My brain fails to understand on what happened in my GMAT

Question

I am an Indian and took GMAT today. ( first attempt) Following is the breakdown of my score i received Total 610 ( 64 percentile) IR - 8 ( 92 percentile ) Q - 40 (47 percentile) :cry:

V - 34 (72 percentile) My GMAT prep score ( all under test conditions) & I trained for GMAT for last 2 months. ---- Gmat prep 1 - Q(49 ) v (37) gmat prep 2 - Q(48) v ( 36) Gmat 4 - Q(49 ) V (31) Gmat 5 - Q(48) V (33) I am not able to stop crying for last 20 mins ( am writing this from my bathroom) I know i rushed a bit in Quant section initially ( and towards the half i got questions that were too easy.. ) however don't know why i scored so badly. Thinking the reason, makes my brain freeze and pushes me to more depression. 11 years ago i completed my university , i do accept that my Quant concepts are not that robust however such miserable score gives me shivering . I wanted to get a decent 680 however it seems un-acheivable with my caliber... I don't know what to do now ...... it is quite tragic and i feel very ashamed even to share the score (experience) with my family members. Is there any way GMAC can share what happened in the test ? Are there any tips to come out of this depression ? How to dissect on what happened ? regds kumar

samusa · Answer

I am not sure but I think that you committed a number of silly mistakes in Quant. Your Verbal scores seems to be almost in line with your GMATPrep scores.
Also many times that scores on GMATPrep test are inflated because some questions that appear on the GMATPrep are the ones you hav solved on these Forums.
Also, I guess mistakes in the first 10 questions do carry more damage.

GMAT works this way-

Easy questions = huge fine, small bonus. 
Hard questions = small fine, big bonus.

It is important to avoid silly mistakes especially on the easy questions.

And there is no point in getting depressed. GMAT is not a game of life.You can always re-attempt .Schools will always take your best score.

So cheer up and move on.And do read the following story of a non-native who made it in his fifth attempt-( nw tats called perseverance and never give up attitude ... these two things matter more than intelligence and luck)

O0rangez · Answer

thank you sami . I feel better that someone is hearing me .
I am going to doctor now as i feel am not doing ok.

Thanks again.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kumar,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. Your practice CAT scores clearly show that you're capable of scoring at a much higher level. 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.

If you can answer a few questions, then we should be able to figure this out:

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, listen to music, etc.)? 
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once?

On Test Day:
1) How long was the ride to the Test Center from your home?
2) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test?
3) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks?
4) Did you finish any sections early?
5) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)?

It's possible that you just had a "bad day"; but if we can figure all of this out quickly, then you shouldn't wait too long to retest.

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

raarun · Answer

Hi Kumar,
I am not any GMAT expert. I am sure you have a lot of advise in GMATCLub itself to do lot
of introspcetion.You can start with the points that rich has mentioned above.

One thing i know is the emotions you are going through. I was exactly in the same boat as you are now.
I am engineer ,NITian ,you can imagine i am a decent student but scored a 41 in quant which i could not digest at all
Verbal 23 / Math 41 and over all 530.That was five years ago. I tore my unofficial score report at the test centre
I was so disgusted i shut off myself from the entire world and was so ashamed of myself.
It took me five Years to start my prep again ,when i look back the way i reacted now its Hillarious.
I did not have the balls to start over again any time sooner
Plese do not do the same mistake as i did. Take a few month break (1 or 2) so that
you can forget few things and start over again

Please remember
GMAT IS JUST A TEST . IT IS JUST A F***ING TEST. IT IS NOT A MATH OR ENGLISH TEST.IT IS JUST A LOGIC TEST.
A TEST (FIRST TEST) CANNOT DETERMINE WHAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF.

-Arun

O0rangez · Answer

appreciate your reply.

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
Yes . Always made sure i took the entire CAT however for essay i spent 10 mins only.
2) Did you take them at home?
Yes
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
No
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, listen to music, etc.)? 
Well during initial GMAT preps (1 &2 ) i took a longer break and didnt have ear plugs on
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once?
Yes only GMAT prep 1 & 2 not the purchased 3 &4

On Test Day:
1) How long was the ride to the Test Center from your home?
It was a walk of 8 mins
2) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test?
During verbal section , the person sitting next to me was typing noisily and i had to hold the ear plugs 
3) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks?
during first break was thinking about IR ... but did not prepare my mind for Quants section. I took it easy
4) Did you finish any sections early?
Quant i had 40 sec left , probably gmat gave me too many easy questions. Usually when i took test at home i had to guess atleast 4 quant question to finish in time.
verbal i had to guess 4-5 questions but did not guess the last two
5) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)?
For verbal - 4-5 questions guessed
For Quant - 2-3 questions guessed during mid-time as i felt it was difficult however not continuously

One of my main problems during the study was 'missing what the gmat question ask (or) assuming quickly something else ?' i fell for this trap quite often.
when i started IR and verbal (during the actual test) i prepared my mind not to fall for trap (at least for CR and RC) however i did not do it for quant section .
i took the quant section for granted however not due to over confidence ,perhaps of brain fatigue and wanting to finsih the section quite fast

regds
Kumar

O0rangez · Answer

appreciate your reply Arun.
Well , the disappointment is primarily because , i imagined myself to be in a higher league but GMAT punishes you and makes you even more humbler.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kumar,

The extra information you've provided is helpful in that it points out some of the areas of your approach that didn't properly prepare you for the Official GMAT.

