Huge drop in practices to real test...twice!
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30 Dec 2012, 08:49
Hi everyone,
I'm a 24 year old Canadian, with 3 years of management experience and a degree from the University of Western Ontario. I'm looking at getting in and starting MBA programs for fall 2013. I started studying for the GMAT in July with the official gmat guide and Kaplan math guide and wrote for the first time in November. I scored a 430. Pretty brutal, but I thought it was just a bad day and moved on from it and booked a re-test for Dec 27.
Over the next 6 weeks I amped up the studying and was doing well enough. I did the practice tests from the GMAC website and scored 560 on one and 590 on the other. For the schools I'm looking at going to in Canada (Ryerson, Ottawa, Dalhousie) a score of 550-600 would make me competitive enough to have a shot at getting in so I was happy with these practices and ready to take the test.
I went in and scored a 410! I didn't feel nervous or stressed and I have no idea what happened. I know there might be a bit of a drop from practice tests, but to drop that much? I'm honestly at a loss and not sure why there is such a huge gap from my prep and my actual scores. Does anyone have any insight or suggestions? It's getting a bit late to apply now as I'm sure first round spots are starting to get filled and I'm not sure how to get my actual scores up to 550-600, or if its even worth a 3rd shot if for some reason I can't translate practice to the real test.