GMAT online exam score shock

Question

Hello everyone. I received my Gmat online score today and it was absolutely shocking. I got a 640. So far the lowest score which I saw in my mocks was 710 (750 being the highest). Did anyone else experience something similar, if yes how did you go about it?

I remember seeing some extremely hard questions on the exam which I am sure I got right. Should I contact GMAC?

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I remember seeing some extremely hard questions on the exam which I am sure I got right. Should I contact GMAC?

Posted from my mobile device

himadeep · Answer

please order the ESR. you'd get detailed info about what option you chose for each question

Avgffzi · Answer

Thank you. But, I don’t think ESR is available for the online gmat exam.

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tejasvkalra · Answer

ESR is not available for GMAT ONLINE as of now i think 
 Am i right  bb  ?

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Were these Official Mocks or third party mocks? Did you repeat (or see any of the questions) beforehand during practice?

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Avgffzi,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your 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 640. 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!

aaditya005 · Answer

I also experienced something similar. I went down from 750 in official mocks to 700 in the online test.

Avgffzi  Can you elaborate on which section in quant/verbal seemed tougher?

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aaditya005 · Answer

Hi Tejas,
 As of now, the ESR for online GMAT is not available.

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Avgffzi · Answer

They were official mocks and no I didn’t see any questions before the mock. My accuracy with SC is 80% CR 100% RC 80-100% and my quant score is constant at 50.

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Avgffzi · Answer

I cannot quote,  Aditya . I remember seeing difficult questions on both the sections

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EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Avgffzi,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. 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:

Studies:
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) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

KatSihm · Answer

Hi,

I had a very similar experience with my GMAT online. I took the exam on July 27th

My official mock scores ranged from 700-730 (5 mocks, strict exam conditions), and I scored a 640 on my GMAT online.

My verbal dropped from a V38-42 to a V31. Quant score stayed relatively the same.

It’s a long shot, but is there anyway the GMAT scoring algorithm is different for the GMAT online Verbal?

Avgffzi · Answer

I studied for around 30 hours a week for a month and a half. I took a mock exam every week. My verbal was 49/50 on all mocks and verbal ranged from 37 to 44. My goal is a 750 and I want to go to HBS/Stanford

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Avgffzi · Answer

I think it certainly is. It’s happening with a lot of people. Did you find anything unusual on the test? What kind of questions did you see?

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BooRadley · Answer

I do not think it is worth your time to contact GMAT regarding this. As you may know, contacting GMAT is a cumbersome process and I think they would not be able to provide a solution to your problem.

Do you think exam-related stress played a role here?
 
Hit Kudos, if that helped

Filip88 · Answer

Had A similar experience.

Scored 630 and 650 on the MGMAT Mock tests and 670 on the official Mock test 1. (Q48,V34)

Had a much better feeling during the Online test (Spent a lot of time on the verbal), But I only scored 620 (Q47,V28).

I'm not one of those people that needs a pep talk, but all and all I know that I can predict quit well if my test went better than last times, which is exactly how I felt for both the Quant and the Verbal parts.

I definitely think there is something different about the Online GMAT (in the current physical whiteboard version) that is different then the in person GMAT (I think they are using a different pool of questions that is lower than the in person one, which means that every question has more wight to it).

Anyway i'm gonna retake the GMAT in 10 Days and it will be in person. so ill share my experience after that.

Thanks for your feedback, you are not alone.

aaditya005 · Answer

Please do. Also, it would be great if you could notice and let us know which sections in quant and verbal you see more difficult than the mocks.

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EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Avgffzi,

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

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

navya27 · Answer

Same with me. Mock PREP scores 730/750 /740/780 and online score 700. Re-appeared at centre but felt the questions were lot harder than what they give in PREP software. In spite of lot of practice still same score.

navya27 · Answer

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