Hi,

I have taken the GMAT twice in the last 6 months, scoring the same 660 twice. (I have taken GMAT once earlier in 2019 but cancelled the terrible score I got.) I guess that two 660s are better than one, for this represents that I did not give up. But I wonder what did I really gain.

Devoting over two years in GMAT preparation, I feel slightly disappointed. One reason is that I believe sincere prep, perseverance, resilience, practice, and review help us to improve and gain mastery but I cannot support this principle with my GMAT scores. I scored V33,Q48 last October and V31,Q49 yesterday. Between these two tests, I reviewed concepts and practiced strategies from Veritas Prep Books, PowerScore CR, RC Bible and GMATClub. I took several mock tests from Veritas Prep, Kaplan, and Princeton Review. I was scoring in the range from 650 to 720. Once I started scoring 700s in Kaplan and Princeton Review, I chose to take the real test. I targeted a score from 690 to 740. I booked the test two days prior to the appointment. Although, on the test day, I felt a little nervous, I was able to keep my nerves. I improved my quant score from 48 to 49, and IR score from 2 to 6 while reduced my verbal score from 33 to 31. In the verbal section, I worked with strategies and concepts in mind. I applied the pacing strategies that I had learned from the Manhattan Prep and practiced in mocks. Yet the verbal score proved so unrewarding. How much of GMAT would really pays off!

To continue preparing for another attempt at GMAT is to feel rather frustrated after preparing so much from 2018 to now yet improving only little or nothing in verbal reasoning. I am not scared of another less-than-targeted score. I am not scared of another round of hard work but at my wit's end.

Nevertheless, I improved my reading and quantitive skills a lot. I can see this in my daily life. I feel great about this. This has strengthened my faith in the process of learning. I have started to love reading books. My Goodreads list has over 50 read books in the last one and half years. I have started to pursue various online courses, which I was not able to comprehend so well, failing to develop sufficient interest to finish the course. I feel that my situation is only going to continue to improve as I move towards my goal of pursuing MBA.

A friend who joined me in this GMAT journey last year and scored a 740 suggested another way to deal with my current situation. I think his suggestion is sensible but I'm not sure how it will turn out. He advised me to take another GMAT in the next few months before another cycle of admission begins, without preparing for the exam or targeting a 700 score. He observed that I studied every possible concept and strategy but on the test day, I am not able to bring that out in my performance somehow. I agree with him. His suggestion rests upon the assumption that by not preparing and not taking any stress, I will be able to take the test with a more calm mind, bringing the best out of my preparation already done so far. Even if I fail to do so, two 660s are already there to apply for the admissions. Indeed 660 is not a bad score to apply with.

I am interested to move on to the next steps in the admission process. I want to get over with GMAT prep now and approach applications more open-mindedly. Only if admission cycles were not ending this time, I would have taken this direction immediately. Since I have so much time (based on the ideal timeline of MBA admissions) before I can take the application process ahead, I am bound to think of more ways to approach MBA applications. My friend is applying for another job. I don't want to go in that direction but focus on building a strong candidacy despite of a not-so-brilliant score.

I invite your comments, suggestions and conventional or unconventional ideas. I come from a middle class Indian society. Applicants coming from this personal background often lack imagination in planning a career. They expect MBA to land them to high salaried jobs. I don't blame them. In a place where jobs are scarce and one has to struggle so much to gain social mobility, high salaried jobs is all they would want above all. Although I am not very different from those kind of applicants, I don't want to fall in the same line. That's the reason I come here to write this. I hope to gain better understanding and motivation.

Thank you.

I'm in a similar place as you in terms of GMAT Prep. I got a Q47 and V30 on the actual test.

The big underlying issue not talked about for the verbal section is you have to have a strong enough foundation in liberal arts, science, and business to understand the sentences you're reading. I started using an app called Crash Course. What I have been able to do with this app is learn completely new subjects such as Biology or US History in 2-5 days. I've become much better at answering reading comprehension problems after using the App and would suggest giving it a try.

Hi Parth,

Last October, when we discussed your ESR for your 2nd attempt, I suggested that you reach out to discuss your profile and application plans with an Admissions Expert. Did you ever end up seeking out that specific advice? If you have not, then I want to reiterate that a 660/Q49 (or 660/Q48, since those results are almost identical) is a solid Score - and depending on your profile and application plans, it may be enough to get you into your first-choice School.

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Your 2nd and 3rd Official Scores show that you essentially performed the same each time (660 +/- a few Scaled Score points). You handle certain aspects of the GMAT consistently well, but you also make certain consistent mistakes. There's no inherent harm in taking the GMAT again based on the ideas that your friend described - but it seems pretty clear that your current way of 'seeing' (and responding to) the GMAT will likely get you a 660 again (give or take a few points). You're as close to a 700+ as you were back during last October, but the fact that you earned an almost identical Score 4 months after your 2nd attempt implies that you may have developed some 'bad habits' during the last 6 months that are keeping you from scoring higher. You could potentially hit your Goal Score in a month, BUT you have to focus on honing some specific skills - and essentially changing your 'default ways' of handling Verbal questions.

Since you are not facing any immediate application deadlines, you can proceed in a variety of different ways. The logical next step would probably be to put together a list of Schools/Programs that interest you and see how the Admissions Experts assess your overall profile with a 660. If they advise that you retest, then that's probably what you should do - and then we can discuss how you might best proceed with your studies.

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

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 practice exams under realistic testing conditions, the results show that, on a good day, you are capable of scoring higher than V31. 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?
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My only comment would be immense admiration for your fortitude and determination.

After such a grueling regimen of preparation and multiple attempts that did not yield the intended results, you still have the mental stamina to say this:

I am not scared of another less-than-targeted score.

To me, you are already a winner and have all the reasons to be proud of your efforts!
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Good to know about your journery with GMAT. I am yet to give a GMAT test but still I feel that I am also in a similar situation.