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Paradox between official mock score and actual GMAT (online) score
[#permalink]
08 Jul 2022, 04:16
08 Jul 2022, 04:16
1
Kudos
Hey everyone,
I gave my official GMAT(online) exam on the 27th of June and scored 650 (Q50 V28). I was really shocked to see the score, given that I was scoring above 700 in my GMAT mocks.
My score on official GMAT mocks-
Practice Exam-1: 700 (Q51,V35)
Practice Exam-2: 740 (Q50,V39)
I gave mocks (of some test-prep) and scored 730,710
I find a serious dip in my verbal score, although I was constantly scoring above V34 in my mocks)
I have no idea what went wrong and it's like a paradox puzzle for me (in which, I can't find the flaw
)
Please help me to find the way forward. I'm sure that I'm not the first one to face this situation.
I gave my official GMAT(online) exam on the 27th of June and scored 650 (Q50 V28). I was really shocked to see the score, given that I was scoring above 700 in my GMAT mocks.
My score on official GMAT mocks-
Practice Exam-1: 700 (Q51,V35)
Practice Exam-2: 740 (Q50,V39)
I gave mocks (of some test-prep) and scored 730,710
I find a serious dip in my verbal score, although I was constantly scoring above V34 in my mocks)
I have no idea what went wrong and it's like a paradox puzzle for me (in which, I can't find the flaw
)Please help me to find the way forward. I'm sure that I'm not the first one to face this situation.
GMAT Tutor
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Posts: 4128
Given Kudos: 91
Q51 V47
Re: Paradox between official mock score and actual GMAT (online) score
[#permalink]
08 Jul 2022, 05:34
08 Jul 2022, 05:34
1
Kudos
Expert Reply
If you can identify something that might have gone wrong on test day (fatigue, hunger, stress, distractions, you used a different pacing strategy on test day, etc), then you should think about what you might do to address that issue. If you can't find any explanation for the underperformance on this test, it sounds like you just had very bad luck -- as long as your diagnostic scores were fair (you weren't familiar with several questions in advance) your Verbal ability is definitely much higher than V28. So as long as you can fix any potential issues unrelated to your ability, you can expect a Verbal score in the V35+ range if you just take the test again in two weeks. Good luck!
Target Test Prep Representative
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Status:Founder & CEO
Affiliations: Target Test Prep
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Re: Paradox between official mock score and actual GMAT (online) score
[#permalink]
20 Jul 2022, 19:03
20 Jul 2022, 19:03
1
Kudos
Expert Reply
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 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.
You also may find it helpful to read the following article:
Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?
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.
You also may find it helpful to read the following article:
Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?
