Mock vs real gmat score difference!!

Hi Kavya2024,

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 550. 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?

Hi Kavya2024,

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. From our prior discussions, I know that you've been studying for about 2 months at this point, but I have a few additional questions:

1) When did you take your 1st Official GMAT and what were the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for that 580?
2) How many hours do you typically study each week?
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)?

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

Yes i think i spent too much time on first questions because at 21st question i realised that I had only less minutes and more questions. Buti don't why i did that i was trying to be as fast possible since the beginning and this hasn't happened to me in mocks

Thanks for your advice I'll look into these materials

I can understand Kavya. This article would hopefully help you introspect.

All the best!

When did you take your 1st Official GMAT and what were the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for that 580? - Around march 20th. Q48 V22 i think
How many hours do you typically study each week? - I think 20-25
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)? - I took one in starting march in which i scored 670 (Q49 V33) AND in one i scored Q49 V34(680) and in latest(about 8 days back) i scored 690(Q48 V36)

Hi Kavya2024,

Sorry about how things went with your GMAT. There could be a couple of reasons for the discrepancy. You can go through the article below to understand what could have caused the drop in the score.



Before suggesting you anything, I would like to know

• whether you used the right methods to solve questions in the mocks
• did you get lucky with a few questions as in did you get a few questions right by guess-work or solved using the options?
• What was the breakdown in mocks and the actual test?

Do let me know these details so that we can narrow down the exact reason for the drop. You can write back to me here or a better way would be to get in touch over a call and discuss the same. You can use the below link to get in touch with me.

Hello Kavya2024,

A score of 550 in the Official GMAT tells that basics are intact, and the ground is prepared. Now you need to practice hard and hardest level questions and take as many mock tests as possible.

Also, I fully understand your frustration because, with my GMAT tutoring, guidance, and counseling experience, we have to accept a fact with a pinch of salt that diagnostic/ mock test scores are above then what one should expect in a real test. There is often dropping in the score. Some students have even experienced a drop of 100 pointers. It is one of the realities, and your preparation should not sideline this fact.

A couple of things that can be a noticeable barrier to your scores would be some or all of the below.

• No expert support (maybe) who can tutor, analyze, and guide you during your learning, especially on hard level questions while stably hitting middle-level questions.
• Lack of many updated questions and practice in the recent exam trend
• Not well aligned with time to solve questions.

We would recommend you make a note of various possible combinations of your target score. The possible scores will help you track your performance after taking the mock or practice test. It will also help you maintain balance in both the sections, and you will always be in a great position to allot the study hours to a specific area accordingly.

The possible score combinations for 700 or 700+: Q should be Q 49, 50, 51, and V should be V38, 37, 36.

You can try our free diagnostic test and receive a comprehensive study guide by topic. receive. This test will clearly help you understand your weak areas.

You can schedule a Comprehensive counseling session for 30 mins with one of our experts:https://calendly.com/mathrevolution/1-on-1-session for detailed advice on your current study plans.

You must schedule your day smartly to revise the topics and also practice more questions. We would suggest you register with MathRevolution https://www.mathrevolution.com/member/signup to get access to our 7-day full on-demand course (27 topics, 490 subtopics, and 1,500 questions) for free trial lessons. 700+ level questions https://www.mathrevolution.com/gmat/questionbank are separately available, too.

Since we are a math expert, we will recommend you go through our post on the GMAT club: Breakdown of GMAT math questions and types: https://gmatclub.com/forum/overview-of- ... l#p1641411.

Follow the same procedure for Verbal. You may access a lot of free materials available on the GMAT club for Verbal.

In the end, make sure you have an error log for every day. Keep checking your performance by attempting as many mock tests as possible.

Regular tests will reflect the positive change in the score, and hence, your confidence will boost up. Gradually, with the help of mock tests, you will be able to compete with time and hence will be able to learn time management.

We appreciate your time and patience in reading this reply.

Should you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@mathrevolution.com.

Success is within your reach.
Good luck!

Math Revolution Team

Hi Kavya2024,

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

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

Aswesome. I'm here if you need me.

I am sure that's an understatement Kavya.

This article will help you introspect in terms of what possibly could have gone wrong.