Huge difference in GMAT practice tests and actual GMAT score

Question

Hi everyone,
This is Neha. I recently took the GMAT exam (29th July, 2020). At the end of the exam, I was shocked to see a low score as compared to my scores on all the mock tests I gave previously.
To brief up about my preparation:
1. I self studied for about 3 months- Resources used: Manhattan guides, OG 2017,2018 and 2016, 700-800 level Practice questions for quant and verbal. 
2. Few video tutorials from Veritas and E-gmat on Sentence correction as that was my weakest area. 
3. GMAT club practice questions for both quant and verbal
4. Mock test every 8 days for 6 weeks- GMAT official mocks
5. Few unofficial mock tests from other GMAT prep resources like Veritas, Kaplan, Experts global (all free trial ones)

I'm writing my scores in chronological order:
1. Veritas trial 1- 590- Q44 V27 (This was when I had completed about 30% of my preparation, just to see what are my strengths and weaknesses 
2. Veritas trial 2- 620 Q46 V30
3. Gmat official 1-650 Q49 V30
4. Gmat official 2-690 Q49 V34
5. Gmat official 3-710 Q48 V38
6. Gmat official 4-660 Q48 V33 (Drop in score because I couldnt finish quant section and ended up marking last 4-5 questions without reading)
7. Gmat official 5-660 Q46 V35 (Drop in score because I couldnt finish quant section and ended up marking last 4-5 questions without reading)
8. Kaplan trial test-690 Q47 V38
9. Experts global trial -710 Q 47 V41 (4 days prior to exam)
10. Gmat official 6-750 Q50 V42 (3 days prior to exam)

After my last practice test, which was 2 days prior to my actual test, I felt that I was ready for the test. To my absolute surprise,  I scored a 640 Q45 V34 on the test day. 
  A few things that I felt could have gone wrong on my part:
1. Whenever I gave practice tests, I might have had 1-2 repeated questions(not more) per exam, I marked the right answer and moved ahead without waiting for 2 minutes which ended up giving me extra time for remaining questions
2. I never reviewed my error logs, somehow kept procastinating it, and this might have led to repeating my mistakes on test day.
3. I did not time my quant practice questions, which might have led me to believe that I am able to solve questions but in real I might not be able to do them in under 2 minutes or so.

On the test day I chose the same sequence that I chose for majority of my practice tests (Q-V-IR-AWA). I have given all my tests on the same time of the actual tests and tried to take timed breaks as much as possible. I even gave the mock tests wearing a mask at home since I would have to do so on the actual test day. 
In general I felt the quant section was tougher in real than the practice tests. I genuinely felt that the practice test questions were not actual representatives of the questions I faced on the test day. At the end of my quant section, I was already slightly depressed because I knew I had not performed well. 
Nevertheless, I told myself I wont let this affect my performance for upcoming sections. I thought I did fairly well in verbal section and was expecting a 38-39 (minimum) score in it. Anyway, it is what it is and now I have decided to retake the test in about 4 weeks. I am totally clueless about a preparation stratergy now. Since I have exhausted all official tests, it would be futile to give those tests again to evaluate my ability level. Can someone please help me out with what should be my approach now?
All help would be very much appreciated.

GeorgeA11 · Answer

From my analysis 1. You did the test @ home.. So its in your comfortable space.. When you did the GMAT.. even though its @home.. there is an additional stress element.... So i would deduct 20 points from your last mock.. Hence 700- 730 should be your expected score. 2. Were there any repeated questions in your mocks??? 3. Free tests from various companies.. would comprise easy to medium difficulty level questions.. So those questions wouldn't show tough GMAT questions 4. overconfidence in math?? 5. I feel only when you are getting 720+ in 3 or more tests consistently, you can expect 720 in your actual exam So what you should do now. 1. Take a break for few days. Don't think of GMAT. party!! 2. After you feel..you are ready. Revise rules,error logs, concepts.... 3. You have exhausted your mocks.. so even if you do official mocks. questions will repeat.. I would recommend that you buy a test series. 4. Work on tougher questions in quant and verbal from whatever source you have... Any other help let me know.. we can chat further... Best of luck on GMAT (part deux)

George - GMAT coach...

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Neha,

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. 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) How many hours did you typically study each week?
2) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
3) You mentioned that you had seen some 'repeat' questions on your CATs/mocks. Were these CATs that you had taken before or did you see certain questions in the forums here (or in practice sets, etc.)?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

You might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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

tetraneha · Answer

Hi Rich, 
To answer your questions-
1. I studied for about 28-30 hours a week. 
2. The following are my test dates for the 10 tests mentioned above (I have mentioned the split score
 above:
 12/5, 13/6, 22/6, 27/6, 4/7, 11/7, 18/7, 22/7,25/7 and 26/7
3.The repeat questions I saw were mostly ones in previous CATs only. I particularly do not remember seeing any questions from elsewhere. 
4. My goal score is 770 and I was confident enough that I would atleast score a 750.
5. I'm planning to apply for 2021 and admissions for that would start by September 2020. So ideally it would be best to give the exam in the next 4-6 weeks.
I did go through the ESR. Let me know how you can help me analyze the same. Thanks a lot

tetraneha · Answer

Thank you for your insight George. I also feel that I probably was overconfident in quant. I'll try to do the things you have mentioned.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Neha,

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Assuming a similar 'swing' in how your CATs function, most of your CAT score results - along with your Official Score - show that you essentially performed the same each time (about 670 +/- a few points). The 750 is an interesting outlier - but since you scored 660 just one week before, the idea that you improved 90 points in just one week is dubious. You handle certain aspects of the GMAT consistently well, but you also leave yourself open to making certain types of mistakes.

