Scored 550 on real GMAT after scoring higher on practice exams

Question

Hi everyone,

I just took my first GMAT test today and I scored 550 (Q41, V25). This is the lowest score among all my practice test scores in GMATPrep and even lower than my diagnostice test. I feel shattered right now as just like everyone else, I'm targeting to get at least 700. I plan to apply for the second round of admission which mostly due in January, as you know.

When I took Practice Test 1 and 2, I did not record the result but I remember I scored 580 in Practice Test 1. 
I then bought the on demand course from Veritas Prep, watched the videos and skillbuilder, but I have been solving questions mostly from the official questions only. In fact I already solved all questions from OG 2018, analyzed my mistake, and tried the wrong questions again and again. And, I also used Manhattan SC. 
Here are my practice test scores:
5 Sept : 670 (Q48, V 34)
21 Sept : 650 (Q 44, V35)
30 Sept: 680 (Q45, V 38)
2 Oct: 690 (Q48, V36)
Two days ago, I reset one of the practice test and scored 760 (Q50, V42). But I know this one is inflated because I saw some questions I had already seen before.

I don't know how my score could turn out to be as low as 550. I felt a little bit nervous in the beginning but I noticed that I needed to spend quite a lot of time on the first 3 questions. After the first break, I felt too relaxed during verbal and maybe this caused my verbal score to go down to V25. Other than those, I don't know why.

I have used all 6 practice tests from GMAT and now I'm lost on what to do or where to start and if its possible for me to reach my target score if I take GMAT again next month.

I do not want to give up on my MBA dream but because of some situations at work and everything, I really need to apply for 2019 fall intake.

Can anybody suggest where should I restart my preparation and what should I do right now?

I haven't stopped crying since after leaving the test center. I really thought I could make it.

egmat · Answer

Hi @alviravalia,

It is natural to feel disappointed with a lower than expected score. Having said that, with the right attitude and retake strategy, I am sure you will be able to get to your target score. Here are a few students who were able to reach their target score despite low score in the first test:

540 to 730 in 1 month

Click here

550 to 740

Click here

To plan your retake, I would recommend that you go through the articles mentioned below. If you have any further concerns regarding your retake, please feel free to write to us at [email protected].

ESR Analysis in 3 steps

Retake Strategy

Regards,
Aditee

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi elviravelia,

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. If you can answer a few questions, then we should be able to figure this out:

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as when you took your Official GMAT?
4) 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.)? 
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE (re: on a prior CAT, in an online forum or in a practice set)?

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

aaabbb111 · Answer

Hi  EMPOWERgmatRichC

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
No, I usually only do the quant and verbal section and then skip the IR and AWA. But I always choose the sequence where I solve quant or verbal prior to IR and AWA. 
2) Did you take them at home?
Yes always at home. 
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as when you took your Official GMAT?
No, I always take it on the afternoon but my test was in the morning at 9 am. Do you think this really affect my performance? 
4) 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.)? 
Only skipping sections (IR and AWA)
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE (re: on a prior CAT, in an online forum or in a practice set)?
Yes I did. I reset one the practice test once and scored 760. However, I realized that that was an inflated score. Still, I could not believe my score would drop to as low as 550.

As I have used all of my practice tests, I wonder how I can 'measure' my ability from time to time before the retaking the test next month.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi elviravelia,

Which practice CATs have you used so far? While the most realistic CATs available are the 6 from GMAC, the CATs from Kaplan, MGMAT and Veritas are all 'close enough' to the real thing that they will provide you with a relatively realistic score assessment (assuming that you use the CAT correctly).

From your prior post, there were some 'red flags' in terms of how you took your CATs. Before we discuss those issues though, I have a few additional questions about the lead-up to Test Day and Test Day itself:

1) What did you do in the 3 days before your GMAT?
2) How did you sleep the night before your Test?
3) How long was the travel time to the Test Center from your home?
4) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test?
5) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks?
6) Did you finish any sections early?
7) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)?

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

u1983 · Answer

Hello elviravelia . you can also check if the causes described below applies to you : https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 46658.html

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi elviravelia,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. First off, it appears that you have been studying for only about 6 weeks, right? (Since your first practice test was on Sept. 5?) Many folks have to study for as many as 4+ months to achieve a 700 on the GMAT. So, it’s quite possible that with some further dedicated prep, you can improve your GMAT score, OK?

Assuming that you took your practice exams under realistic testing conditions, the results of those exams show that you should have been able to score higher than 550 on test day. It’s quite possible that nerves, stress, tiredness, or a combination of all three negatively affected your test-day performance. Honestly, the fact that you cried after your exam shows that you probably put an immense amount of pressure on yourself to succeed.

