I got a 650 on gmat, what should I do?

Question

Hi, just took the gmat today and got a very surprising score of 650 (Q51, V28). I was targeting a much higher score(around 740+). I have been prepping for gmat for the past 5 months. In the mock tests which I gave, I got an average of 700 and when I gave the 2 Gmat prep tests I got 730(Q51, V38) and 740(Q51, V39).

I don't know whether it was exam pressure or something else. But I'm very disappointed and now I'm thinking to retake the gmat.

Any advice on whether is it worth it to retake it or not and also what should I do to improve my verbal score?

thanks

Sahigmat · Answer

I experienced this too and I am on my journey to retake as well. I worked for good 6 months and turned blue with my result. It happened to me because of exam pressure and poor time management. I am still working on those.

You asked if it is worth to retake? Yes totally, It is quite natural to give 2 - 3 attempts for a 700 - 730 score. This answer may differ depending on the colleges you aim to go in. If you are aiming and reaching 700+ in mocks, I assume you are aiming for top Bs only. For that, It is totally worth it!!!

Sahigmat · Answer

I used EGMAT. It was good. But expensive to buy for verbal alone. So I am using these question banks I found on GMAT club. They are amazing. Hope they help you.

SC:  https://gmatclub.com/forum/sentence-correction-oldy-but-goldy-question-banks-212199.html#p1634093

CR:  https://gmatclub.com/forum/critical-reasoning-oldy-but-goldy-question-banks-212197.html#p1634090

RC:  https://gmatclub.com/forum/reading-comprehension-oldy-but-goldy-question-banks-212198.html#p1634091

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi prashitjain,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day did not turn out better - although a 650/Q51 is a solid Score and it may be enough to get you into your first-choice School. 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:

1) Over the last 5 months, how many hours did you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used? 
3) On what dates (or approximate 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)?
4) What is your overall Score Goal?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

If you took your GMAT at a Test Center, then 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

prashitjain · Answer

Hi Rich, first of all, thanks for assisting me 
These are the answers to the questions you asked
1. On weekdays- about 2 hrs and on weekends-about 5.
2. For practicing I have used all the 3 OGs(Overall, Quant, and Verbal). I have taken free mocks on Kaplan, Manhattan, Veritas, ExpertsGlobal, and the 2 GMAT prep tests.
3. I started taking tests around 2 months ago with around a 1.5-2 weeks gap between any 2. I don't have the exact scores now but as I remember them the Quant score was always 49+ with verbal score varying. My scores in these tests in chronological order were ExpertsGlobal(690), Kaplan(630), Manhattan(720), Veritas(710), GmatPrep1(730 with Q51, and V38), and last GmatPrep2(740 with Q51 and V39). For the GmatPrep tests, I know how many questions I did wrong in each of the three sections for verbal. If you want I'll post this too
4. My target for GMAT is 740+.
5. I'm targetting HSB, INSEAD, MIT schools and preferably would like to apply in the 1st round.

For ESR- I took the Online GMAT and I'm not sure but ill check if I can get this for online exam

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi prashitjain,

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

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. The good news is that you crushed quant, right? That said, I understand that you are not satisfied with your verbal score, so the question we need to ask is why you scored so high on your practice exams but lower on the real 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 V28. 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.

For some more advice, here are some helpful articles:

how to score a 700+ on the GMAT

How to Score High on GMAT Verbal

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I got a 650 on gmat, what should I do?

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