sapnaj wrote:
Dear gmatclub community!
My night sleep has been taken away due to a strange and unfortunate event of GMAT. I was scoring good in practice tests , and reached till 600. while in actual test I could only make a 310. the computer screen at that time wasn't less then any electric shock. yes nerves took the best of me. Agreed but in addition to that I have found out a pretty confusing weak area of mine. I am doing the hard questions right and I am liking them, while I am unable to solve the easy ones. I am already in the MBA program on a conditional admission and I have one more (last) chance to clear my GMAT. I need a 400 only to continue my degree. In case I dont get it, i will have to fly back home. its pretty much of a do and die situation. I want expert advice and recommendations for this situation. Study is not my problem and I went with a firm mind that i will get no less then 500.
Dear
Sapnaj,
I'm happy to respond.
Unfortunately, this is all too frequent an occurrence. Folks do well on GMATPrep, and then get nervous and have much lower performances on the real test. Very common.
You see, in taking a test such as the GMAT, there are both cognitive and emotional component. The cognitive components are skills such as knowledge of the content, question strategies, interpretation of information, etc. etc. The emotional components are skills such as managing anxiety, remaining centered, mindfulness, etc. Folks typically devote 100% of their study time & effort to the cognitive skills, and completely ignore preparing their emotional skills, and not surprisingly, they are entirely emotionally unprepared for the real GMAT. I am not suggesting that GMAT preparations should be 50% cognitive and 50% emotional, but in order to succeed on the GMAT, student have to do some amount of significant and meaningful emotional preparation.
Getting hard questions right and easy questions wrong is a classical failure of mindfulness, an inability to remain present to what you truly know and what is truly being asked in the present moment. No one can automatically go from zero to expert in mindfulness all at once, but its something one can practice and in which one can improve over time.
Here are a set of four blog articles that discuss the emotional preparations for the GMAT:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/overcome-g ... y-breathe/https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/beating-gmat-stress/https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/the-gmat-b ... g-picture/https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/zen-boot-c ... -the-gmat/You will also find a number of articles about content and study strategies on that free blog: those articles may help you also. From your description, it appears that you have already done substantial cognitive preparation, and the emotional preparation is what needs work.
Best of luck to you, my friend. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Mike