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09 Nov 2024, 12:07
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Hi All -
I took my GMAT Focus exam yesterday evening at 5:30 PM. I honestly didn't want to take it this late in the day, but I rescheduled my exam that was previously on Saturday and was trying to schedule the earliest possible schedule that aligned with work.
I got a 625 GMAT score - Q86 - 91st percentile, V80 - 57th percentile, and DI77 - 63rd percentile). For reference, this is my lowest GMAT score ever - even lower than my diagnostic. I got 635 diagnostic (DI81, Q81, V82), 675 Test 2 (DI85, Q81, V85), 715 Test 3 (DI84, Q87, V85), 675 Test 4 (DI84, Q82, V85), 675 Test 5 (DI85, Q81, V85), 725 Test 6 (DI88, Q85, V86), and 725 Retake Test 5 - didn't see any repeating questions (DI82, Q90 - first perfect, V86). The takeaway for me on these tests had always been i.) I'm doing consistently well on Verbal and DI and ii.) I need to focus on not making dumb mistakes on Quant. As you can see, I was getting a number of Q81 or Q82's after making 5 mistakes with 3 - 4 that I should have gotten correct (dumb calculations, misreading, even putting in wrong answer when I had it right on my scantron).
My goal is a 715+ (though I'd probably consider being done if I got a 705 depending on how the Quant score was). Goal schools are M7.
While I'm not trying to fish for sympathy, would love to hear other's feedback. The cynical side of me is saying I'll never be able to get a 705+ on the real test, but the understanding part of me understands test jitters happen and I need to just dust myself off and try again.
Days leading up I was busy with work. I work in M&A so really high pace environment. I took Thursday afternoon off and spent the evening with my girlfriend just chilling and watching a show. I got only like 6.5 hours for Friday (had trouble sleeping) and since my test was so late, I went on an hour run (I run 6 days a week). While this run was much longer and intense than a typical run I'd do, I rationalized that I could take a nap before my exam and be recharged. I tried napping from 1 PM - 3 PM but I had trouble falling sleep. Maybe because I was too jazzed. I woke up at 3:15 PM and made myself a smoothie and the finally had a cup of coffee (I held off on coffee all day to try to get caffeinated right before my exam). I had a thermos too and was sipping coffee along the way. I drink a lot of coffee so this wasn't crazy to have two cups before a test but I maybe could have paced it out. I was also chewing gum to help focus.
When I got to the test center, I did have some test anxiety (my shirt pits were completely drenched with sweat). I was also thrown off because I thought I could have caffeine during the break (I'd seen some people mention having a thermos in their locker) but the instructions said only water. When I asked the front desk person, she was adamant I couldn't have a red bull, so I was scared that I might get in trouble if I was caught with a Red Bull. This is different from my prior exams as I would have coffee during my break. The proctor was also strict. My tutor had mentioned that if you ask nicely for an extra booklet at the beginning ("Hey, I hope you don't mind, would I be able to get another booklet? I 've been running through these in my prior practice and it'd be helpful to have another one.), that in his experience, the majority of the time like 3 out of 4 times, they'll say yes. She said no immediately so that kind of threw me off.
Test - I did Verbal first, then Quant, break, then DI. My rationale had been Verbal requires a lot of detail reading so I want to be at my sharpest with Verbal.
I'm honestly shocked how bad I did. I thought at most I got like 3 wrong. I got a perfect on Analysis / Critique, 46th percentile on Plan / Construct, 47th percentile on Identity Inferred Idea, and 73rd percentile on Identity Stated Idea. Identity Inferred mostly came from RC. Again, I'm pretty shocked as Verbal has always been a consistently high Section for me. I used TTP and PowerScores and consistently did well. For me, the biggest takeaway had always been i.) understand the argument / what you're reading, ii.) read carefully the question, iii.) break down structure / find section in RC, and iv.) go through why something is right and why something is wrong. I thought I'd done that sufficiently.
