Need guidance for my next attempt

Question

Hello Everyone,

Hope you are all doing fine.

I recently got done with my second attempt and I am not sure where I am going wrong. I would really appreciate it if you could help me with your tips and also guide me on what should be my next steps. Below are my scores of all the mocks I have taken and also of the official attempts.

GMAT 1 - 640(V34, Q44). PS - Wrote Quant first
GMAT 2 - 650(V28, Q49). PS - Wrote Verbal first

MGMAT1 - 650(V34, Q44)
MGMAT2 - 670(V34, Q47)
MGMAT3 - 680(V36, Q47)

GMAT Prep1 - 710(V38, Q49)
GMAT Prep2 - 720(V39, Q49)

I have been preparing for the last 8months and have been practicing well on all fronts but one thing which I would want to add here is I am very bad at handling exam pressure. In both the official attempts I barely slept for 3hrs. Also, I was very anxious when I started my exams so I feel it generally affects my first section performance.

I would really appreciate it if you could help me and guide me on what to do. I am planning to write my next GMAT during the last week of August as I want to apply in R1.

Thanks and Regards

bansalgaurav · Answer

Exam pressure can be really noticed in your GMAT score as compared to the mocks. 
 Well an ESR report shall help better.   Following two things helped me a lot to ease down the exam pressure (just see if it works for you too) :
1: Daily morning Medidation. Since you could not sleep well before the exam, I suggest you to go for one before sleep too.
2: Teaching somebody for GMAT (it helped me to build my confidence immensely). It eases down the exam pressure and makes the study more playful. If you do not get a teaching buddy then try making a Youtube video. (I know it may sound distracting, but that's the point. You need to focus on GMAT and distract from its pressure)

It would also be helpful if you can mention your weak areas, depending on your performance in final GMAT exams.

It would be great if you can mention whether you gave GMAT at a centre or online at home. 
One of the advantages of giving GMAT online at home is it removes the pressure to a great extent.

But if you wish to give it at the centre, then  it would be great if you can give mocks at some centre.   Many coaching institutes allow that. It shall help you rehearse for the D Day.

Do let me know if it helps as many students face the same issue  !!!

EducationAisle · Answer

You have scored reasonably well in Quant and Verbal  separately .

It's just a matter of giving this performance in the  same  exam:(.

kntombat · Answer

Hey  hiddenpackage , I think the experts ( ScottTargetTestPrep ,  MartyTargetTestPrep ,  bb ,  IanStewart ,  AndrewN , @CrackVerbal) will be really helpful to solve your conundrum.

IanStewart · Answer

It appears your true level right now is around Q49/V38, which is excellent. But it also sounds like your test day performance has been affected by test day anxiety, which is a common issue. That's the most important thing to address right now - buying new prep products won't help.

I'd generally look outside the GMAT world for advice about how to manage test day stress. It's a psychological question that specialists study for years, and GMAT experts generally have no qualifications in the area. If you can find any advice online from genuine psychologists about how to best manage stress, that's the advice I'd be most inclined to rely on.

It also sounds like it takes you some time to settle in on test day. Often people should start with their weakest section first, when they're least tired and most able to concentrate. But I've seen people in your situation as well, who seem to underperform early in the test. Unless you're substantially affected by fatigue late in the test, you might then consider ordering your sections so the least important sections (AWA/IR) come first. Naturally you should experiment with any changes to section order or strategy using an official diagnostic prior to making any decisions about test day. Good luck!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi hiddenpackage,

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 V28. 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:

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