Took GMAT Today and got a 580 :/ shocked - wanted a 670+

Question

Dear GMAT Club forum, New to posting, so apologies in advance if I am not using the proper protocol. I just got out of the real GMAT and scored a 580 (Q42 V28)

. I am disappointed with my score because I thought I was ready. I did encounter some minor problems during the test: I didn't take my full 8 min break between quant and verbal. I thought I could go back into the testing room and sit on my chair for a couples min before starting the next section, but my testing aid logged me in immediately and had to start the verbal section. I also ran out of time in the verbal section and guessed on 3/4 questions at the end. I had been scoring 620-690 in my practice tests. I took around 8 practice tests - I scored a 510 (34Q,26V) in my first one without studying. I took around 4 full practice tests IR + AWA in "test conditions". In my practice exams, I was scoring around 40-47 in my quant scores (44 in average) and 32-40 in verbal. I think the 40V was a one off. I've been studying on and off since Sept 2018 and seriously studying since February this year. Seriously studying means that I had a study plan. I purchased the EconomistGMAT, finished the course and took the practice tests, etc. I studied around 2-3 hours every day after work, took a practice exam on Saturday and reviewed it on Sunday. I also had an error log for the math questions which I think has helped me a lot. For verbal, I was doing a lot of sentence correction. I struggle with CR and RC. I am really upset and will take this week off to relax and refocus but I need your advice, especially to improve my verbal score. I would love to retake the GMAT in the next month. I have a big trip planned at the end of June and would love to be done with the GMAT by then. Let me know what you think of my plan: CR bible book (just bought it on Amazon) MGMAT SC and RC Study Guides - I remember I took a peek at those last year but did not focus on those For quant, I was planning on going through OG problems and my error log Should I enroll in a class (which class)? Get a tutor? FYI quick things about me - English is my second language, I'm from Latin America, want to apply to top 10 schools in the US/Europe (pref US), undergrad from a US liberal arts. Work experience (6 years): boutique M&A investment bank in the US (buy side / sell side experience), currently work at a fund (equity / debt investments in telecom and tech industry). Thank you for your advice!

Hal90 · Answer

Hey ! First off good job for completing the test, trust me it’s just a bump in the road. So many of us struggle on first try (I scored 540) so I know how you feel.

The key however, is perseverance. Please don’t give up. You can and will score > 700.

What helped me - I took a month off, the inspirational stories on this platform really helped me overcome my fears. I was also lucky enough to find an online course that worked for me egmat.

I’ve ane disciplined, studied everyday before work and on weekends. It’s hard work but it pays off.

Test out some materials, find one that works for you and stick with it. Put in the time and don’t be discouraged. Utilize gmatclub tests (they are amazing) Andrea the official guide for your mocks - they are the truest representation of your real score on test day.

Keep going ! You’ve got this !

Posted from my mobile device

Carlrv · Answer

Thank you for the reply!! I’ll won’t give up ?? I’ll look into egmat. Do you think I should cancel the score? I could always reinstate it, right?

Posted from my mobile device

Hal90 · Answer

Yes you can always reinstate the score. If you don’t want schools to see it, cancel the score.

Have great confidence in yourself, you will score much higher on your next try ?.

Good luck !

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Carlrv,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day did not go as well as hoped. 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 many hours did you typically study each week?
2) Did you use any other study materials besides the course that you mentioned?
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)? I'm interested in the individual Scores, not 'ranges.'
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

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

Carlrv · Answer

Thanks for the quick reply, Rich. See my responses below

1) How many hours did you typically study each week? 2-3 hours after work and 6 hours on Saturday and Sunday

2) Did you use any other study materials besides the course that you mentioned? Besides the EconomistGMAT, I went through some of the MGMAT study guides and did some OG questions (didn't get through all). I'm planning on focusing on the SC and CR MGMAT strategy guides and doing problems from the OG this month.
Would appreciate any advice or guidance.

3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)? I'm interested in the individual Scores, not 'ranges.'

510 (Q34 V26) - Economist GMAT Nov 
 540 (Q34 V31) - Economist GMAT Jan 
 630 (Q47 V30) - Economist GMAT Feb (Test conditions)
 640 (Q44 V30) - MGMAT March 
 640 (Q44 V34) - MBA (Test conditions)
 600 (Q43 V31) - MGMAT 
 690 (Q45 V40) - Economist GMAT (I think I got easy passages and CR questions)
 620 (Q42 V33) - MGMAT 
 620 (Q47 V28) - Economist GMAT (Test conditions, I was focusing on the quant section & timing in verbal) 
 640 (Q44 V33) - MBA (Test conditions)

4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
I would like to apply round 1 to increase my chances into getting into my school of choice. Of course, if my score is still under 650 I will wait until round 2

IanStewart · Answer

First, there's no reason to think any prep company test scores are especially accurate, so you should just ignore them. The official tests are an exact simulation of the real thing, and from your two official tests, your current level is almost certainly right around Q44/V34/640.