As an aside, the 770+ score is above the 99th percentile - meaning that 99% of Test Takers never score that high (regardless of how long they study or the number of times that they take the GMAT). Thankfully, NO Business School requires a score that high - so it's important to realize that the score that you might "want" and the score that you actually "need" to get into your first-choice School are not the same thing.

Since it sounds as though you have purchased your ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you. If you would rather not publicly post it, then you can feel free to PM your ESR directly to me.

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi tetraneha,

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 640. 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, particularly in verbal, 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, particularly for verbal, 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.

For verbal specifically, you have to become more skilled at clearly defining the differences between trap choices and correct answers. Otherwise, you will get stuck guessing between two choices or be surprised to find that you incorrectly answered questions that you thought you answered correctly. Becoming more skilled in this way takes carefully analyzing all of the answer choices to lots of verbal questions to develop an eye for the logical differences between the choices. In other words, you have to go beyond answering practice questions and reading explanations to doing deep analysis of questions to learn to see everything that is going on in them.

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 it helpful to read the following articles:

how to score a 700+ on the GMAT

Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?

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

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Neha,

I've sent you a PM with an analysis of your ESR and some additional notes and questions.

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

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi Neha,

Sorry to hear that you could not score well on actual test even after putting so much effort. But don’t get disappointed. An improvement is always possible if you identify what went wrong and try to work on them. Let me share a few insights on how to do that.

First of all, it is really necessary to identify the reasons behind the drastic difference between your mocks and the official one. I can think of two possibilities:
  One reason might be the nervousness on the test day. It is quite common to feel nervous on the test day and if that is the reason, then I guess you are good to go for a retake. This time make sure you take the test with a relaxed mind. 
 The other reason might be you are not likely following a specific approach for all the tests. If your approach is not consistent, then I think there is some work to do.

I understand that you used official resources and a few random tutorials. These resources might provide you with great GMAT questions but to score well on GMAT, you need to have the right strategies. And to get to the harder level, you need make sure that you get easy-medium questions right. And just the basic tutorials won’t help you learn the right methodology required to solve GMAT questions.

What should be the plan now? 
  In the 1st week and 2nd week, dedicate your time to verbal. Work on one topic at a time and take sectional quizzes. Then move to the next. 
 3rd week you can dedicate to quant. 
 The next week you can start giving equal time to quant and verbal. You can take a mock in this week and analyze the performance. 
 The next week, you can start taking mocks for every 2 or 3 days and analyze the score pattern. 
 Once you start getting consistent scores, you can book a slot.

What should be the focus while preparing: 
An error log is really important. I recommend you to analyze your error log and identify the areas in which you are not able to perform well. Once you identify the areas, identify if it’s the conceptual knowledge you are lacking in that area or the application. Start working on that and learn the right methodology to solve those questions. This will help get the answers right and also help you to solve questions under optimum time. You must be wondering what do I mean by the right methodology. There can be many ways to solve a particular question. But the best way to solve a question is identifying what the questions is asking, identify the underlying concept and then solve for the solution. Let me give you an example using SC module.

If you are approaching the SC questions from a grammar stand-point, I suggest you to change your approach. The SC questions test your ability to convey the right meaning without ambiguity. On the actual GMAT, you are likely to come across a few answer choices which are grammatically correct and convey a logical meaning, but actually are incorrect. So, it is important to approach the SC questions from a meaning stand-point and then eliminate the answer choices which are grammatically incorrect and do not convey the intended meaning. You can understand the gist of it by watching the following video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SGA8bwFNJM

Similarly, in quant, GMAT doesn’t test you just on the concepts, it tests you on the application of concepts. So, even if you are strong in concepts but your application is weak, it would only fetch you a score of 600-650. To get to a level of 700, it is really important to know the right methodology to solve questions. For example, what is your general strategy to solve DS questions?
  Read the question stem 
 Jump into the statements 
 Solve individual statements and determine which is sufficient

Now let me tell you how a student who knows the right methodology solves a DS question.
  Reads the question stem 
 Perform a certain pre-analysis on the question stem and determine what exactly is needed 
 Solve individual statements to know whether they provide the information required  These are just a few examples of using the right methodology. If you wish to know more about this, you can schedule a free consultation call. I have provided the link to schedule the call at the end of this post.

Having said that, how do you go about learning the right methodology? Is there any effective way of doing that? 
Yes! The best way to learn the right methodology is to learn the concepts along with the methodology. And to understand where you are going wrong while solving questions, it is really important to refer to the detailed solutions and compare your approach with the right one. This will help you nullify the gap gradually, making sure that you master the skill of using the right methodology.

The need to use the right resource: 
As you now understood the importance of using the right methodology, it is equally important to use the right resource to learn that. The resource you use has to teach you the concepts methodically and also the right strategies. It should help you solve GMAT like questions and also provide you with detailed solutions. The best way you can learn the right approach is by referring to the solutions and comparing your approach with the right one. It should help you identify your weaker areas and work on them. So, make sure to choose the right resource this time and start studying from it.

To suggest you in a better way, I would need you to answer a few questions.
  What was there any specific approach you were following to solve quant and verbal questions? 
 If yes, did the approach change every time or was the same in the mocks and the actual test?

Answers to these questions will help me guide you in a better way. You can write back to me here or a better way would be to discuss this over a call. In my journey, I have helped many students improve their scores by more than 100 points by helping them plan their studies effectively. You can schedule a free consultation call to discuss things, using the below link. Hoping to hear from you soon.

Click here to schedule a call

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