I was also proud of how I improved my time management with Verbal. I don't take extensive notes on verbal (takes up a lot of time and has never really worked for me) but I do have a b c d e listed and then assign a probability / check off the answers. I calculated that writing down each number and putting a, b, c, d, e takes me over 90 seconds, so what I've done is I write down all those numbers during the instructional part of the GMAT to save time when I actually take the exam. Also, as soon as I answer the question, I immediately hover right above the 'Submit' and because you can press A, B, C, D, or E to answer, I've done that approach and it also saves time having to scroll the mouse and click 'Submit.'
I don't know what to take away here to be honest. I did acknowledge that one of the RC was challenging (that occasionally happens from time to time though seldom) but I do feel like I have a very solid grasp on Verbal.
Quant
I got a bit lucky on Quant as I guessed on the last two because I had no idea how to answer them. Those ones I got wrong though were dumb mistakes I was making, so I guess in a karmic way it kind of evens out the result. As I already said above, Quant has been my shakiest section but I've been really trying to be super, super careful in reading and doing my calculations. Goal is to get 2 or less wrong so I accomplished that.
Break - I had some pretzels and those fruit snacks. I honestly regret pretzels because I was kind of choking on the food since I got drymouth from the exam.
Data Insights
This was the most shocking. As I completely hit a wall at first. The first question was a Two-Table Analysis and just reading the 4 sentences of instruction, my brain was completely fried. I guessed and it was wrong initially. I then had MSR for 3 - 6 and completely did not understand what questions were asking. Panicking, I guessed on those. I then kind of settled in though I will acknowledge I didn't fully understand the last question so not shocking I got it wrong. I then went back to Question 1 and Question 3 and changed the answer from Incorrect to Correct. Question 3 was one of the 3 MSRs so it actually saved me from getting all the MSRs wrong.
What shocks me is how punitive the actual GMAT was on DI. For reference, on my diagnostic exam, I got 4 wrong and still got 90th percentile. How does 1 extra question wrong drop you from 90th percentile to 63rd percentile? I know the algorithm factors the question difficulty missed and how many in a row I got wrong, but this seems pretty punitive, no? I know I saw Marty Murray mention that 15 out of 20 is often like an 85th percentile on certain exams, so just seems like I got the wrong questions wrong.
Feedback?
What do you all think? I'm just shocked at that Verbal score. It looks like how I did on my first Diagnostic (though Diagnostic I missed 7) and I was running out of time on that Diagnostic. Here I wasn't running out of time; I had 2 minutes to spare. On DI, I'm not as peeved I guessed. It was really not understand one MSR that really screwed up my score. The last graphic I was struggling to read / brain dead.
I'm a very self-critical person but I honestly don't know what topics I have to drill in on. I'll explain my prep more but I felt ready for this exam and felt like a lot of my mistakes in my practice exams came down to dumb mistakes.
Some of my biggest takeaways were more around testing time, day of activities, and Test Order. I regret taking the test at 5:30 PM.
I'm a night owl by nature but my brain isn't wired to do a high octane test that late in the day. I was also having to sit around all day which I didn't like either and then I really didn't like having to take the test during the weekday. I also regret going on an 8 mile run the day of. I just figured if the test was at 5:30 PM, then I could take a power nap and the longer run would relax my mind, but I definitely think I might have overexerted myself.
On Test Order, I'd been recently doing Verbal, Quant, Break, and DI as mentioned above. While I do make dumb mistakes on Quant, because of being in Finance, I work with numbers a lot so I can function on a little more fatigue on those problems whereas I have to be sharp in Verbal. After what just happened, I do not think I can do DI last again. My thoughts are either DI, break, Verbal, Quant or Verbal, break, DI, Quant. I'm kind of leaning towards the first one. I haven't seen one person mention they've done DI first, but I'll try it at my mock test.
Where do I go from here?
I think I'm going to reschedule for a weekend. I like test center better than online because I often get distracted by wide open spaces and my apartment and office can be noisy / distracting. I honestly had no problem with the test center once I sat down for the exam.
I didn't realize that the Mock Test GMAT retakes don't repeat that many questions, so I accidentally retook GMAT exams 1 - 4 untimed (like doing problem by problem over the week) and then did GMAT exam 5 timed - that's the one I got the 725 in. I'll probably take GMAT exam 6 retake next week, but I need another mock test the week after, so any advice would be great.