That means if you could take a test tomorrow, and perform normally, your most likely score would be a 640. That said, test takers sometimes don't perform normally on test day, and that's especially true the first time a test taker takes the real thing. If anything threw you off on test day - unfamiliarity with the test centre environment, test day nerves, not implementing your pacing strategy as you normally would, or your experience starting the Verbal section early - then those things could lead you to perform below your level. Fortunately, most of those issues go away after a first attempt - you'll be familiar with the conditions, probably more relaxed, you'll know how the breaks work, etc. A lot of people score below expectations on their first test, and most score as expected on a retake. So you shouldn't be too discouraged by your score, and instead should just learn what you can from the experience so you can be sure to perform normally next time.

That said, to reach your target, you'll almost certainly need to make some small but genuine improvement to your current level. Your scores in each section are strong, but not absolutely outstanding - you could add points in both. It tends to be easier through study to add points in Quant, though you have more room to add points in Verbal (and if you're weakest in SC, then it might be almost as easy to add points in Verbal, since that's the Verbal question type that's easiest to improve at).

One thing that seems clear from your study to-date is that you haven't focused nearly enough on official practice questions. You've done a lot of prep company tests, and only two official ones, and you haven't yet even finished the questions in the official guide. Those are the questions most likely to resemble what you see on test day, and you shouldn't even be looking at prep company questions until you've exhausted the official questions you have available to you. That's especially true for Verbal practice - no prep company is able to invest the resources required to create Verbal questions anywhere near the standard of those on the real test. Nor should you waste time doing prep company tests when you have official ones to use. It sounds like your pacing is not always optimal, and to practice pacing under test-like conditions, you need to use realistically time-consuming questions. There's no guarantee a prep company's questions will provide good pacing practice -- some prep company questions are far too long, for example, and their tests can make you think you need to make pacing adjustments you shouldn't be making. So while you might use prep company books for explanations of rules, methods or concepts, you should be using official materials for practice questions.

As for tutors or classes, my general feeling is that anyone who is motivated, has a good amount of time to study, and who has good study materials can reach their potential through self-study. If you can find a good tutor, then tutoring will be much more time-efficient than self-study, though, since a good tutor will help you to identify and address your weak areas faster than you'll likely be able to do on your own. Of course, tutoring can be expensive, so that may be another factor to weigh. I generally wouldn't recommend classes most of the time regardless, but I especially wouldn't to someone who has done as much preparation as you have - classes tend to proceed at the pace of the student with the least developed foundation, so most of your class time will be spent on things you already know.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Carlrv,

I've sent you a PM with some notes and additional questions.

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

Carlrv · Answer

Ian and Rich,

Thank you both for your advice. I will definitely study more this next month and a half - focusing on the OG questions. I'm going to take this week off to relax and motivate myself.

I'll look into tutoring next week for specific questions.

Thanks again!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Carlrv,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. While your score drop could be the result of a number of factors, the most likely reason for the difference between your scores on practice tests and your score on the real GMAT is that in your preparation, 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, to hit your 670+ score goal, you probably have to adjust the way that you’ve been preparing.

Although you are looking for advice on how to improve your verbal skills, improving in both verbal and quant will give you the best shot at improving your GMAT score. That said, given that your verbal score was lower than your quant, here is some advice you can follow to improve in all areas of GMAT verbal. Let’s start with Critical Reasoning.

When studying Critical Reasoning, you need to ensure that you fully understand the essence of the various question types. Do you know the importance of an assumption within an argument? Can you easily spot a conclusion? Do you know how to resolve a paradox? Do you know how to properly evaluate cause and effect? Do you know how to properly weaken or strengthen an argument? These are just a few examples; you really need to take a deep dive into the individual Critical Reasoning topics to develop the necessary skills to properly attack any Critical Reasoning questions that you encounter.

As you learn each Critical Reasoning problem type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you incorrectly answered a Weaken the Argument question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice R, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. You can perfect your reading strategy with a lot of practice, but keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be stimulating. So, to better prepare yourself to tackle such bland passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as The Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.
 
Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects. 
 
Regarding what you know, to be successful in Sentence Correction, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.
 
This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending less than two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.
 
There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and none of those reasons are that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answers were always the ones that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.
 
As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey meanings that make sense. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to put in the necessary time to see the differences between answers and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.
 
To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did to arrive at that answer and what you could do differently to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could do differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your skills improve, you’ll then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple SC topics.
 
Regarding your plan, I think the best move forward is to ensure that you are following some sort of structured and linear study plan, so you can individually learn each GMAT quant and verbal topic and then practice each topic until you’ve gained mastery.

Feel free to reach out with further questions. Good luck!

Carlrv · Answer

Thanks Scott! Your tips are quite helpful! I'll keep you updated on my journey to 650+

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Took GMAT Today and got a 580 :/ shocked - wanted a 670+

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