GMAT Official Practice test Verbal score v.s Princeton/Kaplan

Question

Hello Everyone,

I just finished the Official GMAT practice test 1 and I got a very unexpected Verbal score.

I got a total of 620: 49 Q / 26 V

My Verbal result do not match the results I got when I've done the Kaplan Premier and the Princeton Review tests.

Princeton Review: ( all done last week)
1st time: 38 V
2nd time: 29 V
3rd time: 34 V
4th time: 39 V
5th time: 37 V

Kaplan:
1st test: 32 V
2nd test: 34 V

Manhattan:
free test: 32 V

Veritas:
free test: 30 V

I am not understanding the result I got in Verbal on the Official Practice Test.
I am willing to take the GMAT next Tuesday and I am not sure what to do.

If anyone can help me or share any useful information or previous experience please do so. I would be extremely grateful.

Thank you.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Karl,

From what you've described, it sounds like you've taken at least 5 CATs last week - and that was NOT a good idea. 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 so many CATs in such a short period of time, there's a reasonable chance that you experienced some 'burn out' - and that could help to explain your score on this recent Official GMAC CAT. In addition, there might be other issues based on how you took these CATs:

1) On what dates did you take each of these 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 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? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE?

Beyond those questions, I'd like to know a bit more about your timeline and goals:

1) What is your goal score?
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
3) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

KmCnLm · Answer

Hi Rich,

Thank you for your constructed response.

1) I've been doing 1 CAT per day for the last 10 days.
2) I only did the entire CAT (including IR and essay) for the Official CAT.
3) I have taken each CAT in different places (some at my University and some at home)
4) I have taken them all at the same time of day as my Official GMAT.
5) No I did not.
6) Never.

As for my goal:
1) My goal score is above 700, but I can settle for now for 680. 
2) I am planning to apply to Business schools starting next week.
3) I am planning to apply to HEC and ESSEC next week, as for later I might consider business schools in Germany.

Regarding my Verbal score (26), I have got 27/41 correct answers (check attachment)
8/11 CR
8/13 RC
11/17 SC

Is it because I made mistakes in the first few questions?

I am not sure how I should study now. My test is in less than a week and I thought I was doing okay.

Thank you.

Karl

Nevernevergiveup · Answer

Princeton review and kaplan tests -cannot really predict your understanding in verbal.
Also once you give a practice test a day, your mind is completely exhausted and it is not possible to review entire test and revise for the exam on next day.
never take more than 2 tests per week.
Also the wording and questions are quite different non-official sources of gmat and official sources of gmat.
Coming to manhattan test, it is tough on quant side so you must got exhausted by the time you reach verbal.
Go for only official resources as much as you can.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Karl,

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 scores can become - and that's what happened here. By skipping the Essay and IR sections, you took shorter Exams that required less effort from you than the Official GMAT will. In addition, anything else would be considered unrealistic (such as taking CATs at home, etc.), can artificially 'inflate' your results. This is all meant to say that you weren't properly training for the FULL GMAT 'experience.'

Given this recent CAT result and your score goal, you might want to consider pushing back your Test Date. You will likely need at least another month of consistent study time to hit 680+.

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

AjiteshArun · Answer

You might want to consider taking at least one more GMATPrep. One data point is hardly reliable, even if it's the GMATPrep that we're talking about.

KmCnLm · Answer

I just took the 2nd test of the GMAT Prep and I got a 690 (49 Q , 35 V).
I am not sure what happened this time ^^

Thank you all for your feedbacks, they were indeed very helpful!

By the way, does anyone know how important are the first questions in the Verbal section? I always do many mistakes there!

abhimahna · Answer

Initial Questions decide the level of difficulty for the upcoming questions and thus the final score.

So, I would say make very less mistakes in initial questions to get the difficult ones.

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