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KarishmaB
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Hello GMAT experts,

I am an Indian male engineer with a decent quant background and currently working in Sales and Marketing. I have appeared for GMAT multiple times and scored in the mid 600s every time. I am looking for feedback on how to ace the test and score a 700+. Here are the scores on my Official Mocks and GMAT attempts.

Mock 1: 720 (Q50 V38)
Mock 2: 710 (Q50 V35)
Mock 3: 710 (Q49 V36)

GMAT 1: 640 (Q46 V31)
GMAT 2: 640 (Q48 V31)
GMAT 3: 650 (Q48 V 32)

On my third GMAT attempt, I had time management issues in Quant and thought I had bombed that section. However, I started the Verbal section without dwelling on Quant and was able to manage my time well and complete all of the questions without guessing. I was confident in my Verbal performance, but I struggled in the IR section. I wasn't too concerned about IR, though.

I expected to score around 42-43 in Quant and 37-39 in Verbal, but to my surprise, I scored Q48 and V32. I was very confident in my Verbal performance and was attentive during the exam, so I don't understand how I only scored V32.

I've attached snippets from my ESR. I'm not able to make out much from it. I do understand I have to manage time better in Quant as it is quite evident in the ESR but I don't know what's wrong with my Verbal and I feel lost.

I am looking for any advice that you can give me on how to improve my GMAT score. I've spent considerable time prepping for GMAT (since Nov 2021). I plan to write GMAT again in the second week of Nov. Also, please advice if I should give another attempt or I should try for the Focus Edition.

Thank you in advance!

KarishmaB bb ScottTargetTestPrep EMPOWERgmatRichC GmatKnightTutor souvik101990 GMATNinja
(Sorry for tagging, but I'm really in a pinch and can use your help)

Your ESR doesn't tell us much about the Verbal performance. It is similar across question types and skills tested and your time management is good too. I would think that the 3 questions you messed up in the first quarter show medium level but perhaps a couple were easier (and 1 was somewhat difficult to bring up the total difficulty). Messing up easier questions gives a much harsher penalty. In the third quarter you again messed up some easy questions. Overall, the algorithm never climbed up - it does that when you get multiple questions of similar or increasing difficulty in a row correct. So all that is well and fine, but now the question is what to do next - I suggest work hard on your sentence correction and critical reasoning for a couple of months. That much time is enough to see a big difference in them.

Did you skip all the Geometry questions? Because of the time management mess, it is hard to say what to work on in Quant. But you probably noticed, you spent an inordinate amount of time on an experimental question!

There is a reason why more than 3 mins is not justified on any question - Quant or Verbal - GMAT questions are written to be solved within 2 mins (even lesser for Verbal). You can give yourself 3 on one or two odd questions since sometimes the logic doesn't strike immediately (assuming you took less time on simple questions in the beginning). But what happens when you give yourself more than 3 mins for a question - if it is a hard question and you get it correct, you will get another harder one and will need even more time though you don't have any extra. If you get it wrong then all the time invested is wasted. If it were a hard experimental question, then you just took that time away from scored questions. Even if you have to guess on a few questions during the exam, it is fine. You must have enough time to attempt every question properly.

Give the conventional GMAT a fair shot before you switch to GMAT Focus. Focus will come with its own troubles.


I appreciate the feedback. I agree that some of the questions were tricky. I only got one geometry question in the last quarter and didn't have much time to solve it, so I skipped it. Time management is something I struggle with on the test day. I'm looking into ways to improve my test anxiety.

I was quite confident with the answer choices I marked in the verbal section. I think working on accuracy in the first 15 questions could help me improve my score. After looking at my ESR, I felt that I should have scored higher in verbal. Even though I made a lot of errors in quant, I got a decent score, but my decent performance in verbal only got me a 32.
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Hi IME2024,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though - and the data in your ESR - it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) On what dates did you take your 3 Official GMATs?
2) How long have you studied in total? Over the last 3 months, how many hours did you typically study each week?
3) What study materials have you used over the course of ALL of your studies? Did you use any other “brands” of CATs/mocks besides the Official ones?
4) You listed just 3 CAT/mock results; did you take any other CATs/mocks? 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)?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

Contact Rich at: [email protected]
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Hi IME2024,

Regarding how to improve your GMAT score, here is a helpful article you can check out:

How to Improve Your GMAT Score

Feel free to reach out with any questions.