Unusual GMAT exam experience

Question

I recently scored 645 on the GMAT Focused Edition, equivalent to 700 on the traditional GMAT.

I found the question difficulty harder compared to GMAT official mocks and GMAT Club tests. In Quant, I scored 87 out of 90. However, I noticed that the format of the Verbal and Data Insights (DI) sections was different from any mock I had practiced, whether official or GMAT Club.

In the Verbal section, I felt there were more RC passages than in mocks. Additionally, I encountered consecutive RC passages without intervening Critical Reasoning questions, which was unlike my mock experience. This pattern made time management challenging, creating a sense of urgency during the middle and later parts of the section. I managed to complete the section just in time but couldn’t review bookmarked questions, which I usually did during mocks with 5–10 minutes to spare.

In the DI section, I observed two differences:
 1. I got two consecutive Multiple-Source Reasoning questions, both of higher difficulty, whereas in mocks, I’ve always seen just one such question.
 2. I came across a new type of graph that wasn’t in the GMAT Official Guide or any mock I’ve practiced. (I can’t share specific details due to test confidentiality.)

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

Lastly, I faced an issue at the test center with the pens provided. They didn’t write consistently, even after switching multiple pens. It seems they reuse pens, and this caused delays and added stress as I had to repeatedly adjust or request replacements during the exam.

bb · Answer

Hi. Interesting. I am mostly hearing from people that the test was easy and questions were easy but they also would receive a pretty low score like 80 on quant. 87 is a very high score. Were you getting 90s on the gmat prep and gmat club tests?

You felt even quant was harder than GMAT Club?

You should be able to see on your GMAT official score report how many critical reasoning questions you got. Does not that much room to get more reading comprehension passages but you may have gotten for longer passages which would mean 16 out of 23 would be reading comprehension. It is definitely possible and it is possible to have reading comprehension go back to back. We’ve had someone report they got all four reading comprehension passages back to back on their GMAT. It’s random and it’s rare but it is possible. GMA doesn’t actually tell you the exact number of question types you will get on the test. That always changes and varies but only slightly.

I don’t have much of a comment on data insights but I would say that traditionally, people who score high we’ll see a question they have never ever seen before. It’s a hard questions which would require you to come up with a whole new method of solution because they would not fit any pattern and that would take extra time. We have a number of those on GMAT club tests (or at least used to, though some of them are not the hardest but they’re just not usual).

However, it seems the indication is that you were doing well and that’s why you got harder questions. I’ll be curious to see your score report when it comes out. We could tell a bit more from it.

bb · Answer

PS. Pens have been an issue at test centers for centuries now 😢

It seems test centers rely on test takers to break them or throw them away or eat them or whatever they think will happen to those pens.

The suggestion is usually to test them out when you are reading the instructions, see you’re not wasting time.

Also, how were your practice tests?

Ab295 · Answer

On GMAT Club test, I got quant scores in 80s. Yes, difficulty level of GMAT Club tests are better than GMAT prep on the last four days before exam. I gave for GMAT prep exams. I was comfortable with the difficulty level there, but when I gave the official exam, the difficulty level was different. that is it was higher. I got clean bowl in the second and third question. It affected my morale as to what score, I would get. PS: quant was the first section. I chose.

I gave GMAT exam today, so don’t have access to score report, but will share the details required once I receive it. In verbal, I also got all the reading comprehension passages back to back. I cannot comment on the number of passages. I got, but my experience was that I was comfortable with the pacing of the exam upto the middle, but after that when this started happening, it got me tensed. I even feel that there was one long passage for one question, though it might have been not. Two questions for that. I cannot tell for surety because at that time timing caused a bit panic. In the GMAT Club exams as well as Gmat prep, verbal pacing was my forte. I usually used to save 5 to 10 minutes at least for reviewing bookmark question but in the exam, I just finished it in the nick of time.

For DI section, I used to get score in 80s in GMAT Club exam as well as GMAT prep. But in the GMAT exam, I got 77.
The 2 msr questions were of higher difficulty and back to back. It affected the pacing and a bit of tension. I just remember in two of the graphs, The data points was something which I didn’t get to practice anywhere. Be it GMAT Club or the official prep. I cannot obviously share the details of it. one possible reason I found the test gave me two MSR questions was that I attempted all the questions properly till that point and obviously till end .I might had near petfect accuracy uptill that point. I think if a person gueses one of the questions uptil then and saves time to review it later maybe , the test might not do it with him or her assuming its wrong, though I cannot guarantee it.

On GMAT Club exams, the difficulty level is good and I found it did help me a lot in my preparation. It provided good deal of training . Whereas I took GMAT prep official exams in the end? I found it was good for adjusting to exam, especially the quant sections when you give prep exams after GMAT Club exams, you find them very easy, but they can help you in preparing in some types of questions which you might encounter in official exam, so a balance of both is optimal for this section.

