response, so just curious if anyone knows the answer.

Yeah I totally agree with VeritasPrepHailey on the above. To be honest I noticed that more on the Quant side than the Verbal side. It was very clear to me that there was wide range of difficulty on the Quant section - there were definitely very hard questions but there were also very easy ones and I got the impression that the pool of questions might just be kind of shallow and that there weren't enough really hard questions in all of the necessary categories.

BUT! I also have to say that I noticed that the last time I took the GMAT as well and I remember thinking at the time that when GMAC shifted from the 30 or 31 day wait to the 16 day wait between tests, it probably put such a burden on the company to continually produce new questions that the pool would probably be a little thinner.

That said, this is all a lot of guess work and none of it matters that much anyway. The only way I can think of it making much of a difference is to say that it might be worth taking some shots on the harder questions and spending more time there with the knowledge that there will probably be some easy ones that can be tackled more quickly down the line (I am thinking more of the Quant section here than Verbal, but the same probably holds true of Verbal). I didn't really follow that advice on my Quant section because I didn't want to fall too far behind and didn't know what to expect, but I ended up having time to spare, time that I could have applied to some of the questions I had rushed.

So I would echo what Hailey wrote and say that there is no reason anyone should stress the Verbal section any more than they normally would. And the way the Online GMAT is being dealt with by GMAC, the test is really like a freebie (it doesn't count towards the 5-times per year limit, you don't need to send the score, etc.). I understand that some people need a score right now and they need it to be great, so I don't want to minimize the stress anyone is under (I was extremely nervous taking the test and am not even in the situation that most people are in when taking it), but for anyone who doesn't need an immediate score, the test is really an opportunity to give it a try without a whole lot of downside (besides the $200 of course!).

I studied for two and a half months and on Monday I took the test for the first time and received my results today, 690 (Q49 V35).

It was actually above the previous pratice tests I did, 620-660. I usually scored between Q49-50, so I kept the same average. The only change in strategy during the online test I did was to guess some time consuming questions of quant, trying to improve my accuracy on easy and medium questions. So I finished the quant section 6 minutes before to rest for the verbal one. It really made some difference on my verbal section. As my verbal level is not so good, I can't say if the online test is more difficult, for me it was the same level.

About the whiteboard...Maybe for those who want to reach Q51 in quant, it can be a problem. But if you practice at least once before, it is totally manageable.

I thought the experience was really good... I actually prefer to do it online than go to test centers.

Thanks so much for sharing! I take it you are pretty happy with the score? Why did you take the GMAT now instead of waiting a bit?

You applying right now or in R1 next season?



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I'm applying for the R4 MSc at Bocconi. So, I had no other option. I'm happy with the score, I think it's ok.

I confess that I was quite afraid of this online test, because I used physical paper a lot.

In fact, the experience was great! Taking the test at home is priceless. I managed to go jogging in the park three hours before the test to get rid of anxiety, listen to cool music before, leave the table and computer ready the day before.

The advantage you can gain psychologically, for me, more than makes up for some online GMAT cons.

Kindly get a friend to lend you his/her laptop okay (just for this test)
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Hi ysh0109,

We cannot use an external monitor.

I did it last Friday and still haven't received my scores...

i got 690 in the online GMAT... i never took one in a test center before so cant really compare my score. my practice tests were between 680 and 730 so I scored somehow in the lower range of that but still okay...
Q49 and V35... i thought i would do much worse in quant due to the whiteboard situation but Q49 is pretty much what I also get with notes taking... verbal score dropped a bit even though i didnt really expect that.

I tried to take the GMAT online today. I had previously taken all of the proper steps in preparation and running the system test. I went through the process of taking photos of my work station and sent one message to the proctor.

Then my screen went black with the mac pinwheel. I could see the button to click chat and the window of me being recorded but that was it. I was on that screen for about 45 minutes.

Spent 2 hours on the phone trying to talk to them about it. Last I was told was that they would get back to me in 5 business days to determine if I could reschedule.

Big bummer...

Has anyone else been through this process? How will they contact me?