GMAT Taking it after 2 Years today - still bombed

Hi DeepBis,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Your 3 Official Scores show that you essentially performed the same each time (about 650 +/- a few points). You handle certain aspects of the GMAT consistently well, but you also make certain consistent mistakes. It's possible that you've gotten 'stuck' at this particular score level - and that 'your way' of handling Test Day is keeping you from scoring higher.

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) What were your Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores on your first 2 Official GMATs?
2) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
3) Are these 5 CAT Scores the only ones from your recent studies? If there were others, then on what dates did you take EACH of those other CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

Edit: To keep privacy.


What I did find was timing was an issue in the two practice GMATs were I scored mid-600s, today, my timing was fine, but I think in the first 10 questions, I made more mistakes than I normally do. Moreover, I think I rushed some of the questions, and was making strategic guesses, I do think the nerves really got the better of me slightly today.

Thanks for your kind words. I find my Quant roughly varies between 45-48, so I was focusing on the Verbal, and when I can hit a high percentile, I was getting the 700 + scores, but when I wasn't i.e. today, my scores dropped. Had, I scored a 49 on Quant today rather than 44, it would have been enough for me, however, I don't know where I will get the best returns.

Just to say, I have booked in again for the 25th of October, I really believe I can do it, and it's become a psychological block on the day, I think the two main areas where I need to work on is getting slightly faster on the verbal (SC has been a particularly weak area of mine) and bumping up the Quant to a 48/49 consistently.

This will require much deeper analysis, but for now, here are some thoughts.

This may be cold comfort to you but unknowingly, you "proved" that the GMAT scoring system is relatively accurate in the sense that your scores over two years remained relatively the same. If we are to take GMAC's reasoning, then this implies that your abilities as measured by the test did not statistically change at all.

So this tells me that it is not the preparation materials that could make the difference, although they do play major roles. One of the keys may lie in *HOW* you are preparing. This is a complex topic and every testtaker must analyze themselves and come to honest assessment.

Is it possible that despite the cumulative hours you put in over two years, that your inherent abilities have stagnated? Please don't take this the wrong way. The good news is that your abilities have not reduced. In fact, I feel that you have the potential to go higher but only if some changes are made. Cheers.

Thanks for your thoughts.

What I will say is that 2 years ago, I hadn't scored above 700 in the mocks. This is a new phenomenon. My verbal has definitely improved, but I think I need to become more consistent at both SC and RC.

I actually have not found Magoosh terribly helpful.

Posted from my mobile device

Hi DeepBis,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your 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 V36/Q44. 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, 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 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.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant and verbal courses. You also may find my article with more information regarding how to score a 700+ on the GMAT helpful.

If you’d like more specific advice on how to improve your quant and verbal skills, feel free to reach back out. Good luck!

Hi DeepBis,

I've sent you a PM with some additional questions.

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