Significant drop in verbal score in the main GMAT exam

Question

Hope everyone is doing well.

I needed some guidance and was hoping if you could help me out.

I appeared for GMAT yesterday and this was my second attempt.
I scored 610 (Q42 V32) in my first attempt and wanted to improve my score, hence I appeared for GMAT again yesterday. My first attempt was in April. I scored 590 (Q49 V21) in my second attempt yesterday. I am really disappointed as I was hoping to score above 680 given I was scoring well in my GMAC official mock tests. I scored 690, 700, 710 in my last three mocks tests with quant score ranging from 49-50 and verbal from 34-36. 
I'm not sure what went wrong. I am really disappointed, may be it was just a bad day. However, now I am unsure about what should I do next: appear for GMAT again in 15-20 days or spend another 3-4 months improving verbal and then appear for a retest again. I was targeting round 2 application deadlines but I am so disappointed and my confidence is so low now that I'm doubtful if I'll be able to score around 700 in the main exam as I was doing in the mock tests.
Please help.

P.S. I gave the mock tests in the exact same section order without pausing the exam in between nor did I spend more than 8 minutes in sectional breaks.

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GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi L93,

Sorry about how things went with your GMAT. There could be a couple of reasons for the drop in the score. Please go through the article below to find out the probable reasons.

Scored well on mocks but failed miserably on the test?

Having said that, it would be too early to conclude anything without knowing the actual reason. To understand what could have led to the drop in the score and to suggest you the plan of action, I need a little more information about your GMAT preparation. I would like to know more about

the way you prepared till now (your study strategy) 
 your weak areas 
 your approach of solving questions 
 the resources you have used

Answers to these questions will help me guide you in a better way. And I personally suggest to go for the retake only after you prepared well and are 100% confident.

Having said that, I would like to have a one-on-one conversation with you. The discussion would be mostly around the answers to the above questions, the approximate time you have for the next attempt and the plan of action. If you have an ESR with you, that will be even more helpful to get the insights about your performance. You use use the link below to schedule a call with me.

Click here to schedule a call

L93 · Answer

Thanks for a prompt response. Yes, I've scheduled a call. It will be easier for me to discuss these questions over a call. I don't have an ESR right now however, i'll purchase one for my recent attempt once the link is available.

The materials I used include GMAC OG, Quant & Verbal review guides, Manhattan SC book, Powerscore CR bible, Powerscore RC bible, Manhattan Advanced Quant, Kaplan Math workbook, and additional official practice question which I purchased from GMAT Prep.

On a side note, I would like to highlight one additional point for your reference. I gave 4 veritas mock tests as well and my lowest verbal score was I guess somewhere around 33. I also gave some manhattan mock tests and as far as I remember my verbal score was never below 30.
Thats why I believe I might have done something so terrible wrong on the exam day that my score fell drastically.

Posted from my mobile device

EducationAisle · Answer

Could have been a bad day. Would suggest you reappear in 15-20 days, because spending another 3-4 months would cost you R2 deadlines for most colleges. p.s. "retest again" is a classical redundancy in Sentence Correction

L93 · Answer

Hi,
Thanks for highlighting this. However, I always check for such redundancies in SC questions to ensure I don't make these basic errors.

I am pretty sure if you read my post again, you will find more errors in it. It was just an awful day.

Posted from my mobile device

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi L93,

I'm sorry to hear that this second attempt did not turn out better. The variations in the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores on your 2 attempts is interesting - and we'll have to analyze your studies in more detail to determine why your 2nd result came out as it did. As such, before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) On what date did you take your 1st Official GMAT? Was your 1st attempt taken at a Test Center or through the At-home option?
1) How long did you study before each attempt? Over the last 3 months, how many hours did you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used over the course of ALL of your studies? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used?
4) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
5) What is your overall goal score?
6) 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). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi L93,

Looking forward to a fruitful discussion over the call. Meanwhile let's connect on DM.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi L93,

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 V32. 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 article:

Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?

L93 · Answer

Hi Team,

I've dropped my current plan for Sep'22 intake, as I was not able to appear for a retest or work on my application due to some unforeseen circumstances. Hence, I'm targeting Jan'23 intake. Columbia, HEC, INSEAD , IE are some really great options with Jan'23 intake.

However, I'm a little clueless on how to proceed from here. I'm looking for some guidance. Please let me know if there is someone I can connect with and discuss the next steps.

Posted from my mobile device

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi L93,

Pushing your applications back a year is a smart choice - and it should help you to focus better on individual aspects of your overall profile (so that you can put together a stronger overall application). I've sent you a PM with some notes and additional questions.

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

Contact Rich at: [email protected]

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Are you looking for advice regarding additional resources or how to structure your study plan?

Significant drop in verbal score in the main GMAT exam

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