I did a blunder in Gmat, should I go for the earliest Retake?

Sure. I think the GMAT algo penalizes one for picking many wrong answers back to back. It is possible you answered the last six questions incorrectly, but I am not sure that would have reduced your score from say a 40 to 27. Maybe the experts can help here. One thing I have learned is that the last set of questions are easy to medium questions so getting them wrong carries a heavy penalty. I think fixing your pacing (by letting questions go earlier on in the test) should help you.

Do you plan to get your ESR? The ESR might provide some insights on the number of questions you got wrong in the last quarter. You can post your ESR here when you get it, so the experts can advise you accordingly.

Cheer up mate. I think you are closer to your dream score than you realize. Use this as the experience that will help you conquer GMAT on your next attempt.

daagh GMATNinja egmat can anyone please help?

Actually I cancelled my score. If I want an ESR, I would have to first have to get my score reinstated, then ESR. And I believe it would take 20 days for all of it as i read somewhere that it takes around 20 days for the official score to come out, and only after that ESR can be generated.

If experts throw some light here and it turns out to be an issue of timing, I would give the GMAT again in 15 days

mikemcgarry souvik101990 EMPOWERgmatRichC can anyone please help?

No, you do not need to reinstate to get your ESR. I did the same thing for my last attempt and still got an ESR.

I am sure the experts will provide some helpful insights.

Cheers!

Connor1396, you might want to check out this article: https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 46658.html. The part about repeated GMATPrep tests obviously isn't relevant, but maybe something else will ring a bell?

Also, keep in mind that an adaptive test like the GMAT is ridiculously sensitive to sloppy errors on questions that are easy for you. So the difference between, say, a 35V (your second-best ever) and a 27V is smaller than it might seem. You don't have to falter all that much to drop by those ~8 points -- you just have to falter in exactly the wrong places. The ESR isn't magical, but it will at least help you sort out when you made your errors on the exam, and on what difficulty level of question.

I hope this helps a bit, and good luck with your retake!

Hi Connor,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT.

The good news is that you scored really well on quant, right? That said, I understand that you are not satisfied with your verbal score, so the question we need to ask is why you scored so high on your practice exams but lower on the real 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 V27. 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.

The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. When you do dozens of questions of the same type one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better.

For verbal specifically, you have to become more skilled at clearly defining the differences between trap choices and correct answers. Otherwise, as you experienced, 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 my article with more information regarding
how to score a 700+ on the GMAT helpful.

If you’d like more specific advice on how to improve your quant and verbal skills, feel free to reach back out. Good luck!

Hi Connor1396

I am sensing bit of panic from your posts.
Please do not - The path ahead can be dealt with in more calm and subtle manner.



That is not the case. As per this post
and official post from GMAC,
you can get an ESR for a CANCELLED score within 24 hrs of your purchase.
Lots of confusion shall be cleared once you / forum experts
introspect ESR.

Once again, wishing you good luck for your retake.

Dear Connor,
Did you prepare yourself or did you take any tuition from any institute or guide?

Hi daagh

I prepared myself using various sources.

1) Sentence Correction: For Concepts - MGMAT SC, For questions - Official material & gmat club.
2) CR - For concepts: Powerscore Bible, For questions - Official material & gmat club.
3) RC - I was good at this, my focus was on practice and analysis.

4) Quant: I was good at this, my focus was on practice and analysis.


Besides solving questions and revising concepts, my major time spent on analysis. This was the reason that official material looked sufficient.

Thank you so much GMATNinja
I totally agree and I am definitely taking an ESR. I feel it would help me answer a big question about where the problem lies. Also thank you for throwing light on the possibility of a score falling from V35 to V27 due to sloppy errors. This really helps.

Connor, Hi!

I thought as much. Can I give you a small piece of suggestion that you may take or dump?

Have you ever wondered why we use mirrors in our lives? One can shave even without a mirror but we still do use mirrors.

IMO, you only depended upon yourself to deal with GMAT. The most you could know was that something went wrong, only because you did not get the right score and not because why it was wrong.

Suggestions

1. Reg: SC. Please take the help of some good guide or an institution that can tell you how sufficient is your knowledge, what is wrong with your perceptions, and what is wrong with your approach. Learning from the right person is not an expense but an investment.


2. With regard to CR, I think you have done the right thing by falling upon PowerScore for concepts. I might even suggest that with that knowledge, you might extend practicing from some LSAT questions especially on weekeners, strengtheners, assumptions, Paradox, Evaluation and flaw.

3. Reg: RC. I suggest you practice with only official passages, that too toughest of all. Only the official passages reflect the psyche of GMAT and its vibe.

4. Please believe me when I say that, as of now, a 700+ is only a little more travel away, possibly the toughest trail of your journey. Nevertheless, please appreciate that the quality and quantity of your output is only proportional to the quality and quantity of your inputs.

Best wishes, my friend