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Aceofhearts1
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hey...i'm a first time test taker and in the initial stage of preparation. Where did you get those many mocks? I found two free mocks in official website.
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hey...i'm a first time test taker and in the initial stage of preparation. Where did you get those many mocks? I found two free mocks in official website.

I bought them! You can buy the additional mocks on the official website.

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Hi Aceofhearts1,

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 710. 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:

how to score a 700+ on the GMAT

Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?

If you’d like more specific advice on how to improve your quant and verbal skills, feel free to reach back out. Good luck!
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Hi Aceofhearts1,

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 710. 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.

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

Thank you so much for your kind advice! Will check out the materials

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Hi Aceofhearts1,

First off, a 710/Q49 is an outstanding Score, so you can comfortably apply to any Business Schools that interest you. As such, a retest is probably not necessary. Depending on the Schools that you plan to apply to, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. Those Experts should be able to answer your Admissions questions and help define the specific areas of your profile that could use some improvement. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admissio ... tants-124/

While you have identified some factors that could account for your decrease in Score, we have to be careful about assuming that those were the only factors. 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. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School and 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 you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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Hi Aceofhearts1, I had a very similar experience to you the first time I gave my test. I got a 710 despite score high 760s in mocks. I would suggest you get an ESR. It is a worthwhile investment imo, especially when you aren't sure what went wrong. Feel free to drop a text if you need any help!
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anoushki
Hi, I had a very similar experience to you the first time I gave my test. I got a 710 despite score high 760s in mocks. I would suggest you get an ESR. It is a worthwhile investment imo, especially when you aren't sure what went wrong. Feel free to drop a text if you need any help!

Thanks for your kind suggestion! Did you retake the exam after scoring 710, and what was your score in the second attempt may I ask?

Posted from my mobile device
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Aceofhearts1
anoushki
Hi, I had a very similar experience to you the first time I gave my test. I got a 710 despite score high 760s in mocks. I would suggest you get an ESR. It is a worthwhile investment imo, especially when you aren't sure what went wrong. Feel free to drop a text if you need any help!

Thanks for your kind suggestion! Did you retake the exam after scoring 710, and what was your score in the second attempt may I ask?

Posted from my mobile device

Hi, sure!
I retook the exam after my first score (710 Q50 V36) and got 760 (Q49 V44) in my second attempt.
You can read more about my experience here- https://gmatclub.com/forum/my-journey-t ... l#p2670907 !
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anoushki
Hi, I had a very similar experience to you the first time I gave my test. I got a 710 despite score high 760s in mocks. I would suggest you get an ESR. It is a worthwhile investment imo, especially when you aren't sure what went wrong. Feel free to drop a text if you need any help!

Thanks for your kind suggestion! Did you retake the exam after scoring 710, and what was your score in the second attempt may I ask?

Posted from my mobile device

Hi, sure!
I retook the exam after my first score (710 Q50 V36) and got 760 (Q49 V44) in my second attempt.
You can read more about my experience here- https://gmatclub.com/forum/my-journey-t ... l#p2670907 !

Hi anoushki,

Thanks for your reply! I read your post. Curious to know if you found that there were any difference in difficulty between the 2 GMAT tests you sat for? From your post, it seemed that you breezed through verbal and IR for the second GMAT. Would you say that your score for the first test was lower than your expectations only because the test center setting felt foreign to you, or do you think it was really extra practice that led to the difference?

Based on my experience with the actual GMAT test, I felt that the verbal was more difficult than most of the official practice tests, and the IR was also one of the most difficult. Hence, a part of me is questioning the consistency in difficulty levels of each GMAT test and correspondingly, the extent to which luck plays a role in the score on actual GMAT.

Just wanted to hear about your experience so I can best plan my strategy ahead as I prepare for the retake. Thank you!
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Hi Aceofhearts1,

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 710. 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.

