You mentioned whether you took the essays on your Princeton tests but not for the others. Just based on the Princeton tests, though, it's pretty clear that when you take the essays, your multiple choice score is not as high. So there's definitely a stamina issue going on that's causing at last part of the score drop. From now on, always do the essays on practice tests.
You also mentioned that you messed up the quant timing a bit - starting off too fast, then slowing down and losing time (and presumably having to rush as a result later in the test).
First - never try to assess your performance during the test based on how easy or hard you think the questions are. The difficulty levels are based on the entire population of test-takers. They do not match your individual strengths and weaknesses. For instance, I have some students who are very good at combinatorics and they panic when they see what they consider an "easy" combinatorics question. But most people are not good at combinatorics at all, so what is an "easy" question if you really know combinatorics is actually a decently harder question for the general population of test-takers. Also - don't forget the experimental questions, which can come at any level. You may see a genuinely easy question... and it may be an experimental, in which case the difficulty has nothing to do with your performance.
Second - You can re-take tests as long as you follow a few guidelines to minimize the chance of artificially inflating your score via question repeats. First, anytime you see a problem that you remember (and this means: I know the answer or I'm pretty sure I remember the answer, not just "hmm, this looks familiar..."), immediately look at the timer and make yourself sit there for the full length of time for that question type. This way, you don't artificially give yourself more time than you should have. Second, think about whether you got this problem right the last time. If you did, get it right again this time. If you didn't, get it wrong again. If you *completely honestly* think that you would get it right this time around if it were a new question (even though you got it wrong last time) because you've studied that area and improved, then get it right this time.
Third - you list the number of problems wrong in the 3 verbal question types on the exams, but the # wrong isn't the sole indicator of what's going on. For instance, if you have more SCs wrong on a particular test, but you also happened to get more 700+ SC questions, then that doesn't necessarily mean that SC is a problem - you got more wrong because you had more hard questions. Further, why did you get a question wrong? You may have gotten some questions wrong because you were running out of time and couldn't spend the full time you should have. In that case, there may be no problem with that question; the problem is the time you lost on some earlier question (and maybe you got that one right, so you're not even counting it in your calculations!).
A better way to assess the data:
- count the questions you got wrong that are below the level you're scoring. In your case, you're scoring in the high 600s, so everything labeled sub-700.
- count the questions on which you spent more than 30sec longer than you should have (even if you got them right)
- count the questions on which you under-spent your time by at least 30sec on SC or 45sec on other types (even if you got them right)
What does that data tell you? Also review each individual question to figure out lots of things:
- if you got it wrong, why? what tempted you to pick the wrong answer? why is it wrong anyway? what tempted you to eliminate the right answer? why is it right anyway?
- if you spent too much time, why? specifically, which part of the problem? did that extra time help? did that extra time hurt on a later problem? (if you spent more than 30sec over, the answer is yes, even if you got this problem right) how did that extra time hurt? specifically, where did you then not have enough time?
- if you spent too little time, why? were you rushing b/c you were behind? why were you behind; on which ones did you spend too much time? or did you think the problem was easy and you didn't need that much time? how often did you make mistakes on those "easy" problems on which you felt you didn't need full time? (On problems like that, you should make almost no mistakes - 95%+ accuracy. So if it's anything lower than that, you're hurting yourself by choosing to go fast when you think a problem is really easy.)
Also, dig deeper than just SC, CR, and RC. Analyze your performances based on the different SC grammar rules and the different question types in CR and RC.
That's a lot, so I'm going to stop here for now. If you can do the above, then you will not only really understand your strengths and weaknesses, but you will also be able to figure out how to turn those weaknesses into strengths - and that's what it's going to take to score 750+. So try to dig into that and come back and tell us what you discover. Also, if you need help figuring out how to turn specific weaknesses into strengths, come back and ask - that's why we're here!
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!
Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT
Contributor to Beat The GMAT!
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