I honestly don't know if killing myself with more problems or topics will help immensely. I saw from Marty Murray's recommendation on tagging GMAT Prep from GMAT Club so I might create a pairing of 10 questions and time myself for different topics. I don't want to be dismissive that this was just a bad day but I honestly am scratching my head given my prior strong performances in Verbal and DI.
Background
3.92 GPA from UCLA (graduated top 10 in my major). On two non-profit boards and I've worked in M&A and operations for healthcare companies over the last 8 years. I wanted to take the GMAT 3 years ago but I freaked out about losing my job during the pandemic (most of my company's profits were from outpatient surgeries so they laid off a ton of people and I couldn't afford any non-work distractions) and then I was about to last year when, and not kidding here, my car blew up and destroyed notes I'd culled for over a year right as the GFE became mandatory (I was intending to take the Original GMAT because SC had been a strength section for me).
I'd been obsessed with trying to get a perfect score and was inspired by Marty Murray. I think my rationale had always been that I felt like I left things on the table when I took the SAT and I didn't want to repeat that mistake with the GMAT. I eventually realized that I was wasting time deferring school and that one could still get an amazing score while missing some problems. I've gone through TTP twice (have passed the required percentages), flipped through PowerScores, and done all the Official GMAT question banks (as reference, I got 95% right on the 1,200+ questions). So again, I know I can get better at some things in the next 2 - 3 weeks, but again I'm just shocked at how bad I did for how many hours I've spent on this.
Appreciate everyone's feedback on here and supporting me through this journey.
I took my GMAT Focus exam yesterday evening at 5:30 PM. I honestly didn't want to take it this late in the day, but I rescheduled my exam that was previously on Saturday and was trying to schedule the earliest possible schedule that aligned with work.
I got a 625 GMAT score - Q86 - 91st percentile, V80 - 57th percentile, and DI77 - 63rd percentile). For reference, this is my lowest GMAT score ever - even lower than my diagnostic. I got 635 diagnostic (DI81, Q81, V82), 675 Test 2 (DI85, Q81, V85), 715 Test 3 (DI84, Q87, V85), 675 Test 4 (DI84, Q82, V85), 675 Test 5 (DI85, Q81, V85), 725 Test 6 (DI88, Q85, V86), and 725 Retake Test 5 - didn't see any repeating questions (DI82, Q90 - first perfect, V86). The takeaway for me on these tests had always been i.) I'm doing consistently well on Verbal and DI and ii.) I need to focus on not making dumb mistakes on Quant. As you can see, I was getting a number of Q81 or Q82's after making 5 mistakes with 3 - 4 that I should have gotten correct (dumb calculations, misreading, even putting in wrong answer when I had it right on my scantron).
My goal is a 715+ (though I'd probably consider being done if I got a 705 depending on how the Quant score was). Goal schools are M7.
While I'm not trying to fish for sympathy, would love to hear other's feedback. The cynical side of me is saying I'll never be able to get a 705+ on the real test, but the understanding part of me understands test jitters happen and I need to just dust myself off and try again.
Days leading up I was busy with work. I work in M&A so really high pace environment. I took Thursday afternoon off and spent the evening with my girlfriend just chilling and watching a show. I got only like 6.5 hours for Friday (had trouble sleeping) and since my test was so late, I went on an hour run (I run 6 days a week). While this run was much longer and intense than a typical run I'd do, I rationalized that I could take a nap before my exam and be recharged. I tried napping from 1 PM - 3 PM but I had trouble falling sleep. Maybe because I was too jazzed. I woke up at 3:15 PM and made myself a smoothie and the finally had a cup of coffee (I held off on coffee all day to try to get caffeinated right before my exam). I had a thermos too and was sipping coffee along the way. I drink a lot of coffee so this wasn't crazy to have two cups before a test but I maybe could have paced it out. I was also chewing gum to help focus.
