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axeofflane
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Schools: Tuck '27 INSEAD Aug '27 Kellogg '27
GMAT Focus 1: 655 Q82 V84 DI82
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655 GMAT FE with self prep - but Q82 with just 2 wrong? (75th %ile) 27 Apr 2026, 02:57
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Hi all,
gave my GMAT FE 3 days ago and scored a 655, purely with self prep. I wont post a detailed debrief yet, as to be honest I am quite disappointed with my score and was expecting higher, especially my lower quant score where i got just 2 questions wrong and ended up with a Q82. Could someone help me understand what happened and whats the best way to move forward and score a 705+? Posting my sectionals below:


Quant:

Verbal:

Data Insights:



Any help would be appreciated, thank you. Should i reach out to GMAC if its possibly a mistake with their algorithm? (Although I am very certain there is something I am missing or might have don wrong in my quant sections which led me to this score, Im just not sure what)
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GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
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655 GMAT FE with self prep - but Q82 with just 2 wrong? (75th %ile) 27 Apr 2026, 09:52
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axeofflane

Any help would be appreciated, thank you. Should i reach out to GMAC if its possibly a mistake with their algorithm? (Although I am very certain there is something I am missing or might have don wrong in my quant sections which led me to this score, Im just not sure what)
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Unfortunately, it's not all that unusual to miss just a couple of questions and end up in the low 80s on quant, and it's very, very unlikely that there was a scoring error.

We've asked GMAC about this phenomenon, and produced this video with them to help explain what's going on:


Out of curiosity, did you change any of your answers on quant? If you missed a couple of early questions (and changed the answers later), the difficulty level might have been lower throughout the exam. In extreme cases, that can cause funny-looking results like yours: the two questions you missed (after edits) might not have been terribly difficult, and that can hurt your score disproportionately.

Moving forward... well, the good news is that 655 is already pretty close to the median at even the most elite programs, so you're not in terrible shape. The most obvious piece of low-hanging fruit: on quant, you spent 17 of your 45 minutes on just three questions, and that's not usually ideal. Maybe that includes some time spent reviewing them at the end of the section?

But even if that's the case, I wonder if you're misallocating your time in general: if you're making ANY careless mistakes AT ALL -- even if you correct them at the end of the section -- you're playing with fire. If you're racing through some questions (and spending too much time on others), that can fuel those careless mistakes. And it doesn't take very many of those to knock your score down quite a bit. If you think you're capable of a near-perfect quant score, then you can't afford any careless mistakes, given the way the scoring works. Maybe it's worth spending a little bit of extra time to make sure that you're being systematic so that you don't make those sloppy errors.

To be clear: I'm guessing a bit here. I obviously don't know exactly which questions you're answering incorrectly, or how good you really are at quant. But your post makes me suspect that you're being undermined by some shaky test-taking habits, especially with those bloated times on a few quant questions.

I hope that helps a bit, and keep us posted on your progress, please!
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655 GMAT FE with self prep - but Q82 with just 2 wrong? (75th %ile) 27 Apr 2026, 19:16
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GMATNinja

Unfortunately, it's not all that unusual to miss just a couple of questions and end up in the low 80s on quant, and it's very, very unlikely that there was a scoring error.

We've asked GMAC about this phenomenon, and produced this video with them to help explain what's going on:


Out of curiosity, did you change any of your answers on quant? If you missed a couple of early questions (and changed the answers later), the difficulty level might have been lower throughout the exam. In extreme cases, that can cause funny-looking results like yours: the two questions you missed (after edits) might not have been terribly difficult, and that can hurt your score disproportionately.

Moving forward... well, the good news is that 655 is already pretty close to the median at even the most elite programs, so you're not in terrible shape. The most obvious piece of low-hanging fruit: on quant, you spent 17 of your 45 minutes on just three questions, and that's not usually ideal. Maybe that includes some time spent reviewing them at the end of the section?

