From 730 in Mock to 660 in GMAT

Question

Hello !

I gave GMAT thrice - 600 (V26 Q47) , 600 (V31 Q 42) and day before 660 (V31 Q49) - in one year span. Before my last attempt , I bought exam pack 1 and gave exam 3 on 8th July 2018, scoring 700 (V34 Q50 IR7) and gave exam 4 on 15th July 2018, scoring 730 (V40 Q49 IR8). Both these tests were given in exact GMAT like conditions. I was confident of scoring 700+ in official test, but as mentioned I ended up with V31, which brought my score to 660. I have given GMAT club quant tests and scored in the range of Q 47 to Q 50, so I am not worried for the Quant part. But I need your friendly advise on why my Mock score and actual score has a huge difference in Verbal? Or shall I book one more attempt ASAP and give Mock 5 and 6 prior to that? 
In my last Mock following was my Verbal 40 break up (SC 11/14 CR 7/9 RC 12/13)

Need some expert comments and guidance.

PS: I have completed E-GMAT verbal online course as well. But that was before my 2nd attempt (saw a 5 point increase in Verbal in 2nd attempt)

Thanks.

adkikani · Answer

Dinkar

Have you tried getting your ESR for any of your attempts? 
Please try posting the same to get better insights in your 
actual exam performance.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi DinkarDK,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. A 660/Q49 is still a strong score though (it's near the 80th percentile overall), so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice Business School. 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. If you can answer a few questions, then we should be able to figure this out:

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as when you took your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? 
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE (re: on a prior CAT, in an online forum or in a practice set)?

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

DinkarDK · Answer

Hi ! 
Thanks for your time.

Please find answers to your questions:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)? ->  I took mocks in the sequence Verbal + Quant + IR, similar to my actual GMAT attempt. But in practice mocks I did not write essay.  
2) Did you take them at home? ->  No. I joined a classroom coaching and went to give my test in the classroom test hall. I also switched my location for both mocks. 
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as when you took your Official GMAT?-  Yes. I gave the mocks on same time as my GMAT exam schedule.  
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? -  No. I never paused and I took 8 minutes break, similar to GMAT.  
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE (re: on a prior CAT, in an online forum or in a practice set)? -  No I took both Mock 3 (700) and Mock 4 (730) for the first time and I saw no repeat questions from my online forum practice.

DinkarDK · Answer

Hi Thanks for your time.
Please my ESR attached herewith.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi DinkarDK,

From your prior post, there weren't any obvious 'red flags' about how you took your CATs, so I have a few additional questions about the lead-up to Test Day and Test Day itself:

1) What did you do in the 3 days before your GMAT?
2) How did you sleep the night before your Test?
3) How long was the ride to the Test Center from your home?
4) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test?
5) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks?
6) Did you finish any sections early?
7) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)?

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

DinkarDK · Answer

Hi

Please find relevant answers to your questions:

1) What did you do in the 3 days before your GMAT? 
 3rd day before exam -I solved official questionsfor both Verbal and Quant
 2nd day before exam -I gave a Mock 4, scoring 730.
 One day before exam - I was not well(Cold and body ache), took medicine and slept off. Did revision in the evening. 
2) How did you sleep the night before your Test?- I slept well as medicines were with high dose.
3) How long was the ride to the Test Center from your home? -About 2.5 hrs
4) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test? - No
5) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks? - Went to washroom, came back and had a chocolate, drank water - Same for both breaks
6) Did you finish any sections early?- No 
7) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)? Yes In both sections, for last 8 questions I had to rush. initially I had good speed but in the end I was rushing in both sections and I took few guesses as well.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi DinkarDK,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. Based on what you have said, it does not appear as though your score dropped on the GMAT due to nerves, so it’s entirely possible that the verbal on the real GMAT exposed some hidden weaknesses that were not apparent during your previous round of studying.

To work on getting your official verbal to a 40+ score, you have to go through GMAT verbal carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to find weaker areas, learn all about how to answer questions of types that you aren't that comfortable with now, and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving your score up point by point.

For example, let's say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: strengthen and weaken the argument, resolve the paradox, find the conclusion, must be true, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why you didn't get it right. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what, if anything, you would have needed to know in order to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.
 
Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see and types that you would rather not see and that there are types questions that take you a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to efficiently answer questions that currently take you five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, make some more areas stronger.
 
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 the 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 at least around 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better.
 
So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and, when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently.
 
The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.
 
In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new verbal and quant materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for  verbal courses .
 
You also may find it helpful to read my article for more information regarding
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT .

Feel free to reach out with questions.

Good luck!

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