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

Thank you so much for your kind advice! Will check out the materials

Posted from my mobile device

Great! I'm here if you need me.
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Hi Aceofhearts1,
1. Yes, the actual exam feels a notch up than mocks. The reason for this is that the GMAC mocks have been out for many years now and a lot of material we refer to has used and made sure to cover the concepts that the mocks test upon. Hence, unknowingly, stuff feels a little different in the actual exams as you may not really be familiar with a particular type/ concept used in a question. So, it feels 'tougher' at the moment because you need to figure things out, which is the real test.
In objective terms, quant may be slightly tougher in the actual test but verbal is more or less the same as GMAT in a standardized test.

2. Now, coming to variation from one attempt to the other. For Q and V, I found the difficulty level to be similar in both attempts. The second attempt was tougher for Verbal, as predicted because it adapted to my performance.
In my first attempt, yes, I underperformed in Verbal but when I prepared for the second attempt, that's when I realized there were a lot of bases I am yet to cover and I understand in retrospect that even if I hadn't underperformed, I was not prepared for a V44 level anyway. Even if I had the best day the first time, I believe I was more at a V39/V40 level. While after being shattered after the first attempt, my mocks made me believe my score drop was completely attributable to underperformance, the insight that it was attributable to both comes in hindsight,
So, performing better + greater conceptual clarity and accuracy in preparing the second attempt, both collectively played a part.

3. For IR, I would have to agree with you. It wasn't good for me the first time but was a breeze the second time around. I had not practiced for it, as such between the two attempts and I clearly remember the dense convoluted mind-boggling multi-source question I saw the first time. I hadn't seen anything like that before and after wasting a lot of time on it, I realized it's best to just guess and move ahead. So, I skipped all three questions pertaining to this multi-source. Everything else was pretty standard. The next attempt around, there were no curvy balls like the first time and hence I moved easily through it.
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anoushki
Hi Aceofhearts1,
1. Yes, the actual exam feels a notch up than mocks. The reason for this is that the GMAC mocks have been out for many years now and a lot of material we refer to has used and made sure to cover the concepts that the mocks test upon. Hence, unknowingly, stuff feels a little different in the actual exams as you may not really be familiar with a particular type/ concept used in a question. So, it feels 'tougher' at the moment because you need to figure things out, which is the real test.
In objective terms, quant may be slightly tougher in the actual test but verbal is more or less the same as GMAT in a standardized test.

2. Now, coming to variation from one attempt to the other. For Q and V, I found the difficulty level to be similar in both attempts. The second attempt was tougher for Verbal, as predicted because it adapted to my performance.
In my first attempt, yes, I underperformed in Verbal but when I prepared for the second attempt, that's when I realized there were a lot of bases I am yet to cover and I understand in retrospect that even if I hadn't underperformed, I was not prepared for a V44 level anyway. Even if I had the best day the first time, I believe I was more at a V39/V40 level. While after being shattered after the first attempt, my mocks made me believe my score drop was completely attributable to underperformance, the insight that it was attributable to both comes in hindsight,
So, performing better + greater conceptual clarity and accuracy in preparing the second attempt, both collectively played a part.

3. For IR, I would have to agree with you. It wasn't good for me the first time but was a breeze the second time around. I had not practiced for it, as such between the two attempts and I clearly remember the dense convoluted mind-boggling multi-source question I saw the first time. I hadn't seen anything like that before and after wasting a lot of time on it, I realized it's best to just guess and move ahead. So, I skipped all three questions pertaining to this multi-source. Everything else was pretty standard. The next attempt around, there were no curvy balls like the first time and hence I moved easily through it.

Thanks for your detailed reply! For point 2, what did you do to prepare for your second attempt and specifically verbal? I find that RC is not something that I can readily improve on even with more practice questions. Would really appreciate your guidance here!
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AlekhyaDungala
hey...i'm a first time test taker and in the initial stage of preparation. Where did you get those many mocks? I found two free mocks in official website.

Take a look at the big third-party providers of mock tests, like Veritas, Princeton, Manhattan, e-GMAT, The Economist etc. Many of them offer 1 or 2 free mock tests. Note however that these are not perfect substitutes for original mock tests, and that you should take the scores with a grain of salt.
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Kaplan free mock test on 21 Jan: 720 Q47 V41 IR7
Manhattan Prep free mock test on 22 Jan: 720 Q44 V45 IR 8
Princeton Review free mock test on 23 Jan: 730 Q49 V42 IR 3
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