Major drop in mock score

Question

I have been reattempting official practise tests 1 and 2 so far. Everytime the questions would change. I took test 1 today. My score had plateaud at 585-615. However, today i scored a horrible 535 which was a steep drop from 605 two weeks ago. I have been prepping since January aiming for a decent score by August. I feel hopeless. Is there any good course to improve my verbal and di? I have attempted test 2 twice and test 1 thrice. My scores were 335, 615, 585, 605, and 535 today.

SarfrazAP · Answer

The most important question is how have you prepped so far? What practice material have you used and from where have you done the concepts? And is there any particular section or question type that you are struggling with? I wouldn't read too much into just one score drop though. For all you know, the next test will be back to 605.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi Prak0709,

I get how a score drop can be demotivating. The important thing right now is to analyse what happened in this particular test and continue working on your weaknesses.

You have plenty on time (in fact, you may want to consider targeting June or July instead of August). Hang in there.

Prak0709 · Answer

I had done plenty of silly mistakes. I have no idea why I did some of these questions wrong. I was anxious while solving the questions which made me do silly errors. Then there were questions from previous tests for which I was not able to remember the answers. I had a hectic week prior to that day and that might have played a role. I plan to take a course online to sharpen my skills from scratch.

Prak0709 · Answer

I have been referring to the official guide and Gmat club questions, along with GMAT ninja videos.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Prak0709,

I'm happy to advise you on how to improve your verbal and DI skills.

Verbal

To increase your verbal score, you must identify your exact weaknesses, fill in any knowledge gaps, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to find weaker areas, learn all about how to answer questions of types that you aren't that comfortable with now, and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving your score up point by point.

For example, assume you begin studying Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to master the individual Critical Reasoning topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why you didn't get it right. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you would have had to know in order to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.

Regarding RC, when students get those questions wrong, it’s partly because they don't truly understand what they have just read. To understand what you are reading, you may have to slow down even more (for now) in order to eventually speed up. You have to learn to comprehend what you read, keep it all straight, and use what you are reading to arrive at correct answers.

At this point, your best bet is to focus on getting the correct answers to questions, taking **as much time as you need** to see key details and understand the logic of what you are reading. If you don't understand something, go back and read it one sentence at a time, even one word at a time, not moving on until you understand what you have just read. There is no way around this work. Your goal should be to take all the time you need to understand exactly what is being said and arrive at the correct answer. If you can learn to get answers taking your time, you can learn to speed up. Answering questions is like any task: The more times you do it carefully and successfully, the faster you become at doing it carefully and successfully.

Another component to understanding what you are reading is being “present” when reading. Don’t worry about how things are going at work, or what you will eat for dinner, or even how long you’re taking to read through the passage. Just focus on what is in front of you, word by word, line by line. Furthermore, try to make reading fun. For example, even if you are reading about a topic that bores you, pretend that you are the person making the argument. By doing so, you will make the passage more relatable to YOU, and ultimately you should be able to read with greater focus.

One final component of Reading Comprehension that may be tripping you up is that RC questions contain one or more trap answers that seem to answer the question but don't really. So, a key part of training to correctly answer RC questions is learning to notice the differences between trap answers and correct answers. You have to learn to see how trap answers seem to follow from what the passages say, but don't really, while correct answers fit what the passages say exactly. Of course, the better you become at noticing the differences between trap answer choices and correct answers, the faster you will answer RC questions.

Here is also a great article that you can check out:

How to Score High on GMAT Verbal on the Focus Edition

Data Insights

When students struggle with DI questions, the first thing I always ask is whether they have fully completed their quant and verbal prep. Not doing so can really affect how well you handle DI questions, as many of those questions involve quantitative and verbal concepts. So, would you say you are in that boat?

In addition, one way to improve each individual DI question type is to engage in topical practice. Doing so lets you pinpoint your weak areas in JUST ONE question type. For example, when practicing TPA questions, perhaps you see a pattern that you struggle with 3-part ratios or weighted averages. If you can find those micro weaknesses, you can fix them in real-time and thus improve your accuracy in DI questions..

Lastly, when working on DI questions, for the time being, make sure to practice them untimed so you can focus on JUST accuracy. As you become more familiar with these question types and get more accurate, better timing will follow.

For more advice, check out this article:  How to Prepare for GMAT Data Insights

Feel free to reach out with any additional questions.

Major drop in mock score

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