Mock Tests Vs Real Test - Beaten down and crushed by the GMAT retake

(Sorry about writing such an attention seeking title - but hey, isnt the title or the primary purpose of a passage suppose to capture the main idea?)

GMAT in-center exam date: 11-Sep-2020.
Score: 660 (Q48, V33) - what a shock to see a figure starting with 6xx, after believing that your test went exceptionally well and better than all the previous mock tests!

Mock Test Serial no#, Date, Source & Scores:

[All the dates are for the year 2020]

1- 29 Jul Gmat Prep Mock 1 - 680 (V31,Q50) [Encountered around 15 previously practiced questions]
2- 31 Jul E-Gmat Mock 1 - 600 (Q38,V34)
3- 24 Aug Gmat Prep Mock 2 - 700 (V34,Q50) [Encountered around 15 previously practiced questions]
4- 24 Aug E-Gmat Mock 2 - 610 (Q42,V32)
5- 28 Aug E-Gmat Mock 3 - 670 (Q49,V32)
6- 29 Aug E-Gmat Mock 4 - 640 (Q43,V34)
7- 30 Aug Kaplan-Free Mock 1 - 700 (Q47, V39)
8- 03 Sep Gmat Prep Mock 2 - Reset - 750(V44,Q49) [Encountered around 8 previously practiced questions]
9- 04 Sep E-Gmat Mock 5 - 680 (Q44,V39) [Encountered series of Hard quant questions in a row even when had marked many wrong in between]
10- 04 Sep Experts Global Mock 1- 620 (Q44,V32)
11- 05 Sep Gmat Official Mock 5 - 750 (Q49,V42) [Encountered around 2 previously practiced questions]
12- 05 Sep Experts Global Mock 2 - 720 (Q49,V38)
13- 06 Sep Experts Global Mock 3 - 700 (Q46,V40)
14- 06 Sep Gmat Official Mock 6 - 640 (Q43,V36) [No previously encountered questions]
15- 07 Sep Gmat Official Mock 3 - 710 (Q49,V39) [No previously encountered questions]
16- 08 Sep Experts Global Mock 4 - 660 (Q48,V32)
17- 08 Sep Experts Global Mock 5 - 670 (Q50,V30)
18- 09 Sep Experts Global Mock 6 - 700 (Q50,V34)
19- 10 Sep Experts Global Mock 7 - 740 (Q48,V43)

[One official mock test (#4) is unused and saved for the next attempt]


I purchased the courses and study materials from multiple reputed sources and, having studied for more than 6 hours everyday in the last 90 days, learnt all the basics, but I feel somehow I struggle in application. Primarily in verbal, while practicing, my accuracy in SC is about 85% in medium & 70% in hard questions but in RC & CR it is about 60% overall. So during the tests, which involve understanding the intended meaning in the most crystal clear way possible in just one careful and quick read, I struggle because I tend to re-read the wordy CR & RC passages & questions multiple times, not gathering more than 75% of the inference.

My basics are so clear and strong that I can teach the entire GMAT grammar, except some idioms, CR and, Quant concepts to a newbie Gmat student, but, still, I struggle at application in the tests, being pressed for time.
[yes I have used "being" in the modifier]


Now I am planning to retake the exam in about 20-25 days

02 October 2020: Update in the post:

Retake: 01-October-2020
650 [Q49, V31]

After the first GMAT attempt, I understood my mistakes: Shortcuts and tricks DO NOT work on the GMAT and Official Questions are the most precious resources.
In the first attempt, in verbal section, I did not read the questions for meaning, instead I use to quickly skim through the all the questions and quickly jump to the answer choices and select the "seeming best probable answer" and move on. Although I had put in more than 600 hours of effort while preparing in between June and September 2020, I had focused on learning the rules and the brute force application of those rules and not on "Reading for purpose", not asking myself "why is this written" or telling myself that "Ok, this sentence means XYZ" after every sentence that I read on RC, CR and SC.

