GMAT score analysis

Hi Tamal,

1. Don't overanalyze the verbal portion of this ESR. For example, knowing that the score for stated idea is 60% or that for grammar is 66% is not going to help: the overall percentiles for RC and SC are 7 and 22 respectively, so using this ESR to identify weak areas is not going to work.

2. You got 5 (out of 8), 3 (out of 7), 1 (out of 7), and 4 (out of 8) questions correct in the four sections in the ESR. The third and fourth sections hurt your score badly and the average difficulty went below average as a result. Remember that making a number of mistakes in a row is likely to lead to accelerating score drops.

3. You lost a lot of time in the first two sections (2:39 and 2:46). Frankly, I'm amazed that you managed to get 5 questions right with an average of 0:17 in the last section. Your ESR shows only a few seconds on the incorrect questions in this section. Did you have to randomly mark answers to finish the test?

4. Don't be afraid to let some questions go. Getting stuck on an RC is really not going to help. You had also left yourself too little time to understand that RC you got in the third set, as you spent close to 78% of your time on just the first 15 scored questions.

Clearly, you can do better than an 11 on verbal. You do however, have to make sure that you don't compromise your performance because of timing issues on your next attempt. I know there is a lot of advocacy for the initial questions on the forums, but I would strongly urge you to avoid going down that path. Taking extra time on the initial questions is a very risky strategy, and the only people who can afford to take a lot of time on the initial questions and still maintain their accuracy under time pressure later on are those who don't need to take that extra time in the first place. Please take a look at this timing strategy and consider some of the points it tries to address when making your strategy for the next attempt.

As for concepts, analyze some tests that didn't have any repeat questions to get a clearer idea about your weaknesses (don't generalize on the basis of just one test). It'll be safer to give equal attention to all the question formats in verbal (SC, CR, and RC) though. Make sure that you are getting the concepts from a reliable source and that you are understanding those concepts.