Ab295 · Answer

Before sitting with the exam at the test centre, I had a conversation with the Proctor and I requested her to give me only the new pen when in the room, she clearly told me the beginning of the exam that the two pens are new. But when I said begin writing the exam in the initial questions, only the pen stopped writing and it created a bit of a panic, but yes, they did provide other pens.

Another issue I found was that - While the laminated sheets were erased for reuse, they were dirty and worn, which affected focus and clarity during problem-solving. Considering the exam fee, I believe test-takers should receive clean, clear sheets for a smoother experience.

For GMAT official practice test in the end, I consistently scored 655 in last 2(I gave four total in my 1.5 months of prep for this exam), for GMAT Club tests it varied from 615 to 685

Ab295 · Answer

I have a suggestion though for gmat club  bb 
When practising various questions on the forum, we do see most helpful reply below the question which is in most cases, detailed explanation of the answer. However, G mat is a time focus test. I feel if another category of reply is also displayed viz. The quickest approach which would be the easiest and fastest way to solve it. It can help the members a lot, especially for those who are targeting highest course and better time management.
 I myself experienced this while Christmas challenge in 2024. I posted the quickest and fastest method, but I got message from someone to give a more detailed explanation there, but my reasoning was the easiest and quickest is best though I do understand the importance of detail explanation. I trust the other members to take care of it.

All in all, I do feel grateful to you for developing such a wonderful community. It helped me a lot in preparation of gmat.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

So, based on your offiical GMAC practice exam scores and the issues you encountered on test day, it's safe to say that scoring 645 is not all that bad, right?

Ab295 · Answer

Scoring atleast 10 more points would get me at median isb score range.
 Because what happened in DI section the percentile there was 61.
 However I used to get percentiles 80& 90's there so thats a bummer.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

If you were thinking of potentially retaking, consider reaching out to GMAC for a free retake/voucher regarding these issues. You could describe how you feel they may have impacted your performance.

bb · Answer

Thank you for the suggestion! 👍

Ab295  - did you get your score report?

Ab295 · Answer

Yes

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi Ab295,

Congrats on the 645. That's a great score.
 
Getting back-to-back RC passages is not all that strange, but exactly how many RC passages/questions did you get (you can see that in your ESR)?

By "questions", do you mean sets of questions? The most likely reason is that you got an experimental MSR set. Unlucky, as most test takers don't report receiving 2 MSR sets.

We should absolutely expect to see new (and frankly wacky!) data visualisation in DI questions.

Did you test the pens before your exam started? But I agree that this is something your test centre should have taken care of.

Ab295 · Answer

There was indeed 2 sets of msr questions. 
 I did test the pens before, the test centre informed they were new pens cause I had explicitly asked for but .....

StanleyVu · Answer

Coming in here 4 months late. I also got the same experience for my first take back on 25 August, 2025. I also scored 645:
- Freaking hard DI with 2 MSRs (not back to back)
- Uncleaned old sheets
- Pen not working, but the proctor did replace me with usable ones
- My city was strangely flooding on that day (it never happened in 10 years). I drove 1.5h earlier from home, but got into a traffic jam and ended up arriving only 10 mins before the test, highly stressed out. Never had such an experience in my life

1 strange detail was that I did DI first, then Verbal and Quant. I thought I got the hard DI because I chose to do it first. But Ab295 chose Quant first and had the same experience

(((( I plan to switch to Quant, Verbal, and DI for the Dec retake, hope I won't get 2 MSRs again

((((

(((( I plan to switch to Quant, Verbal, and DI for the Dec retake, hope I won't get 2 MSRs again

((((

bb · Answer

Sorry about the 2 MSRs - basically the GMAC is forced to some extent to put 2 MSR's in order to be able to benchmark one of them. These are experimental... to some extent, they probably don't have to but they do from time to time for some reason.

This is a rare occurrence however. This has nothing to do with the section order. This is pure chance. The exam is built on probabilities and sometimes you just hit something and it serves 2 DI's or all RC's in a row.

StanleyVu · Answer

Yeah I really hope that's the case. I do prepare with 2 MSRs in mind now, in case I get bad luck again. But still, 2 MSRs but they were not easy, that's the strange thing. One of them was quite complicated. I ended up random the 3 last DI questions. What a haunting experience

bb · Answer

I don't think I know anyone who has enough time left in the DI and that's a mix of things but primarily DI is always something you are not sure about (most questions that are not math-based at least) and so you can stare at the tables and charts for a long time if you had it... but you don't. One solution is try to optimize some of the questions as much as you can - e.g. DS or Graphs and get faster on that question type while being more careful on others.

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