Anxiety ruined my GMAT Test! Help required.

Question

Started my gmat preparations 3 months back and I appeared for the exam yesterday. Reached the GMAT centre on time and checked in. The moment the first verbal question appeared on the screen I went blank. I was unable to concentrate and started panicking and ended up with a mere score of 500 (V20 and Q42). In my mock tests I usually scored in the range of 650 - 710. 
Absolutely shattered now but planning to appear for the exam again. Need your advice.

Posted from my mobile device

rr10 · Answer

Hey Nishi999777 ,

I am sorry to hear about your bad experience in the GMAT.

The exam itself may seem daunting but the more you think about the outcome, the more it becomes harder. I can totally understand your situation.

Just give next mock exams as in an actual manner like the real test. So you will get used to the experience.Take deep breaths and do not overthink during the exam.
Try solving questions from this forum.

You sure will overcome this.

All the best !

Hovkial · Answer

There are many ways to control anxiety that will differ for each person. One of the better ways is to practice questions. The more you practice, the more prepared you will be. Even if you blank out during the test, a part of your brain can still work for you. You may also look at your health, sleep and dietary habits, among others and make changes if possible.

You have to be prepared for some amount of anxiety. A mock test will not quite reproduce the actual test experience. Now that you have taken an actual test and hit a low score, you could feel more assured that your next score could be higher.

GMATaxe001 · Answer

I have the exact same issue. Yoga and meditation have helped. Also solving a lot of questions from weak areas and some soft music everyday

Posted from my mobile device

Thelionking1234 · Answer

Hi  Nishi999777

I can understand your situation. I was in same situation few months ago as you are in, the only difference is I decided to work on my anxiety first and then take the real test. I was getting 690-720 in mocks, and finally got 690 in real exam.

With this preamble, I would recommend you to practice more on tests. You must have to purchase Manhattan or Veritas mocks for additional practice.
They are tougher than real test, so you will have hands on practice on tougher questions and that too with timer. Do not look on the scores in Manhattan or Veritas tests. Real indicator is the official mocks.

Once you finish these mocks, you can give official mocks 3-6. 3-4 is must and 5-6 is optional.

Additionally, I would also advise you before going to the mocks just go through all Quant topics and Verbal basics, and see whether you missed anything in your preparation. If at all you missed a few topics then finish them first revise and then start mocks. Once you consistently get good score on mocks, your anxiety level will reduce. Do not try to eliminate anxiety completely, everyone has some level of anxiety. Our job is to mitigate the effects of anxiety on test and not to become perfect.

Feel free to reach out me for more advise. You can message me in private for your queries. I will be happy to help.

Nishi999777 · Answer

Thank you everyone for your valuable advice and suggestions.

Will definitely work on my anxiety issues and try some yoga and meditation. I also plan on giving an ample amount of Mock tests . I have completely exhausted the OG tests, so will be purchasing the Manhattan ones.

Posted from my mobile device

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Nishi999777,

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 500. 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?

If you’d like more specific advice on how to improve your quant and verbal skills, feel free to reach back out. Good luck!

catinabox · Answer

Firstly, what you went through is completely normal. Almost everyone panics on their first attempt so you should definitely give the GMAT another go.
However, you should ask yourself which section you're most comfortable to begin the test with. Is Verbal the right choice? If you are more comfortable with Quant or even IR and Essay, you should lead with that. This will help you relax and get accustomed to the test.

Nishi999777 · Answer

I am much more comfortable with Quant than I am with Verbal. I guess this time will begin with the Quant section to boost my confidence and lower the anxiety level.
Thank you for the suggestion.

TestPrepGuru · Answer

Tests don't only measure what you know, tests also measure how well you take tests.

Whether you realize it or not, if you DO know the material and HAVE done due diligence with practice, you'll need to pivot to deal with the mental game of test taking.

Yes, meditation can help if you have time to deal with it. If not, it's recommended you get out the big guns: namely holistic and mindful modalities which will help you get out of your own way. I've been working with students since 2005 with this. You can find a free 30 minute track on our website which will help you emotionally regulate, YouTube videos under my company's page (City Test Prep) and you can also use our Potential Manual which is part of our GMAT Sentence Correction Intensive published by Nova Press.

The more you practice answering questions and working on your performance, you will feel more confident, but if you don't deal with the underlying triggers and anxiety creeping in - - you likely won't overcome the emotional status that you've been reinforcing by ironically, not directly dealing with it.

Feel free to reach out for a free consultation about this.

Best,

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Nishi999777,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. While anxiety could have impacted your performance on Test Day, we have to be careful about assuming that that was the only factor that led to your lower Score. 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) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) 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)?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

You might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. 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

AstroNut · Answer

Hi Nishi999777

First rule, do not attempt the real GMAT before you get the target score in Mocks at least 3 times. So dont hurry to get back to real exam, it would only lead to waste of money.

Second rule, know your weakness, and I dont mean it as an interview question. Know where are you struggling. Let's say you think its SC, that's not enough. You need to know within SC what is it that is bothering you is it Modifiers? Parallelism? Verbs? Subjunctive sentences? Same goes for CR and same goes for entire quant. Simply knowing that in one section you are weak is not enough, you need to go one level deeper.

I used my mocks to find that out and then used these free gmatclub resources to get better at that particular topic.

Topic + Difficulty Wise Questions –
https://gmatclub.com/forum/critical-rea ... 28861.html
https://gmatclub.com/forum/ds-question- ... 28728.html
https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-ps-ques ... 27957.html
https://gmatclub.com/forum/reading-comp ... 29341.html
https://gmatclub.com/forum/sentence-cor ... 29750.html

Best Source of Quant Concepts - If you go through this megathread, I dont think you need anything else, or any book.
https://gmatclub.com/forum/ultimate-gma ... 44512.html

Third Rule: Give you Mock GMATs as if you are giving the real GMAT test, and give your Real Gmat Test as if its a mock test. I am not joking. If you treat your real gmat as a mock, it takes the stress level down. You won't simply go blank. Do not target a score while you are sitting to give the real exam. Rather you should simply be thinking about GIVING YOUR BEST.

Hope it Helps

	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

Anxiety ruined my GMAT Test! Help required.

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