But even if that's the case, I wonder if you're misallocating your time in general: if you're making ANY careless mistakes AT ALL -- even if you correct them at the end of the section -- you're playing with fire. If you're racing through some questions (and spending too much time on others), that can fuel those careless mistakes. And it doesn't take very many of those to knock your score down quite a bit. If you think you're capable of a near-perfect quant score, then you can't afford any careless mistakes, given the way the scoring works. Maybe it's worth spending a little bit of extra time to make sure that you're being systematic so that you don't make those sloppy errors.

To be clear: I'm guessing a bit here. I obviously don't know exactly which questions you're answering incorrectly, or how good you really are at quant. But your post makes me suspect that you're being undermined by some shaky test-taking habits, especially with those bloated times on a few quant questions.

I hope that helps a bit, and keep us posted on your progress, please!
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Hi Charles, big fan and thank you for taking the time to write this, this is really helpful.

Out of curiosity, did you change any of your answers on quant?
Funny you should ask, this is what my review and edit section looked like.

I have a feeling this is the reason why my score tanked, where i had 7 mins to review questions (i finished quite early as the second half was a lot easier than the first half. Q9 and Q5, i knew i was going to come back and later and correct it. I had one more edit with 3 minutes to go, so i started randomly going through questions to see if any needed a potential edit, through which i caught Q2. You mention the review feature possibly being a culprit in the video you shared above as well.


Moving forward... well, the good news is that 655 is already pretty close to the median at even the most elite programs, so you're not in terrible shape.
The programs im targeting have a median of ~685 unfort, so this does not cut it. I would be retaking of course, but it does sting quite a bit knowing that if i just got those 2 quant questions right, i would have got a 715 with a 100th %ile quant, but oh well so is life.
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655 GMAT FE with self prep - but Q82 with just 2 wrong? (75th %ile) 29 Apr 2026, 08:05
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Hi axeofflane,

First, a 655 with self-prep is a strong result. You're in the 91st percentile overall, and your Verbal (84, 89th percentile ) and DI (82, 93rd percentile ) are both excellent. I understand the disappointment, but you're working from a very solid base. A 705+ is absolutely in range.

To your main question: a Q82 with only 2 incorrect is not out of the ordinary. Remember, your score isn't determined solely by how many you get right, it's determined by the difficulty level of the questions you were served combined with your accuracy on those questions. I wouldn't contact GMAC. There's nothing wrong with the algorithm here.

That said, your timing data points to the clearest opportunity for improvement. Three Quant questions (Q1, Q5, and Q9) took roughly 4.9, 5.1, and 6.9 minutes respectively. That's nearly 17 minutes on 3 questions alone, out of roughly 45 minutes for the section. Here's what I'd focus on for your next attempt:

  1. Hard cap at 2.5 minutes per question. If you're not making clear progress by the 2-minute mark, shift to elimination and move on. One guessed answer costs far less than three questions consuming 17 minutes.
  2. Train under time pressure with mixed difficulty. Do timed sets of 15–21 questions in 45 minutes. The goal isn't accuracy maximization, it's pacing discipline. You need to build the instinct to bail on a time sink.
  3. Review your approach on those three outlier questions. Were you stuck on the setup? Trying multiple methods? Going down an algebraic rabbit hole? Identify the pattern so you can recognize it in real time on test day.
  4. Verbal and DI are already strong, but there's still room. Your Verbal had 5 misses and your DI had several as well. Even modest improvement in either section adds points to your total. For DI specifically, your timing data shows a few questions with long response times that ended up wrong, the same pacing discipline applies.
  5. Take at least one more official mba.com practice exam before your next attempt. Use it specifically to practice your timing strategy. Don't just score it, review the timing chart question by question, exactly as you did here.
Your content foundation is there. The 50 points between 655 and 705+ are almost entirely about execution — pacing, decision-making under pressure, and knowing when to let a question go. That's fixable and usually improves quickly once you're aware of it.

