Scored 650-710 in mocks, but scored 550 on test day!

Question

Hi Everyone, I am quite shocked, to say the least about my actual test experience yesterday. I started my preparations in September 2018 with the official guides and completed both verbal and quant official guides in a month. I took the first free official mock on 30 September and was quite contended to see a score of 700 (Q49 V35). I thought this was a great score and I could easily cruise my way to a higher score in the next couple of months. I knew I had some conceptual issues in verbal and therefore I opted for the egmat verbal course. This course helped in getting a lot of clarity with respect to the sentence correction and served as a good practice for CR and RC as well. Alongwith that, I took all the verbal CAT's on gmatclub with an average of about 35, however I found the quant tests on gmatclub somewhat difficult averaging about 40 in those. I practiced around 500 SC's from the SC1000 list and about 250 from the manhattan SC. For CR, I covered all examples in the Powerscore CR apart from egmat scholaranium.

I continued to practice CR, SC and RC from various sources and following were my scores in the mocks which I have attempted

Official GMAT Prep test 1 - 700 (Sep 2018)
Official GMAT Prep test 2- 650 (Oct 2018)
Official GMAT Prep Test 3 -650 (5 days before the test) 
Official GMAT Prep Test 4 - 710 (3 days before the test) Q50 V 35
Manhattan free mock - 640 - Nov 2018
Kaplan - 650 -Nov 2018
Expert Global - 690 - Nov 2018
800 score - (average of 720 in all 5 CAT's) - All taken in Dec 2018

Actual GMAT - 550 (Q44 V22)
I was surprised to see a score which I had never seen in any of the tests before.

I am not sure what exactly must have gone so wrong on the test for me to get such a dismal score. I think the ESR may be able to point towards something, however on second thoughts with such a low score, it may be possible that the ESR reflects all sections as a poor performance. So I'm not sure if it can help.

Any thoughts, advice or suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

P.S. I took the test in Mumbai at the Pearson test center which provided me with thick markers using which I was not even able to make readable notes for my RC and quant section, these makers apparently stop working when exposed to air so I had to request for additional marker but continued to struggle during the test.

u1983 · Answer

Hello gmatace2018 ....... welcome to the community.

I am really sorry to hear that the score was lower than the one you expected. Please go through the link below created by one of our verbal expert GMATNinja: https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 46658.html

Do not get me wrong, Q44 shows conceptual gaps. I would go through GMAT Club math book. Other than that I would practice 600-700 lvl Qs at Gmat club until I get >90-95% accuracy.
For V22 again shows gaps. Please go through the debriefs below :
abhimahna : https://gmatclub.com/forum/abhimahna-s- ... 49109.html
sayantanc2k : https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-impro ... 13013.html
souvik101990 : https://gmatclub.com/forum/four-years-t ... 40262.html

I hope you will gain a lot.

Finally, Please have your ESR ....... the official way to understand the real problems at the exam.
And do not forget to rest yourself before you take the plunge again. All the best

gmatFalcon · Answer

thanks for the information

Sent from my iPhone using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  gmatace2018 , ESR would still be your best bet, to do any meaningful analysis.

BrushMyQuant · Answer

Did you get the ESR? It might help you to figure out which sections and which part of the exam went wrong for you.

gmatace2018 · Answer

I just got my ESR, it is attached.. 
Any advice is appreciated.

BrushMyQuant · Answer

Going by the accuracy in the third section and the time consumed in the second and the third section it looks like that either you have put a lot of time on some of the wrong questions or have put a lot of time to get some questions correct. And you ran out of time in the last section so the accuracy has reduced. Going by the topics my suggestion for the sequence of topics will be:

Number Properties (including sequence)
Set theory
Ratio, rates and Percentages
Geometry and Co-ordinate geometry

Do PS for these topics first and then DS, coupled with PS and DS from other topics to keep in touch!

Hope it helps!

egmat · Answer

Hi gmatace2018 , I am sorry to know that your scores were not in line with your expectations. I would request you to write to us at support@e-gmat.com with your registered email id so that we can look at your Scholaranium data along with this post and give you a precise way forward. Looking forward to your email. Regards, Aditee

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi gmatace2018,

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) On what dates did you take each of your CATs and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for each)?
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? 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

newyork2012 · Answer

I took my test today

I'm not surprised with your story . I myself was totally destroyed mentally . A test of one's nerve

gmatace2018 · Answer

Hi EMPOWERgmatRichC, thanks for your response, please find below my responses.

