Scored 660( Q49, V31) Planning to retake the exam within 4 weeks

Question

I wrote my GMAT last Wednesday. Scored 660( Quant 49, Verbal 31)

. My GMAT official practice test scores were 1. GMAT official test score 1 -670( Q 50, V 31) 2. GMAT official test score 1 -710( Q 49, V 38) 3. GMAT official test score 1 -720( Q 50, V 38) 4. GMAT official test score 1 -610( Q 48, V 25)- Panicked in the verbal section My target score was 710-720. I have been scoring well in my official practice tests but the actual exam was a big disappointment. I got my ESR today and all of the verbal sections were equally average, scoring nearly 60%ile in each one of them. I am planning to reappear for the exam in the next 30 days as I don't want to miss the 2nd round of deadlines I have covered most of the official questions during my preparation and have focused on the 700 questions as suggested by most experts so I don't know what else I can do to improve my score. Should I retake the exam in the next 4 weeks or give more time to strengthen my concepts

egmat · Answer

amanbit - Thank you for being a student. There can be numerous reasons why you are stuck at V31. Write to the e-GMAT support team (Ashutosh/Nava/Archit/DJ). They can look at your account stats and recommend a path forward. Based on the real cause, you may be able to improve in as few as 20 days. Here are a few recent examples:

Cheers!!

Rajat

Cheers!!

Rajat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TQPc18ia28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqg0YRbirY

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi amanbit,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day did not turn out better. A 660/Q49 is still a strong Score though - and it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. There's no harm in retesting though - and you have the opportunity to pick up points in both the Quant and Verbal sections.

Before I can offer you any additional advice that you are looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How long have you studied in total? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks? Were these 4 different CATs or did you take the same Exam 4 times?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). Since you purchased the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you (and if you would rather not post it publicly, then you can feel free to PM it directly to me).

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

amanbit · Answer

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the quick reply.

Here are my responses:

1) How long have you studied in total? How many hours do you typically study each week?
 I have prepared for more than a year. I dedicated a minimum of 2hr on weekdays and 4 hrs on weekends during the last 3 months of my preparation. Prior to that, I was not very regular with my study hrs, dedicating 2-3 hrs only during weekends.  
2) What study materials have you used so far?
 Verbal
1. E-GMAT verbal ( 60%)
2. Gmat club forum questions- Extensively
3. Thursday with ron videos ( SC and CR)

Practice tests
1. Manhattan prep practice test
2. Official GMAT mocks

3) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks? Were these 4 different CATs or did you take the same Exam 4 times?

Yes these were 4 different CATs and I took them at the following dates:
1. Score 670- 1st dec 2020
2. Score 710- 7th dec 2020
3. Score 710-10the dec 2020
4. score 610- 14th dec 2020
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?
 I am planning for 21 sept intake. I am mostly applying to german schools
- Mannheim B school
- ESMT berlin
- WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management

While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). Since you purchased the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you (and if you would rather not post it publicly, then you can feel free to PM it directly to me).

Sure I have shared my esr on DM.

Thank you so much for doing this, it will help me a lot regarding my decision of retaking the exam.

egmat · Answer

amanbit  - Are you an e-GMAT student? If so, what parts of the course did you do? Asking because you did not respond to my message.

-Rajat

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi amanbit,

I've sent you an analysis of your ESR and some additional questions.

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

amanbit · Answer

Yes Rajat

I have used egmat verbal( only sc and rc).
It has helped me alot in improving my sc. I think it is one of the best out there. Unfortunately I was only able to complete 60% of the course.

Thanks

Posted from my mobile device

CAMANISHPARMAR · Answer

If something is working for you then you must stick to it. Why don't you complete 100% and see if it boosts your confidence further or not?

GMATaxe001 · Answer

660 is enough for whu otto beishem. I know a person who got in with same.score. u can also tey mannhaeim with same score

Posted from my mobile device

egmat · Answer

amanbit  - you have the best GMAT Strategy experts out there. Make use of the support available to you. Below is an example of the kind of analysis they are capable of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUcOwN0OBcY

So, write to them. They can correlate your stats from the course with those from the ESR.

-Rajat

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

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 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

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