Stacey Koprince wrote:Received a PM asking me to reply. I'm sorry you're having a tough time with this test. The task now is to figure out what happened so you can have the best chance of NOT repeating the experience.
Compared to your practice tests, did your score drop significantly in both quant and verbal? Or was the damage mostly confined to one section? Have you gotten your essay score yet? If so, how did you do?
How were your nerves that day? How have you done historically on other standardized or important, high-stress tests - have you had other instances in which you've underperformed on "the big day?"
How was your stamina? When you took the practice tests, did you also take the essays? Did you spend as much time and mental energy on the practice essays as you did on the real essays? Did you do the tests under full official conditions? (30m each for two essays, 10m break, 75m quant, 10m break, 75m verbal)
You mention that timing was not an issue. Does that mean that you worked steadily on every problem on the test, never spending >30sec more than you were supposed to and moving more quickly on other questions to make up the time? I ask because I have had a lot of conversations with students who told me their timing was fine - and they really thought it was, because they weren't running out of time at the end of the section. But when we looked at the data, I could see that their timing was definitely not fine. They were spending 3-4 minutes on a bunch of questions that they were mostly getting wrong, and then they were rushing on a bunch of other questions they knew how to do and making a lot of careless mistakes as a result. They finished on time, but they missed questions that they could've gotten because they were spending too much time on the hardest ones.
Could this be happening to you? When you review a test, how many times do you say, "Oh, I can't believe I messed that up - I knew how to do that!" A few times per test is normal - we're human after all! But only a few.
Also, I've mentioned before but I'll say again to another poster above: the test does not "lock" us into any scoring bandwidth within the first 10 questions. That's a myth. Of course, if someone were to get the first 5 questions in a row wrong, it would be difficult to dig out of that hole. But that would still be true if the person got 5 questions in a row wrong anywhere on the test. (And don't forget: if you have a string of wrong answers in a row later in the test, you don't have as many questions left by which you can try to raise your score...) Anyway, point is, don't spend "extra" time anywhere on a consistent basis. Move steadily through the test.
Hi Stacey,
Thanks for your reply. In response to your questions:
Both sections of quant and verbal on the actual exam was lower than any previous practice exams I took leading up to the exam. My essay score was ok - 4.5. I even took a Kaplan paper exam two days prior to the actual exam and received a 630 but I was not even close when I took the actual exam.
My nerves were fine that day. Had some butterflies in my stomach since it was the first time I took the actual exam but nothing out of the ordinary. I was never a great standardized test taker but I did not want that to stop me from doing well on the GMAT. I thought it was be an opportunity to redeem myself.
I took all of the breaks after each section making sure I was drinking water and snacking on a granola bar.
I used the general guideline for timing - for math by the 10th question have 55 minutes left, by the 20 have 35 minutes left and by 30 have 15 minutes left.
When I review a test - unfortunately - I make careless mistakes that at this point I should not be making anymore.
I just took an MGMAT practice exam today and did horrible. This exam was close to what I received on the actual exam. I'm not sure what I'm still missing. My practice scores are all over the map.