axeofflane
Hi all,
gave my GMAT FE 3 days ago and scored a 655, purely with self prep. I wont post a detailed debrief yet, as to be honest I am quite disappointed with my score and was expecting higher, especially my lower quant score where i got just 2 questions wrong and ended up with a Q82. Could someone help me understand what happened and whats the best way to move forward and score a 705+? Posting my sectionals below:


Quant:

Verbal:

Data Insights:



Any help would be appreciated, thank you. Should i reach out to GMAC if its possibly a mistake with their algorithm? (Although I am very certain there is something I am missing or might have don wrong in my quant sections which led me to this score, Im just not sure what)
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655 GMAT FE with self prep - but Q82 with just 2 wrong? (75th %ile) 01 May 2026, 00:50
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Wow, that’s surprising. Do you know if those wrong answers were in high-weighted questions?
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axeofflane
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GMAT Focus 1: 655 Q82 V84 DI82
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Schools: Tuck '27 INSEAD Aug '27 Kellogg '27
GMAT Focus 1: 655 Q82 V84 DI82
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655 GMAT FE with self prep - but Q82 with just 2 wrong? (75th %ile) 01 May 2026, 00:52
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Thanks scott for the advice, still rough a week later lol
ScottTargetTestPrep
Hi axeofflane,

First, a 655 with self-prep is a strong result. You're in the 91st percentile overall, and your Verbal (84, 89th percentile ) and DI (82, 93rd percentile ) are both excellent. I understand the disappointment, but you're working from a very solid base. A 705+ is absolutely in range.

To your main question: a Q82 with only 2 incorrect is not out of the ordinary. Remember, your score isn't determined solely by how many you get right, it's determined by the difficulty level of the questions you were served combined with your accuracy on those questions. I wouldn't contact GMAC. There's nothing wrong with the algorithm here.

That said, your timing data points to the clearest opportunity for improvement. Three Quant questions (Q1, Q5, and Q9) took roughly 4.9, 5.1, and 6.9 minutes respectively. That's nearly 17 minutes on 3 questions alone, out of roughly 45 minutes for the section. Here's what I'd focus on for your next attempt:

  1. Hard cap at 2.5 minutes per question. If you're not making clear progress by the 2-minute mark, shift to elimination and move on. One guessed answer costs far less than three questions consuming 17 minutes.
  2. Train under time pressure with mixed difficulty. Do timed sets of 15–21 questions in 45 minutes. The goal isn't accuracy maximization, it's pacing discipline. You need to build the instinct to bail on a time sink.
  3. Review your approach on those three outlier questions. Were you stuck on the setup? Trying multiple methods? Going down an algebraic rabbit hole? Identify the pattern so you can recognize it in real time on test day.
  4. Verbal and DI are already strong, but there's still room. Your Verbal had 5 misses and your DI had several as well. Even modest improvement in either section adds points to your total. For DI specifically, your timing data shows a few questions with long response times that ended up wrong, the same pacing discipline applies.
  5. Take at least one more official mba.com practice exam before your next attempt. Use it specifically to practice your timing strategy. Don't just score it, review the timing chart question by question, exactly as you did here.
Your content foundation is there. The 50 points between 655 and 705+ are almost entirely about execution — pacing, decision-making under pressure, and knowing when to let a question go. That's fixable and usually improves quickly once you're aware of it.


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axeofflane
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Joined: 18 Nov 2023
Last visit: 17 May 2026
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Schools: Tuck '27 INSEAD Aug '27 Kellogg '27
GMAT Focus 1: 655 Q82 V84 DI82
GPA: 9.28
Schools: Tuck '27 INSEAD Aug '27 Kellogg '27
GMAT Focus 1: 655 Q82 V84 DI82
Posts: 40
Kudos: 4
 [1]
655 GMAT FE with self prep - but Q82 with just 2 wrong? (75th %ile) 01 May 2026, 00:53
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No idea which were the 2 questions i messed up
danisk244
Wow, that’s surprising. Do you know if those wrong answers were in high-weighted questions?
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