Has anyone scored higher on their real GMATs

A few people on this board scored 20-30 points higher than during practice but also quite a few who scored much lower. Lots of factors during test day can make things go either way.

The highest I've ever scored on practice test was a 750 and those were Manhattan GMAT's, which usually have slightly inflated scores. The highest I received on a GMAT Prep two days before my test was a 710. I ended up with a 770 on my official test, so have faith!

Thank you all for your responses. I will try to keep that in mind when I am practicing on my CATs. Sometimes I can get discouraged by not seeing the scores that I am aiming to get, but it is refreshing to know that it is very possible to score much higher on the real GMAT than on practice GMATs.

Got a different range on the MGMAT practice tests, from 650, 680, and 700. GMAT prep 1 got 690, GMAT prep 2 got 650. Got 670 on the real thing. I think the GMAT prep tests are the most realistic tests to take with both the real screens as well as the most realistic questions.

Well I never scored higher on a practice CAT (Kaplan) than a 690 and scored a 710 on test day. That 690 was the last CAT before the big day though. I have not heard of anyone blowing their practice tests out of the water, and killing it on test day. I'd say the largest jump I have ever seen on this board was about 30 points from their highest practice test.

The only exception would be if you are taking old Kaplan CAT tests from circa 2010. These practice tests drastically underestimated your true potential. I heard of people scoring approx 50-100 points higher in most cases with these tests. Kaplan has fixed their algo and they are quite accurate now.

Here I would tend to differ a little with you on this (please see my gmat debrief for more)..I had a max. of 640 on the Gmat prep tests few days back the real test, whereas on the test day I got a 680. More so this variation is high in sub 700 range than high 700's-just gave my Gmat yesterday & got 730 (my mocks on prep test were 720,740 first take & 750,770 retake...

I'm probably one of the unlucky guys then. I think the Manhattan tests overestimated my scores by at least 40 points or so.

My experience was that the Manhattan CATS were a pretty accurate indicator, and I thought the Manhattan Math was substantially more difficult than anything I saw on the actual test.

The "norm" I have heard of is a substantial drop on test day due to nerves, no sleep the night before, etc. (I scored a 700 and 710 on Manhattan CATS and a 700 on GMAC prior to my 1st attempt and ended up with a dismal 650). I took 2 more practice tests over the next month (720 MGMAT #6 and 720 GMAC Practice, both with a pretty decent Q and V split) then ended up scoring a 710 on my 2nd attempt (Q48 V40)

All in all, I found both the MGMAT and GMAC Practice to be very accurate indicators, and the deviation I saw was due to nerves. My advice is to get a good night sleep (maybe schedule the test in the afternoon). Eat some good food and KEEP A COOL CONFIDENT ATTITUDE ON TEST DAY!!!

As mentioned by the above poster, there are other factors involved while doing the real test and persoonally I feel the biggest single contributor is one's temperament. Remamber not loose your confidence, and calm till the test ends! again don't fall pray to victimise yourself, just relax & prepare for a btter tomorrow, this is all I can say!

I scored the average of my GMATPrep practice tests. I scored much higher than my MGMAT CATs. To use MGMAT difficulty rating terminology, most of the hard questions on the actual test seemed to be in the "600" range, rather than the "700" range. I ended up with a score of 750.

WOW, 750 on a Manhattan GMAT would be like a dream score for me. I have never scored more than 700 on my MGMATs , and I am surprised to hear that MGMATs have inflated scores. I always thought they were tough. .
Clearly, an indication that I need to prepare harder.

I know this is an old thread, but I'll reply anyway.

In the week leading up to my GMAT I got a 770, 760, and 750 using the official GMATPrep software, but I ended up scoring higher on my actual GMAT. I was surprised that my trend was downwards, but then pleasantly surprised to break the trend when it mattered!

I scored 160 less than the average of my last 3 CAT's (yes exam conditions--> short breaks, Simulation booklet and so on)

I've seen it happen, but I wouldn't rely on it! There are a few reasons that your score might be different on test day than it was on your practice tests.

your score might be lower on test day if:
- you were taking your practice tests in an inaccurate way (taking too many breaks, eating/drinking during the test, skipping the IR and AWA, etc.)
- you have trouble with test-day nerves
- you try to do something differently for the first time on test day (for instance, you guessed during your practice tests, but feel like you shouldn't guess on test day because it 'counts more')
- you just got unlucky (your score can easily vary by 30 points in either direction at the same level of ability)

your score might be higher on test day if
- 'test day magic': many people actually work better in a higher-pressure, higher-stakes environment. You may feel like everything suddenly 'comes together' when you take the real thing, if you're one of these people
- you find it easier to concentrate during the real test than during practice tests, due to the lack of distractions
- you were taking your practice tests under non-ideal circumstances (for instance, if you took your practice tests while exhausted after getting home from work, but you take your official test in the morning after a good night of rest)
- you just got lucky

In short, it could go either way, and it's hard to say which way it'll go until you actually finish your official test. If you're pretty close to your goal score on practice tests, though, I'd go ahead and take the official test, even if you're not 100% confident that you'll get there. You may very well squeeze out a few extra points on test day. But I wouldn't assume that you're going to see a 50+ point improvement on the official test, either.

Hi David - Curious to know more about the experience with simulation booklet. Is it really different than using paper and pencil ?

its different and you just get 5 pages (as far as I can remember)

Id suggest to buy it


https://www.amazon.de/Manhattan-Simulat ... on+booklet

note that you can use it multiple times


cheers

Thanks David. Sure, will think about it.