So for the second attempt I focused on killing my bad skimming habit and developing a good analytical reading habit - Read with the purpose to understand every word of the RC and CR and to correctly infer the meaning of SC questions and then move to the answer choices - Doing so isn't as hard as it sounds - In fact, if one reads with the said goal, without timing himself or herself, 8-10 questions per day from each of SC, RC and CR either from advanced OG or Manhattan question banks [total around 30 questions] for 2-3 days, then this good habit of "analytical reading" does develop very quickly!

Thus, by 15th September having mastered this analytical reading style and then timing my self with its application (RC reading & Solving 5-7 minutes, SC - 1 mins, CR: 1.5-2.5 mins), I decided to take the second attempt of the GMAT exam on 1st October 2020. For the next 15 days I planned to practice the following on a daily basis:

1. SC: 3 medium level [targeting 95-100% accuracy] and 3 hard level question [targeting 60% accuracy] from each topic including verb tense, subject verb, parallelism, comparison, modifiers, pronoun, meaning, and idioms - this was about 40 SC questions per day

2. RC: Five 700+ level RCs either from OG/Prep material or Manhattan: timing target 5-7 minutes for short RCs and 6-8 minutes for long RCs

3.CR: 15 CR questions [covering all the major CR question types] of difficulty 650-800

4. [alternate days] Write a mock test every alternate day

5. revising quant concepts - every alternate day


I did so, gaining more and more confidence everyday, and gave the mock tests, results as following:

21st September - Manhattan GMAT free mock test 01- 690 [V38, Q46]
24th September - Experts Global mock #08 - 700 [Q46, V40]
25th September - Experts Global mock #09 - 680 [Q48, V35]
27th September - Official GMAT prep mock test 04 [the only remaining official mock] - 740 [Q49, V40] (encountered one previously practiced CR question)
29th September - Experts Global mock #10 - 740 [Q48, V42]
30th September - Experts Global mock #11 - 720 [Q49, V39]

Being 100% confident and excited to kill the GMAT exam, I went to retake the test on 01-10-2020
To my surprise, almost all the SC questions I encountered were so tricky that in not more than one or two questions I was confident about my answers, so I had to mostly mark the best guesses and move on.
RC and CR were comparatively easier - only in one RC and 2 CR questions I was not 100% sure about my answer choice selection.

Quant questions were way harder - the quant section in real exam felt like a Manhattan or E-GMAT quant section: I had to guess mark my best guess for around 5-6 quant questions.

While submitting the test I was expecting a lower quant score (Q45-47) and a higher Verbal score (V 37-40) but damn, there it was again - the bullet in my heart - a 650.. with Q49 (lol opposite of my expectations) and V 31 (whaaat.... even the first free mock test taken within the first month after starting the prep was also V 31)...

There I could see how I had completely wasted 6 precious months of my life by dedicating all my energy on this exam.. going till the extremes and giving it my best possible efforts....

I sat there frozen, my heavy heart crying [look i even know how to use the absolute phrases, still why verbal so low? ]

then, obviously I rejected the score, as it was lower than my first official score 660 and went back home...



I dont know what to do.. what exactly I do I need to do differently to ensure a better performance...
I really dont have any clue about how to and what to prepare for my third attempt [I am not sure whether should I even take a third attempt or not]
Whichever testprep websites I visit, in the trials I see that the test prep companies talk about the same concepts which I have already ingrained in my mind during my 700+ hours of preparations in past months.

Remember that scene from avengers in which the Hulk smashed Loki repeatedly on the floor in the stark tower? - that is exactly how I feel [Obviously I feel like Loki, Gmat=Hulk]


An inference question for those who are reading this post and are still in the early stages of their GMAT prep and for the experts who designed the experts global mock tests -
According to the post, what does the author of this post think about the accuracy of the experts global mock tests? - go on, write your answers in the reply section