I just Beat The GMAT!

I had been practicing for about a month, and most of GMAT Prep mocks gave me a score from 690-710. The last 3 had me consistently score 40-42 in Verbal, while my quant was always in the range of 48-50.

I got 660 in my actual test. I actually was expecting 720, since I finished Verbal about 7 minutes early, timed well and confident. But I only got 32, while 49 in Quant. I'm actually confused as to what to do! Any suggestions or advice? Still trying to figure out what could have gone exactly wrong?

I used the Official guide and Manhattan GMAT for SC as my resources! What changes should I make to avoid this mistake?

DS219 wrote:I had been practicing for about a month, and most of GMAT Prep mocks gave me a score from 690-710. The last 3 had me consistently score 40-42 in Verbal, while my quant was always in the range of 48-50.

I got 660 in my actual test. I actually was expecting 720, since I finished Verbal about 7 minutes early, timed well and confident. But I only got 32, while 49 in Quant. I'm actually confused as to what to do! Any suggestions or advice? Still trying to figure out what could have gone exactly wrong?

I used the Official guide and Manhattan GMAT for SC as my resources! What changes should I make to avoid this mistake?

Outliers are inevitable. Some test-takers in the 690-710 range hit 750 on their official exam and walk away delighted. Others in the same range get a 650 and are disappointed. So the good news is that statistically speaking, you're very likely to do better the next time around, even if you don't any prep. But you may as well see this as an opportunity. Aim to boost your practice test scores to the 730-750, so that even an off day will have you at 700+.

For additional practice, pick up a fresh bank of questions. Here's ours: https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat-question-bank/

Firstly, Thank you for your advice! It has been a hard couple of days, trying to explain what exactly has gone wrong in my exam. Two of my friends used to score in the same bracket of marks in mocks have gotten 710 and 730.

Actually, Verbal has been my strength, I used to generally make silly errors in quant and lose out on marks. So I had been focusing on quant for for the last week of prep.


As to the answers to your questions:

1) Yes, I used to take the complete CAT every time!

2) I used to take them at home yes.

3) Yes, I used to time them roughly at the same time I gave my GMAT, the morning slot. One difference was that I often used to wake up, get ready and give the mock straightaway, like in an hour after waking up, but on the day of the exam I woke up like 4 hours early due to nerves.

4) I used to normally take a 15 minute break between Quant and Verbal, rather than 8.

5) I took 6 Mock CAT actually

1) 690- Q-49, V-36
650 Q-46, V-34
700 Q-50, V-35
710 Q-48 V-41
710 Q-46, V-41
690 Q-49 V-36 (Though in this one I had to finish my Verbal section in a hurry, like in about 45 minutes to 1 hour)


After my first two scores, I was working on my SC's using MGMAT book and CR questions from the official software.

So, I was expecting a score in the range of 700-730.
So currently, I'm confused. Since my midterms are approaching in college, I dont know whether I should continue with this momentum, practice for a month more, along with studying for college midterms and give it in October, or take a complete break and start in October and give it November. I'm targeting Defered admission programs of Harvard and Stanford, so I know I will require a higher score and I think I can get it. So please advice what shall be the right course of action for me!

Thank you!

Thank you for your advice Brent!

I'll definitely be watching this video, but as I've asked, what do you think would be ideal for me? Should I take a complete break from GMAT prep, focus on college studies for a month, than resume it again, or should I continue it, working on Verbal alongside, and then take another 15-20 days of intense prep later and give the exam again?

Since I would be targetting early entry programs or deferred admission programs, I need a better score is what I feel.

Is there any specific thing or method I should follow at this stage?

Thanks Jeff for your advice!

I'm actually targeting a 750+ score, because I need to for applications to Stanford and Harvard deferred admission programs.

So, I'm currently planning to work on my sentence correction and critical reasoning in details, while keeping my quant upto practice. I shall work for about 2 months, and retake the test in October.

Is there anything else I should do?

@Rich! Ok, I'll definitely make those changes the next time I take my test! Is there any specific area you think I should work upon?
My RC's over most those CAT's have been above 45. Its usually either my CR or Sentence correction that pulls down the score. When do you think I should ideally be taking the GMAT again? I plan to study for 1 month regularly for 1-2 hours, then 15 days of intense preparation and give it in Ocotber! Does this look like sound strategy?

Hi DS219.

What you experienced happens all of the time. A person thinks that he or she scored pretty high on verbal, and it turns out that actually the score was way lower than what the person though he or she had achieved.

This generally happens for a couple of reasons.

The less common reason is that the person used mostly non official practice tests and was a little thrown off by the difference between the style of the questions on the practice tests that the person was using and the style of the questions on the actual GMAT. So if you mostly used non official practice tests, you might have had something along these lines happen.

The more common reason is that the person's processes for choosing answers were just not tight enough or had significant flaws in them. I mean, consider what happens if you have flawed methods. You use those methods and feel great! "I am doing everything just right." Meanwhile, since the methods are flawed you are using them "just right" for getting wrong answers. Often the result of using flawed methods is pretty much just what you experienced, a score in the low to mid 30's.

Here's an example to hammer my point home.

I was working with someone who claimed to be "good at sentence correction." So we did some medium level, maybe 32 to 37 level, questions, and he was getting them all right, rather quickly. "See that? I am good at sentence correction." but I was watching "terrified". Why, because his methods were way flawed. He was getting them right without noticing that what he was doing was something like driving with his eyes half shut, and just barely missing trees. So I suggested that we do some higher level questions. He got smoked right and left.

The methods that he was using were good enough for more basic questions, but once the questions got trickier, the flaws in the methods starting directing him to wrong answers.

So to consistently score higher on verbal, you have to do two things. You have to get better at seeing what you have to see in order to make good decisions, and you have to tighten up and otherwise improve the processes that you use to get to answers.

You asked what resources to use. I am not aware of any resources that can accomplish these things for you. Yes there are some that can outline some of the things you have to see, such as key aspects of CR questions and sentence construction basics, and suggest some processes to use, but mostly you have to train yourself to do these things.

How can you do that? By doing verbal questions very slowly and carefully, and shooting for a close to 100% hit rate in practice. How do you hit 100%, or close to it? By not leaving a practice question until you clearly see EXACTLY why all of the wrong answers are wrong and why the right answer is right.

If you don't get one right, consider what you needed to see in order to get it right and what about your process could have been better.

Then do more questions and seek to see more and use better processes.

If you can clearly see what you have to see and if your processes are tight, you will get pretty much every verbal question right and score V46+.

For more verbal questions, you could use the GMAC Question Pack, you could get the e book, not the destructive paper version, of the OG for Verbal Review, and use the online question bank.

Also, do not finish the section early. Use up all of the time you have to see as much as possible.

There's your prescription. Take that approach and you can get to a point such that you clearly see the right answers to pretty much all verbal questions all of the time. Getting the right answer may not be easy every time - sometimes you have to be dogged, looking and looking at the question and answers until you see what's going on - but you can become very good at achieving the clarity that you need in order to get them right.

I am sorry for this results, I hope you will do great next time! And thanks everyone for great tips!