The only real way to measure your progress during your studies is to take FULL-LENGTH CATs under 'test-like' conditions. That means that you have to take the ENTIRE CAT, away from your home, at the same time of day as your Official GMAT, without doing anything unrealistic (such as retaking a CAT that you've already taken, pausing the Test, eating/drinking while taking it, etc.). The more 'differences' there are between how you take your CATs and how you take the Official GMAT, the more likely that your CAT scores are inaccurate (and the scores are usually higher than they should be).

The GMAT is a specific 'event' which you CAN train for, but there were too many differences in how you took your CATs, including:

1) Retaking a CAT you've already taken. You would have come across questions that you had already seen (and you might have remembered the correct answer) - this changes your response time, stress levels, pacing, etc. In almost all cases, this leads to an unrealistic, "inflated" score result.
2) Taking the CATs at home. There's a big difference between a neutral location and one where you feel is familiar/comfortable.
3) Taking the CATs at different times. Humans are 'creatures of habit', so you might have been subconsciously training yourself to perform better at a different time of day.

Thankfully, almost all of these issues can be dealt with if you just take your CATs in a more realistic way. You have to PLAN to make your CATs match the Official GMAT in every way possible. The good news is that 610 isn't that far off from a 680+, so you can still hit your goals in a reasonable amount of time.

Have you scheduled another Test Date yet?
What practice materials did you use during your studies?

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

O0rangez · Answer

Good day Rich, I just noticed - Just like your name your GMAT score too, is quite rich

As always - thanks for replying . Have you scheduled another Test Date yet? --> no. not yet rich ... thinking about it itself makes me crumble . given my experience , I am planning to write to the US govt to replace capital punishment with GMAT

Maybe after a couple of tequila shots i will gather some courage. What practice materials did you use during your studies? --> self-study with MGMAT SC,OG 13 & verbal review 2nd edition . Looking back now, i feel that i didn't have a structured and organized approach. I still don't know how to get into such a framework. So , as a first step to assess myself , I have ordered the enhanced score report of my recent exam from GMAC (25$) I will share with you and to the forum the report , perhaps , the experts can advice me properly. Meanwhile, can i bother you with some questions (1) You say " Retaking a CAT you've already taken. You would have come across questions that you had already seen (and you might have remembered the correct answer) - this changes your response time, stress levels, pacing, etc. In almost all cases, this leads to an unrealistic, "inflated" score result." ---> Makes sense .Now that i exhausted all the GMAT prep CATs ( prep#1 to prep#4 ) how would I evaluate myself again ? This "inflated" score you mention is a concern for me as i experienced a considerable difference in verbal scaled score, prep#1 v(39) vs prep#3 (v 31) . Do you have any alternatives for such full length CATs , perhaps an amnesia inducing drug

? (2) Many times during my study i get lost - i mean , i would stare many hours at the answer explanations in OG for a particular incorrect question (eg: triangle inscribed in a circle) . After some point of staring , I get convinced that i understood the concept . Next day or few days later , i encounter another triangle question (this time circle inside a triangle ) and i flunk again. My staring process continues. This is not limited just to quant but for all topics i tried to study. To make matters worse , the timing pressure adds another dimension to this problem. I really could not judge why i flunk in a particular question . Was it a timing problem, conceptual problem or low IQ in that topic ? What is the correct approach for this issue i face ? Do one need to take one topic at a time , become master at all possible concepts associated , train for pacing and then move forward ? or is there another efficient way ? (3) When do you suggest i re-take the GMAT ? what is the litmus test for it ? hope i am not disturbing you very much regds K

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kumar,

If you could get your Official Quant Scaled Score up to Q48+ and keep your Verbal Score at its current level (or possibly squeeze a few more points out of this section), then you could hit your score goal. Given your practice scores, you could easily retake the GMAT in a month and be done.

When it comes to CATs that you can purchase, there are a variety of respectable CATs available. While none of them is an exact match for the Official GMAT, they are all reasonably close. There are sets of CATs available from Kaplan, MGMAT and Veritas.

I think that you probably understand most of the content that you'll be tested on just fine, but it's the way you 'see' the GMAT (and respond to it) that's causing you some problems. In that way, your problems are more of a 'tactical issue' than an 'intelligence issue.' Your next round of studies should be focused on practicing tactics (by extension, this will also help with whatever pacing issues you might have).

Given all the information that you've provided, I think that the EMPOWERgmat Quant Score Booster would benefit you greatly. Most of our clients can complete that Study Plan in under a month, so you could retest relatively soon.

When are you planning to apply to Business School?

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

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