When I got to the test center, I did have some test anxiety (my shirt pits were completely drenched with sweat). I was also thrown off because I thought I could have caffeine during the break (I'd seen some people mention having a thermos in their locker) but the instructions said only water. When I asked the front desk person, she was adamant I couldn't have a red bull, so I was scared that I might get in trouble if I was caught with a Red Bull. This is different from my prior exams as I would have coffee during my break. The proctor was also strict. My tutor had mentioned that if you ask nicely for an extra booklet at the beginning ("Hey, I hope you don't mind, would I be able to get another booklet? I 've been running through these in my prior practice and it'd be helpful to have another one.), that in his experience, the majority of the time like 3 out of 4 times, they'll say yes. She said no immediately so that kind of threw me off.
Test - I did Verbal first, then Quant, break, then DI. My rationale had been Verbal requires a lot of detail reading so I want to be at my sharpest with Verbal.
I'm honestly shocked how bad I did. I thought at most I got like 3 wrong. I got a perfect on Analysis / Critique, 46th percentile on Plan / Construct, 47th percentile on Identity Inferred Idea, and 73rd percentile on Identity Stated Idea. Identity Inferred mostly came from RC. Again, I'm pretty shocked as Verbal has always been a consistently high Section for me. I used TTP and PowerScores and consistently did well. For me, the biggest takeaway had always been i.) understand the argument / what you're reading, ii.) read carefully the question, iii.) break down structure / find section in RC, and iv.) go through why something is right and why something is wrong. I thought I'd done that sufficiently.
I was also proud of how I improved my time management with Verbal. I don't take extensive notes on verbal (takes up a lot of time and has never really worked for me) but I do have a b c d e listed and then assign a probability / check off the answers. I calculated that writing down each number and putting a, b, c, d, e takes me over 90 seconds, so what I've done is I write down all those numbers during the instructional part of the GMAT to save time when I actually take the exam. Also, as soon as I answer the question, I immediately hover right above the 'Submit' and because you can press A, B, C, D, or E to answer, I've done that approach and it also saves time having to scroll the mouse and click 'Submit.'
I don't know what to take away here to be honest. I did acknowledge that one of the RC was challenging (that occasionally happens from time to time though seldom) but I do feel like I have a very solid grasp on Verbal.
Quant
I got a bit lucky on Quant as I guessed on the last two because I had no idea how to answer them. Those ones I got wrong though were dumb mistakes I was making, so I guess in a karmic way it kind of evens out the result. As I already said above, Quant has been my shakiest section but I've been really trying to be super, super careful in reading and doing my calculations. Goal is to get 2 or less wrong so I accomplished that.
Break - I had some pretzels and those fruit snacks. I honestly regret pretzels because I was kind of choking on the food since I got drymouth from the exam.
Data Insights
This was the most shocking. As I completely hit a wall at first. The first question was a Two-Table Analysis and just reading the 4 sentences of instruction, my brain was completely fried. I guessed and it was wrong initially. I then had MSR for 3 - 6 and completely did not understand what questions were asking. Panicking, I guessed on those. I then kind of settled in though I will acknowledge I didn't fully understand the last question so not shocking I got it wrong. I then went back to Question 1 and Question 3 and changed the answer from Incorrect to Correct. Question 3 was one of the 3 MSRs so it actually saved me from getting all the MSRs wrong.
What shocks me is how punitive the actual GMAT was on DI. For reference, on my diagnostic exam, I got 4 wrong and still got 90th percentile. How does 1 extra question wrong drop you from 90th percentile to 63rd percentile? I know the algorithm factors the question difficulty missed and how many in a row I got wrong, but this seems pretty punitive, no? I know I saw Marty Murray mention that 15 out of 20 is often like an 85th percentile on certain exams, so just seems like I got the wrong questions wrong.
Feedback?
What do you all think? I'm just shocked at that Verbal score. It looks like how I did on my first Diagnostic (though Diagnostic I missed 7) and I was running out of time on that Diagnostic. Here I wasn't running out of time; I had 2 minutes to spare. On DI, I'm not as peeved I guessed. It was really not understand one MSR that really screwed up my score. The last graphic I was struggling to read / brain dead.
I'm a very self-critical person but I honestly don't know what topics I have to drill in on. I'll explain my prep more but I felt ready for this exam and felt like a lot of my mistakes in my practice exams came down to dumb mistakes.
