Need help - verbal score plummeted

Everyone has a one-off where they fall flat or achieve beyond their skill set. That said, nerves probably contributed to this. Now that you have taken the exam, taking it again will cause less stress, most likely. This will in turn, hopefully, allow you to achieve your average verbal score.

As stated above, attaching an ESR would allow people to help break down where you were weak and how to improve. But don't feel pressured to get an ESR just for the sake of posting it here. If you feel confident you know where you went wrong, then go with it.

Hi chaitali05,

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 V25. 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, 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.

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

Hi chaitali05,

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.

It's worth noting that your prior 700/Q49 is an outstanding Score, so you can comfortably apply to any Schools that interest you. As such, a retest might not be necessary. That having been said, there's no harm in retesting - but you'll have to train to hone some specific Verbal skills before you can lock in a Score that's much higher.

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) On what dates did you take your prior 2 Official GMATs?
2) How long have you study before each Official GMAT? How many hours do you typically study each week?
3) What study materials have you used for each attempt?
4) On what 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)?

Goals:
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

Your quant scores are excellent and perhaps you do not require additional practice, except for occasional revisions.

Regarding Verbal:.

Use of third-party verbal materials is not a good idea. Most of these materials are of poor quality and they do not adhere to GMAT standards.

You are likely to get erroneous confidence from using above materials. Official Guides are your best sources.

For quant, third-party materials can be very useful. For verbal, practice from OGs.

Last time your scores were 700 (twice), so you are capable of achieving the same levels again. GL!

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Hi,

Please find below the response to your questions:

Studies:
1) On what dates did you take your prior 2 Official GMATs? - I took one last August and then in December
2) How long have you study before each Official GMAT? How many hours do you typically study each week? - I studied for approximately 1.5 months with about 2 hours on weekdays and 6 hours on weekends
3) What study materials have you used for each attempt? - I have used E-gmat for both my attempts
4) On what 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 gave CATs on weekends. Below is a summary of my scores and performances

09-Jul-19 Sigma X 620(Q46,V29)
28-Jul-19 Sigma X 720(Q49,V39)
04-Aug-19 Sigma X 640(Q50,V28)
10-Aug-19 GMAT prep 1 730(Q50,V38)
11-Aug-19 GMAT prep 3 730(Q51,V37)
13-Aug-19 Sigma X 720(Q50,V38)
15-Aug-19 GMAT prep 4 730(Q50,V38)
18-Aug-19 GMAT prep 2 730 (Q51,V36)


Goals:
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School? - I am targeting R1 and R2 this year
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to? - Ross, NYU stern, Chicago booth, Yale, Darden, Tuck are on my current list.

I am trying to attach my ESR but It's not allowing me to upload my ESR. I'll share the details of my ESR in a post below.

Hi, I am unable to upload my ESR so pasting the details of the verbal part of the ESR. Looking forward to any helpful advice.

Sub section ranking:
CR 53rd; RC 35th; Sc 39th

Subsection Time:
OA: 1:44; CR: 2:07; RC: 1:42; SC: 1:30

CR: Analysis 75%, Construction/Plan: 50%
RC: Inferred idea: 40%, Stated idea: 60%
SC: Grammar 62%, Communication: 50%

Percent correct:
First: 62% Correct, 38% Incorrect
Second: 71% Correct, 29% Incorrect
Third: 43% Correct, 57% Incorrect
Fourth: 50% Correct, 50% Incorrect
The average time it took you to respond to the first set of questions presented was 2:17, the average time for the second set of questions was 2:27, the average time for the third set of questions was 1:25 and 0:50 for the final set of questions.

Regards,
Chaitali Pandit

Hi,

Thanks for motivating me . Also I do agree with you. That's why i completed the OG for quant and verbal before I used the material from E-GMAT. I actually did practice the OG material and for timed practice I used the wiley online and also the app. Maybe I should go through it again before my next attempt.

Any suggestions on the approach or strategy that I should follow for preparing verbal this time?

Regards,
Chaitali Pandit

Hi chaitali05,

Before you can add attachments to your posts and PMs, you first need to have at least 5 posts in the forums. If you would rather not go through those extra steps, then you can feel free to email me your ESR directly (at Rich.C@empowergmat.com). Either way, I'd need to see the FULL ESR to properly analyze your performance (and sometimes how you perform in the Quant section can help to explain how you performed in the Verbal section).

Many Test Takers spend 3 months (or more) of consistent study time before they hit their 'peak' scores. From what you describe, you studied for just 1.5 months before each of your 3 Official GMATs - before taking time off and restarting your studies later. As such, that might help to explain why you have not scored higher YET. You might just need to longer study period to properly hone your skills. That having been said, I have a few additional questions about your prior studies:

1) Since you studied for the GMAT 3 times, how many times have you taken either of the 6 Official GMAC CATs?
2) What other 'brands' of CATs have you used - and have you taken any of those CATS more than once?

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

rich thanks for the revert. I have emailed you my ESR along with the replies to the questions you asked in this post.

Regards,
Chaitali

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