Furthermore, since you studied for only about 6 weeks, you probably were unable to fully master GMAT quant and verbal, and thus lingering weaknesses were exposed on test day. Moving forward, you need to take more thorough approach to your preparation. For verbal, since you seem to be weaker in that topic, you need to go back to the foundations and work your way to more advanced topics. For quant, although you probably do not have to start with the foundations, you still should follow a linear and thorough study plan so you can determine and fix any and all remaining quant weaknesses. Let’s look at some specifics for how to structure your study plan, starting with verbal.

Say you begin studying Critical Reasoning. First, you need to ensure that you fully understand the essence of the various question types. Do you know the importance of an assumption within an argument? Can you easily spot a conclusion? Do you know how to resolve a paradox? Do you know how to properly evaluate cause and effect? Do you know how to properly weaken or strengthen an argument? These are just a few examples; you really need to take a deep dive into the individual Critical Reasoning topics such that you develop the necessary skills to properly attack any Critical Reasoning questions that you encounter.

As you learn each Critical Reasoning problem type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you incorrectly answered a Weaken the Argument question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice Reading Comprehension, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. You can perfect your reading strategy with a lot of practice, but keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be easy to read. So, to better prepare yourself to tackle such passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.
 
Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects. Furthermore, the likely reason that your Sentence Correction performance has not improved is that you have not been working on all three of those aspects. 
 
Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.
 
This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending under two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.
 
There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and those reasons are not that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answer were always the one that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.
 
As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing that you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey meanings that make sense. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.
 
To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did that resulted in your arriving at that answer and what you could do differently in order to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could have done differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your Sentence Correction skills improve, you’ll then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple SC topics.

Although your quant is stronger, you can follow a similar process for that section. For example, if you are reviewing Number Properties, be sure that you practice 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see and types that you would rather not see, and types of questions that you take a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to correctly answer in two minutes or less questions that you currently take five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.

So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently. The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new verbal and quant materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses .

You also may find my article with more information regarding
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT  helpful.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.

Good luck!

aaabbb111 · Answer

Thank you everyone for your very kind reply.

I just received my ESR and it looks like I performed really, really poor on Critical Reasoning (18th percentile!!). Quite surprising for me because I used to be able to answer all Critical Reasoning questions on the beginning of my preparation so I neglected CR and focused on other areas such as SC and Quant.

Your posts give me a lot to think about and I will restart my preparation after analyzing my mistakes. Most probably need to enroll to another prep course out there.

Thanks again!

aaabbb111 · Answer

Hi Rich,

I used all 6 official practice exams from GMAC. I have access to several CAT from Veritas but I limited my preparation on official questions only so I did not use any of them. 
Do you think this limiting my preparation to official questions only also affected my result?

1) What did you do in the 3 days before your GMAT?
I solved more OG questions 3 days before Test Day, did another practice exam 2 days before Test Day, and reviewed my notes and wrong questions 1 day before Test Day. 
2) How did you sleep the night before your Test?
It was difficult for me to fall asleep and I lied on the bed for 2 hours before I fell asleep. 
3) How long was the travel time to the Test Center from your home?
It was close (only 15 minutes) and the transportation was comfortable. I arrived 50 minutes early at the test center. Apparently they just let me start right after they scanned my palm and took my picture. I scheduled for 09:00 AM but I guessed I started my test around 8:45 AM or something. 
4) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test?
As I started early, most people came after me into the Testing Room and I was quite distracted as I noticed people were walking back and forth behind me. 
5) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks?
I only took the first break after Quant but I believed it ruined my concentration. I got way too relaxed after the break and could not concentrate during Verbal section so I performed very poorly and got only V25! I always got around V34-V38 on my practice tests. I plan not to take a break on my next attempt. But I'm not sure if this is a good idea. 
6) Did you finish any sections early? 7) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)?
No I needed to rush on the last 3-4 questions both on Quant and Verbal and guessed around 1-2 questions on the last of each section.

MohitGeat · Answer

HI Elviravelia

You have the potential to score a 700+ on the GMAT.

I believe building your foundations rock solid will enable you face any challenge on the GMAT.

I myself scored a 750, and trust me, if the basics are in place, you can get there easily.

You can refer my post https://gmatclub.com/forum/scoring-750- ... 76872.html for deeper insights, and let me know if you want any help from my side.

Best of luck for the next attempt!

Regards
Mohit

hanamana · Answer

Please try Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible. This will teach you how to approach each type of CR questions. I was able to increase my accuracy from ~40% to ~90% after going over this book. Remember, you need to connect a missing gap between premises and conclusion for a lot of CR questions.

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