Some of my biggest takeaways were more around testing time, day of activities, and Test Order. I regret taking the test at 5:30 PM.
I'm a night owl by nature but my brain isn't wired to do a high octane test that late in the day. I was also having to sit around all day which I didn't like either and then I really didn't like having to take the test during the weekday. I also regret going on an 8 mile run the day of. I just figured if the test was at 5:30 PM, then I could take a power nap and the longer run would relax my mind, but I definitely think I might have overexerted myself.
On Test Order, I'd been recently doing Verbal, Quant, Break, and DI as mentioned above. While I do make dumb mistakes on Quant, because of being in Finance, I work with numbers a lot so I can function on a little more fatigue on those problems whereas I have to be sharp in Verbal. After what just happened, I do not think I can do DI last again. My thoughts are either DI, break, Verbal, Quant or Verbal, break, DI, Quant. I'm kind of leaning towards the first one. I haven't seen one person mention they've done DI first, but I'll try it at my mock test.
Where do I go from here?
I think I'm going to reschedule for a weekend. I like test center better than online because I often get distracted by wide open spaces and my apartment and office can be noisy / distracting. I honestly had no problem with the test center once I sat down for the exam.
I didn't realize that the Mock Test GMAT retakes don't repeat that many questions, so I accidentally retook GMAT exams 1 - 4 untimed (like doing problem by problem over the week) and then did GMAT exam 5 timed - that's the one I got the 725 in. I'll probably take GMAT exam 6 retake next week, but I need another mock test the week after, so any advice would be great.
I honestly don't know if killing myself with more problems or topics will help immensely. I saw from Marty Murray's recommendation on tagging GMAT Prep from GMAT Club so I might create a pairing of 10 questions and time myself for different topics. I don't want to be dismissive that this was just a bad day but I honestly am scratching my head given my prior strong performances in Verbal and DI.
Background
3.92 GPA from UCLA (graduated top 10 in my major). On two non-profit boards and I've worked in M&A and operations for healthcare companies over the last 8 years. I wanted to take the GMAT 3 years ago but I freaked out about losing my job during the pandemic (most of my company's profits were from outpatient surgeries so they laid off a ton of people and I couldn't afford any non-work distractions) and then I was about to last year when, and not kidding here, my car blew up and destroyed notes I'd culled for over a year right as the GFE became mandatory (I was intending to take the Original GMAT because SC had been a strength section for me).
I'd been obsessed with trying to get a perfect score and was inspired by Marty Murray. I think my rationale had always been that I felt like I left things on the table when I took the SAT and I didn't want to repeat that mistake with the GMAT. I eventually realized that I was wasting time deferring school and that one could still get an amazing score while missing some problems. I've gone through TTP twice (have passed the required percentages), flipped through PowerScores, and done all the Official GMAT question banks (as reference, I got 95% right on the 1,200+ questions). So again, I know I can get better at some things in the next 2 - 3 weeks, but again I'm just shocked at how bad I did for how many hours I've spent on this.
Appreciate everyone's feedback on here and supporting me through this journey.
boybread5
Joined: 29 Dec 2016
Last visit: 31 Mar 2026
Posts: 25
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 20
Location: United States
Schools: Booth (Chicago)
GMAT Focus 1: 625 Q86 V80 DI77 
GMAT Focus 2: 665 Q81 V89 DI79
GMAT Focus 3: 635 Q83 V78 DI83
GMAT Focus 4: 755 Q88 V90 DI85
GPA: 3.92
Products:
09 Nov 2024, 23:39
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Sounds like a rough experience! It's clear that you have the potential to hit your target score. Given your test day challenges (late timing, fatigue, stress about center policies), it’s likely these factors impacted your performance more than skill gaps. It might be worth trying a test order with DI as your first section then V then Q. Also, keep focusing on consistent test conditions in your remaining practice, like earlier time slots, taking breaks, and keeping up with your usual prep without overexertion.
You've got a solid foundation—stay focused and remember, it’s one step closer to your goal. All the best!!
You've got a solid foundation—stay focused and remember, it’s one step closer to your goal. All the best!!