1) On what dates did you take each of your CATs and how did you score on EACH
-Sep 30 Official GMAT Prep 1 - 700 Q49 V35
- Kaplan - 650- not sure abt the split - Oct 2018
-Manhattan -640 - Q44 V 35- Oct 2018
- GMAT Prep 2 official - Oct 2018 - 650 - Q 46 V 34
- GMAT Prep 1 Retake - Nov 2018 650 Q49 V 29 (90% new questions)
-GMAT prep 2 Retake - Nov 2018 - 690 - Q49 V 34 (90% new questions)
- 800 Score. com - took 5 CAT's over weekends average score 720 Q 47 V40
- GMAT CLub Quant and Verbal tests - took CAT's, found quant difficult , average- Q 40, V 33
- Purchased GMAT Prep 3 and Prep 4 in last week before actual exam
-GMAT prep 3 - 650 Q49 V31 - 5 days before exam (all unseen questions)
-GMAT prep 4 - 710 Q50 V 35 - 2 days before exam (all unseen questions)
- GMAT Prep 1 retake - 700 - Q49 V 35 ( 80% new questions) - 1 day before exam

2. Never took the essay section.. took the IR section in some but always after the verbal and quant.. followed similar order in actual exam
3. yes
4. sometimes yes
5. no
6. yes in some, mentioned above

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi gmatace2018,

I've sent you a PM with some additional questions.

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi gmatace2018,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. I agree that since you scored a V22, your ESR won’t provide too many valuable details regarding your score. That being said, we need to determine why your actual verbal score dropped so significantly from your practice test verbal scores.

Scoring high on GMAT verbal tends to involve using logic and noticing key details. However, it is possible to get some verbal questions right by looking for patterns that you have already encountered in your preparation. Looking for patterns will not always work, though, and if the patterns with which you are familiar don’t show up in the questions that you see on the actual GMAT, your verbal score will not be very high. So, one possible reason for the difference between your verbal scores on practice tests and your verbal score on the real GMAT is that you picked up on some patterns that were effective in getting you relatively high scores on practice tests, but you have not really learned to do what you have to do in order to ensure a high verbal score on the actual GMAT.

To hit your verbal score goal, you probably have to adjust the way that you have been preparing. You have to focus your preparation on developing skills, such as use of logic, that you can use to correctly answer GMAT verbal questions regardless of what verbal tricks the test presents. To develop those skills, you may need to slow way down in you verbal preparation, and analyze questions and answer choices until you clearly see the logic of questions. Your preparation has to result in your much more clearly seeing what is going on in verbal questions.

Feel free to reach out with further questions.

Let’s do this!!

gmatace2018 · Answer

It was my second attempt, scored 630 Q48 V 28, I dont know how do I improve my scores on verbal on the real exam

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi gmatace2018,

This 630 is a nice improvement over your prior 550, but some significant work is still needed before you can get to the point that you can consistently score 700+ on the Official GMAT. Since it's been over 4 months since your last posts, I'd like to know more about how you've been studying during that time:

1) What type of study routine have you been following? How many hours did you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used for this 2nd attempt?
3) Over the last 4 months, how have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)? Did you retake the CATs that you previously took or did you use new CATs?

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi gmatace2018,

You just retook the GMAT and are now looking for advice on how to improve your verbal skills?

GG1990 · Answer

I think you can get the score you need. For me it has been a factor of replicating the test situations and conditions. Same time, day, etc. And as many practice problems as you can slowly.

	Manhattan Prep: $99 Bonus Score Higher on Your GMAT Exam. Guaranteed.
	Target Test Prep - Save up to $599 $400 Discount + $99 Bonus GMAT Club Tests
	e-GMAT: 60% Off on GMAT Focus Get to 735+ from any starting point
	Magoosh increases your score, guaranteed - 15% off ALL Magoosh GMAT plans with code GMATCLUB15 + Free GMAT Club Tests.
	Experts' Global - ~~$1720~~ $960 End-to-End GMAT Prep + App Support: 150+ Videos, 2000+ Questions, 15 FLTs +
	GMATWhiz - $299 ~~$499~~ Experience the course through a free trial.
	GMAT Club Tests - Free Included with every course purchase of $149+ View all deals

Scored 650-710 in mocks, but scored 550 on test day!

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards