8 days to go- got a pathetic score on GMAT Prep test 2 today

Guest

I take GMAT in 8 days and I got a 650 on GMAT prep test 2 Crying or Very sad

I know GMAT prep is supposed to be the most accurate indicator of actual gmat score and hence I am very worried now. I got a 690 on the first GMAT prep test and that was around 3 weeks ago. I have been studying since then and thought of getting a 700+ score today. I got 700 in the PR test which I took a few days back. I don't know what went wrong today. I could not finish the quant section (6 ques not attempted) which is my strength and I generally finish that section with around 2-3 guesses in the end. I am not very good at verbal but not very bad either and compensate it with quant, but today's score was horrible. A lot of mistakes in SC. Accuracy went down the drain in both the sections.

I can't figure out what can be done now. I am really depressed. Pls suggest what should I do. Can I count today as one of those bad days when everything is against you and try taking the GMAT prep again? Will I get different questions? I have only 3 effective days to prepare and retaking the GMAT is not an option for me.

beatthegmat · Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 6:07 pm Post subject:

Don't read into your GMATPrep scores too much--flukes in performance happen all the time. You have got to trust the studying and progress you've made in the past few months of your preparation. You're close to the finish line--go into your test confident!

Good luck!

stoic74 · Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 9:14 pm Post subject:

Focus on improving the areas where you made mistakes, while not losing touch with your stregnths. You still have 8 days to go and you can make all the difference. Also, in my case, I scored more in the actual GMAt exam(690) than I ever did on GMATPrep 1 & 2 (640 each time, the last one about 10 days before the exam).

So, don't lose heart. Good luck!
-Stoic

Guest · Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 1:10 am Post subject:

Thanks Eric and stoic74! I feel better now and promise myself to give it my best shot. Lets see who beats whom Twisted Evil

Stacey Koprince · Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:33 pm Post subject:

Based on what you described, here's a guess:

You know you're taking the test soon, so you took this last practice test much more seriously than you took previous practice tests. Your nerves led you to hang on to quant questions much longer than you should - you weren't able to pull the plug, make an educated guess, and move on in the way you know you should. That caused you to run out of time, giving you a string of at least 6 questions in a row wrong at the end, and likely a few more b/c you were probably aware you were running out of time and were rushing, which increases your careless mistakes.

The WORST thing you can do is run out of time because the single biggest thing that can kill your score is a string of questions wrong in a row. Getting any one question wrong is no big deal, even if it's an easy question. Multiple questions in a row is what kills us.

Then, you were shaken up by what happened in the math section and you weren't able to concentrate as well on verbal.

Be happy that this happened in a practice test and not the real thing. Go figure out what you need to do to make sure that this DOES NOT happen on the real test. If you really did find yourself hanging on to math questions too long, you've GOT to get better at pacing and at educated guessing (the more comfortable you feel with educated guessing, the easier you will find it to pull the plug when you should).

Guest · Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:41 am Post subject:

Thanks Stacey! will follow your advice.