300 point drop in Official Score vs. Practice Score

Question

Hey all,

I've been through the forums, but this is the first time I've posted. I've been studying the GMAT on and off throughout 2020. At first I used Kaplan (studying two hours a day after work with two days of rest), then (when the pandemic began) I used Manhattan Prep and during that time I became serious (I mean a minimum of 4 hours everyday serious). I've also used GMAC, but probably not as much as I should have. When I took my first diagnostic score, I got a 510 through GMAC. My next scores are from Manhattan Prep after/during their bootcamp lessons, my first score was a 550, then 590, then 620, then 630, then 730 (I admit I got really lucky that time with guessing). So, I go and take the official practice test (thinking I'd score in the 600s) and my score was a 460. I'm not even disappointed, well I am, but I'm more confused than anything. I've studied intensely for 7 weeks and clocked in about 194 hours. I've done a bootcamp, hired a tutored, and spent many hours studying for this test. Before the test, I rested completely, did a 20 min run, ate a good breakfast, and watched a comedy with my best friend. I'll admit when I took my practice tests, they were late at night. There's something about the solidarity of night time that makes it easier to concentrate. My dog is asleep, I play some classical in the background, sip my water, and get to work.

So today, I took the official exam and got a 460. Which is insane to me because I've spent literally hours on practice tests, I've seen way over 100 questions and my quant is usually between 42-45 and my verbal 36-40. However, on my official test, my quant was a 26 and my verbal was a 25. It's insane that I've studied, practiced, and trained for the gmat so hard for 7 weeks, paid $1,000's of dollars just to get a score lower than my initial diagnostic score. I've bought an ESR, but it doesn't seem like its available yet. I just want some answers. I'm not disappointed, I'm just more confused on how this could happen. I keep a large (max 800 page) binder of all the questions I've gotten wrong and review it periodically. I say this, because I believed I knew how to take the test. However, my score today shows me that I know nothing. I want to keep my head held high and continue to try to get that 700+ score so I can apply before round 2 deadlines, but I don't know what my next steps are. I just want some advice.

deepverma · Answer

That is truly surprising. I think following may be the causes
1) Official question practice is must to know the GMAC question pattern. Tricky questions and traps.
2) For Verbal, equally important part is to know why 4 options are wrong as why 1 is correct.
3) For Quant,Guessing in mocks were working but not in official exam.
4) There could have been exam anxiety , because of which you mite have made silly mistakes.

U seem good at verbal naturally as verbal score is close to avg. I would suggest to focus on Official questions and mocks.

TheUltimateWinner · Answer

Hi,
Can you share the split of the highlighted part?
 
It's not the case, actually. It seems that the exam was not favor to you. If you do 'bootcamp' with manhattanprep, you certainly know some different things about the GMAT! So, you can still do better in the next exam! Most importantly, you should not be disappointed. When are you taking your exam again?
 
Just a guessing may not reach you to that highest score, probably. Did you study those manhattan CAT questions from manhattan gmat forum?

By the by, did you 'leave' any question(s) in the end of the exam?

avgnordinary · Answer

Sure 620 = Q38 V36, 630 = Q41 V35, 730 = Q45 V44 (I say that this was the peak, but with the 730 I got really lucky with guessing some of the problems. I think its because I've taken so many practice tests that I "knew" what a right answer "looked like". If that makes any sense.). I only left 1 question unanswered in the verbal section, because I was down to two different answer choices and was going to click submit, but ran out of time.

I plan to take my next exam probably sometime in October. I don't know whether it will be the beginning, middle, or end of October, I just want to get a game plan going. Maybe diversify my actual practice test with GMAC and some other companies.

Also, yes I know the 730 wont work by just guessing, but I still think I should be able to at least crack 700 and continue to improve. Yes, I actually have a huge binder that contains all the questions I got wrong, the answer choices, why the wrong answers were wrong, and why the right answer was right. After I take a practice exam, the next day I go back and review the entire exam, even the ones I got right. This is true even when I run sets, for example, a set of RC, or a set of Algebra. I'll do the problems, review them, and see if there's a faster way to do them in a couple of days afterwards.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT.

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 460. 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 articles:

how to score a 700+ on the GMAT

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

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi avgnordinary,

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, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) What specific study materials have you used so far?
2) On what 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)?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School and 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). Once you have your ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you. Before you can include attachments with your posts/PMs, you need to have at least 5 posts in the forums (right now, you have 2 posts). If you would rather not go through those extra steps at this point, then you can feel free to email me directly (at [email protected])

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

avgnordinary · Answer

Scott,

I can't thank you enough for this. This makes a lot of sense. I think I have just picked up patterns on sentence correction that have gotten me a higher score and I think I have noticed what certain right answers "look like". I took another practice test with a different company and that confirmed this. I think a mixture of incomplete understanding, a type of arrogance, and nerves is what got me my score. I think it would be useful to diversify my studies and learn each type of verbal deeply in order to gain a clear understanding. It took several reads of your reply for me to truly understand. Unfortunately, it seems I have a long way to go. However, at least the path is a little more clear now. Thanks a million.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

I'm happy to help. Good luck!

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