Q82 with 3 incorrect? 675 after 7 months of prep, the new 730?

Question

Hi all,

I just received my official GMAT score after taking it on 7/19. I got a 675 Q82 V85 DI84 after studying for ~7 months (since mid December 2024), a great improvement since my last exam, 595, which was abnormal for how I scored on practice exams. Something that was strange to me was when I got my unofficial score it said 675 (96th percentile), Q82 (76th percentile), V85 (96th percentile), and DI (98th percentile) which the official score said that my 675 it 95th, Verbal is 94th and DI is 97th. If I were to take my percentile of 96th from the unofficial report, then that would be the same as 730, hence why I think that 675 and 730 may be equal.

Quant was 100% below what I was expecting to score  and the real exam really threw a curveball. The questions felt way easier than the GMAT Club tests which I expected but some were so easy that I would be surprised when I solved it so quickly, causing me to overthink and spend more time lol. But what surprised me the most was this:  I got a score of 82 with only 3 problems incorrect.  Further, the problems I got incorrect were #3, 14 and 20. I'm unsure how the test is thinking but one reason I could think of as to why I scored so low in quant is because I got questions 10 and 18 incorrect too but I edited them to correct choices.

For Verbal,  I got 4 questions incorrect, #11, 16, 17 and 21. For DI, I got 5 questions incorrect, #1, 5, 10, 14 and 15 which makes me think I just got hard questions throughout the entire section, especially since I initially got question 12 incorrect too but changed it to correct.

One thing that threw me off was that  my proctor this time (since I took it online) seemed to be doing ANYTHING she could to ensure I wasn't cheating.  While in the past they made me clear my desk and move some things around, this proctor made me move nearly my entire room so that nothing was near me besides test materials. This was fine because I get it, they don't want any cheating, but it seemed that it was a little excessive with how much time it took plus some things had changed since my last time taking the GMAT. The thing that most bothered me was that during my quant section (which I took first), the proctor messaged me asking to confirm if I was taking the break or not which distracted me for a moment, making me have to read the message, answer "no, I'll be taking it after Verbal" and then close the chat box. Again, this is something that seemed to have changed since I last took the GMAT.

Score history:

May 24 GMAT Club test (655 Q81 V83 DI83),  
 June 13 GMAT Club test (675 Q81 V82 DI87),  
 June 18 GMAT Club test (615 Q77 V83 DI81),  
 June 21 GMAT Club Quant Section (Q80),  
 June 24 GMAT Club Quant Section (Q84),  
 July 1 GMAT Club Quant Section (Q82),  
 July 5 GMAT Club Quant Section (Q87),  
 July 10 GMAT Club Verbal Section (V82),  
 July 11 OG Practice Exam #6 (725 Q87 V85 DI86),  
 July 12 GMAT Club Data Insights Section (DI88),  
 July 12 GMAT Club Verbal Section (V82)

If you want to know anything more, feel free to reply or DM me!

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Gratz on the 80 point score improvement. Consider writing a profile-review in the Ask Admissions Consultants subforum. You could include your scoring info and the types of schools you're interested in.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi ccarson,

Congrats on a great score! Thank you for sharing and good luck with things moving forward.

bb · Answer

Congrats on the score and thanks so much for the debrief  ccarson !

Yes, I think 675 is equivalent to 730, which should be a solid score (average for most BSchools).

P.S. What did you you think about GMAT Prep vs. GMAT Club Tests vs. Final Test? Do you feel you should have gotten more on the test day?

ccarson · Answer

Thank you! I still think I'll retake it because I talked with admissions directors at the Deferred Enrollment Chicago event and was hinted at the fact that GMAT scores tend to be a little bit higher than their average/median for class profiles due to there being a bigger emphasis on academics since us students haven't "proven ourselves" in the workforce yet.

I definitely think I should've gotten more on the test day, but only for Quant. Taking the GMAT Club Tests, Quant was WAAAAAY harder by a large margin and I still scored either the same or even higher than how I did on the Final Test. I mainly got in my head and started overthinking questions which caused me to spend more time on them. Furthermore, I only got 3 questions wrong but my score dropped by a ton; I'd expect at least a 84 for getting 18/21. For Verbal and DI, I think I performed exactly as I should've, it's just Quant I think I could've scored higher on. I even felt like GMAT Prep was more difficult than the Final Test for Quant and maybe even Verbal too.

From what I've heard and seen for Verbal, no one does it like GMAC, which I really did see that on the Final Exam. The Final Exam felt more clear with CR questions that actually seemed to test what it's supposed to test, making the questions seem a little bit easier (just because of my skill set, but not way easier, unlike Quant) than GMAT Club Tests. I do give credit to GMAT Club Tests for really making me hone in my skills for CR questions because although some questions' answers were questionable to me, a lot were more advanced which made you think about how to apply those skills to the exam.

bb · Answer

Got ya. Sorry about the 83 with three incorrect.

Under the stress, it’s easy to make a careless mistake. I was extremely careful on my test and twice I solved questions to get an answer that I was pretty confident with only to realize the answer was not one of the options. It really freaked me out because I was lucky two times and what about those times I would not be lucky?

I think there’s also luck involved as well, in different people seem to have different experience with some people having a lot of easy questions but very punitive scoring and others having hard questions and relaxed scoring.... I have been thrown off by their variable reports.

bb · Answer

PS. Thank you for the feedback. I’ve been trying to work hard on eliminating some of the questionable answers from the test and revising the questions to be clearer in CR, but that is always a battle between clarity and difficulty.

I appreciate your understanding but at the same time, please call out any questions that you feel are dubious, and I would love to improve them or perhaps disagree but that’s either way better than thinking they are perfect.

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Q82 with 3 incorrect? 675 after 7 months of prep, the new 730?

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