Verbal actual GMAT harder than CATs and practice questions?

Question

Hey together,

I recently took the GMAT and scored much worse than I did in the official practice tests, mainly because of my verbal performance. My results on the practice tests were as follows : 46, 42, 41, 44, 42 (I didn't know any questions before and did not take longer breaks than allowed during the actual test, also I often had a couple of minutes left in the end...).

On the actual GMAT, I received a score of 36 and I don't have the impression that this score drop came from beeing nervous or exhausted, I actually felt quite well during the whole exam. (I scored more than 36 in my first practice test without even studying ...) Rather, it seemed to me that the verbal part on the actual GMAT was much harder than the practice exams and the official questions. Especially the sentence correction part did not seem to test (more or less obvious) principles that allow for a fast exclusion of some answer choices but demanded me to intensely study all answer choices in detail.

Did anoyne of you have a similar impression? And if yes, how would you prepare for such kind of questions?

The only other explanation I have for my sudden drop in the verbal part might be that I took to many practice tests (4-5) in the week leading to the GMAT and my concentration simply dropped without me noticing ...

I am a bit desperate about my performance right now, so I am happy about any suggestion, thanks!

saadim · Answer

Yes the actual gmat is way harder and the most frustrating part is gmac hasnt updated test prep resources to match the actual.performane in the exam.

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mdella · Answer

Is that's also just your experience / personal impression ? I googled this topic a lot and felt like being the only one thinking this way ...

saadim · Answer

Personal experience gave the gmat twice with different techniques but to no avail. Also gave gre and got the exact same score as on practice tests on first attempt. Ets have more updated stuff to prepare

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bb · Answer

I assume you took GMAT Prep and the like?

There are differences between all tests - even the GMAT prep is slightly different than the official GMAT in terms of the algorithm. Other resources/tests will be different in terms of both algorithm and questions.

If you have gotten 42's on the GMAT prep then it is worth retaking. I am truly impressed you took 4-5 tests the week before the test. Perhaps 1 next time is what you should do - you want to be at the peak of your capabilities and well rested. During the test, don't wonder too much if you got something right or wrong, just do it one question at a time. Don't worry about the question you already answered or what will come next, stay on the question you are on.

Something interesting I have noticed about the verbal is that how i misjudged the difficulty - I thought I was failing it the whole time. I was unsure of answer choices most of the time and nothing seemed right. I felt I kept failing. I got a 42 at the end. With Quant, I felt it was easy after one question I answered wrong so I also felt I was failing and getting things wrong. I caught myself making 2 mistakes on the test (correcting them before submitting the answer choice) so for sure I thought I was wrong. I ended up with Q49. Moral of the story - don't worry about difficulty, or how you are doing, or what questions you are facing, just do your best.

Good Luck!

warriorguy · Answer

I agree with you. I felt Verbal in actual exam is way different (read tougher) than the prep one. Especially RC - I got 4 humongous para to read and only 2 questions

AjiteshArun · Answer

I understand how you feel, but you must not operate under the assumption that the GMAT is somehow "tougher" than the GMATPreps.

1. The GMATPreps (especially the free ones) are excellent tests, with a great pool of questions. The GMAC says that the GMATPrep is actually better at estimating a test taker's ability than the actual GMAT is. What this means is that you are not a very good judge of question/test difficulty (and neither am I).

2. Even if the questions were easier, the algorithm would take that (difficulty level) into account. That is, you would have to get more questions correct to get the (excellent) scores that you managed.

3. Exam day pressure and fatigue (5 tests in the last week!) can make what should be doable seem difficult.

I hope that you realize that you've got this wrong, and that your getting this wrong means that you are capable of performing very well on verbal. I hope you take the exam again. If you're still not sure, take a look at the verbal score distributions (for the last few years). You'll see that they haven't changed much.

All the best!

omizzle · Answer

I think your test was an anomaly. Even if the verbal section had changed slightly, there would not be that large of a disparity. I believe your GMAT Prep score is supposed to be +- 30 points of your true skill.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi mdella,

To start, the process of taking (and reviewing) a CAT requires a significant amount of energy and effort - and takes time to 'recover' from. This is one of the reasons why you typically shouldn't take more than 1 CAT per week. By taking 4-5 CATs in the week before your Official GMAT, there's a reasonable chance that you experienced some 'burn out' on Test Day. Even if you didn't "feel" tired, any kind of fatigue would likely be at its worst during the Verbal section (since that's the last 75 minutes of 4-hour Exam). Beyond that point, there are a number of other potential explanations for what you experienced, so I have a few questions about how you studied:

1) How many times have you taken the Official GMAT and what were your scores on each attempt (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?

When you took your CATs:
2) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
3) Did you take them at home?
4) Did you take them at the same time of day as when you took your Official GMAT?
5) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? 
6) Did you ever take a CAT more than once?

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

mdella · Answer

Hi Rich,
Thanks for your long response! I hope you are right and I failed mainly due to overstudying the last week..

Here the answers to your questions:
1) So far, I have taken the GMAT just once with a score of 650 (Q44, V36) while my practice test results ranged from 720-740.
2) I always did the IR part but just one or two essays (left them out in the attempts closest to my actual GMAT).
3) Yes, at home.
4) No, unfortunately not. Took them rather in the afternoon while my actual GMAT started at 10.30 ... I am not a morning person, so this might have contributed to my bad performance as well ... even though I did not feel tired at all and got enough sleep the night before.
5) No, nothing at all.
6) No. I also never reset the exam, so I never got a question a second time.

I spontaneoulsy decided to take the GMAT again in approximately 10 days. That's why I am happy for any suggestions to overcome my verbal struggles. I've recently started to study again with the OG17 (before I used OG15) and again, most of the time, I get at least 90% of the verbal questions right and always have some time left. Do you suggest any other source for verbal questions? Apart from that, my only change in study strategy is learning less per day and doing only one more CAT...

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi mdella,

Test Day is a rather specific 'event' - the details are specific and they matter, so you have to train as best as you can for all of them. The more realistic you can make your CATs, the more likely the score results are to be accurate. The more you deviate, the more "inflated" your practice scores can become - and that's what happened here. By skipping sections, taking the CATs at home, taking them at different times of day, etc., you weren't properly training for the FULL GMAT 'experience.'

Thankfully, these are relatively easy things to 'fix' - you just have to take your future CATs in a more realistic fashion that matches up with the exact details of Test Day. However, it will take time for you to adjust to those parameters. It's not clear from your post what your exact score goal is but if it's 700+, then you'll likely need at least a month of additional study and practice to get to that level. As such, you might want to consider pushing back your Test Date.

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

jxav · Answer

Hi mdella,

This is just my personal experience, I took GMAT test recently and scored 38 on verbal which does not deviate a lot from GMAT prep practices (35-39). What I really notice is that the RC section is somewhat tougher and more complex, but not by much.

This is just my guess from doing my preps and analyzing my scores breakdown. Verbal is very punishing in a way that since RC comes in 3 questions per passage, the difficulty on the passage you get and therefore the maximum points you can attain from answering your RC right is based on how you perform before the RC comes out. So I think luck can play some part here, however looking at your consistent scores of 40+, I dont think you need such 'luck'. Imo verbal is much more mentally draining than quant is, I think you just lacked rest and underperforms on your test day.

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vikasp99 · Answer

use only official GMAT prep material for preparation.

mvictor · Answer

I believe the test stress adds up...I too scored 37-41 on verbal (GMPATprep & GMATClub tests), but ended up with 30 on the actual test.

mdella · Answer

Thanks again for all your comments and advice!

I retook the GMAT today after only 10 days of light studying (mainly repeating the math principles that I had already forgotten) and scored 730 (Q49, V41). The only things I did differently this time was taking the gmat in the afternoon and stopping to study 1 1/2 days before the test to have enough time to refresh. The verbal part seemed very manageable to me this time, I almost always directly knew what the question was about and could eliminate answer choices based on the typical splits. Thus, I need to take back my initial concern that the verbal part might have gotten harder, I simply must have been exhausted the last time.

Having this said, good luck to everyone retaking the GMAT because of a low verbal score!

Posted from my mobile device

AjiteshArun · Answer

That's great news, and it's great to see that you backed yourself to do well. A lot of people panic and either drop their GMAT plans or push back their retake significantly.

mihir0710 · Answer

IMO its not that different to cause fluctuations in the score ..
It may be the case that the exam nervousness is exhausting you out without you noticing which may have created a lapse in concentration during couple of questions in the exam and thus affecting your score ..

rs47 · Answer

It's quite possible you made mistakes in the first 10 questions in the verbal section.. I once gave a mock on GMATPrep and got just 7 wrong in verbal but ended up only with 36 in the section because of 3 mistakes in the first 10 questions..

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