Last visit was: 26 Apr 2026, 09:29 It is currently 26 Apr 2026, 09:29
Close
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.

Customized
for You

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History

Track
Your Progress

every week, we’ll send you an estimated GMAT score based on your performance

Practice
Pays

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Close
Request Expert Reply
Confirm Cancel
avatar
uberdhk
Joined: 15 Aug 2020
Last visit: 18 Jun 2021
Posts: 1
Posts: 1
Kudos: 0
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
User avatar
aviddd
Joined: 26 Jul 2020
Last visit: 10 Mar 2021
Posts: 204
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 66
Products:
Posts: 204
Kudos: 227
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
User avatar
GmatKnightTutor
User avatar
Major Poster
Joined: 31 Jan 2020
Last visit: 01 Nov 2025
Posts: 5,203
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 18
Posts: 5,203
Kudos: 1,576
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
User avatar
ScottTargetTestPrep
User avatar
Target Test Prep Representative
Joined: 14 Oct 2015
Last visit: 26 Apr 2026
Posts: 22,286
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 302
Status:Founder & CEO
Affiliations: Target Test Prep
Location: United States (CA)
Expert
Expert reply
Active GMAT Club Expert! Tag them with @ followed by their username for a faster response.
Posts: 22,286
Kudos: 26,537
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
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 370. 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 article:

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!
User avatar
EMPOWERgmatRichC
User avatar
Major Poster
Joined: 19 Dec 2014
Last visit: 31 Dec 2023
Posts: 21,777
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 450
Status:GMAT Assassin/Co-Founder
Affiliations: EMPOWERgmat
Location: United States (CA)
GMAT 1: 800 Q51 V49
GRE 1: Q170 V170
Expert
Expert reply
GMAT 1: 800 Q51 V49
GRE 1: Q170 V170
Posts: 21,777
Kudos: 13,052
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Hi uberdhk,

I'm sorry to hear that your 2nd attempt did not 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:

1) How long have you studied in total? Over the last month, how many hours did 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)?
4) What application deadlines are you currently facing?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Moderator:
Founder
43161 posts