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My scores dropped!

by swatik » Fri Apr 25, 2014 3:21 am
Hi,

I have been studying for GMAT for the last three months. I work full time and I am a mother to two kids below the age of five. I have been able to give on an average 1.5 hrs a day for my preparation.

I gave several mocks test to check on my progress and the scores are as follows:

GMAT prep 1 - 610 (attempted essay and IR)(Feb 1st week)
GMAT prep 2 - 600 (attempted essay and IR)(Feb 2nd week)
Kaplan - 640 (March 1st week)
Veritas - 680(March 2nd week)
Manhattan Free CAT - 660(12/04/2014)
Manhattan CAT 2- 590 (14/04/2014)
Economist Mock Test- 600 (24/04/2014)

As you can see my scores dropped drastically in the last two tests. I was not sick or tired when I gave those tests.

After my dismal performance in CAT 2, I reviewed my weak areas and focussed on the concepts.
I thought I would see an improvement, but landed up with 600 in my Economist mock exam :(

Any idea what could be wrong? What can I do to improve my scores?
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by KevinRocci » Fri Apr 25, 2014 11:46 am
swatik wrote:Hi,

I have been studying for GMAT for the last three months. I work full time and I am a mother to two kids below the age of five. I have been able to give on an average 1.5 hrs a day for my preparation.

I gave several mocks test to check on my progress and the scores are as follows:

GMAT prep 1 - 610 (attempted essay and IR)(Feb 1st week)
GMAT prep 2 - 600 (attempted essay and IR)(Feb 2nd week)
Kaplan - 640 (March 1st week)
Veritas - 680(March 2nd week)
Manhattan Free CAT - 660(12/04/2014)
Manhattan CAT 2- 590 (14/04/2014)
Economist Mock Test- 600 (24/04/2014)

As you can see my scores dropped drastically in the last two tests. I was not sick or tired when I gave those tests.

After my dismal performance in CAT 2, I reviewed my weak areas and focussed on the concepts.
I thought I would see an improvement, but landed up with 600 in my Economist mock exam :(

Any idea what could be wrong? What can I do to improve my scores?
Howdy! I think that I can help!

There are a few reasons why your test scores may vary. One obvious reason that your scores may have varied has nothing to do with you or your preparation. You are taking practice tests from numerous testing companies. The scores that you receive from one testing company are not comparable to tests from another company. Each test prep company has its own way of scoring and each one has varying difficulty and quality of questions. For example, your highest scores came from two companies that are known to have weak questions that don't match the hard difficulty of the actual GMAT.

To learn more about why test scores vary, I recommend reading this article I wrote on the topic.

I hope this helps! :)
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by Elizabeth@EconomistGMAT » Fri Apr 25, 2014 12:20 pm
I know it's frustrating that you received differing GMAT sim test scores, but try not to let that worry you.

A score can dip from one exam to another even with the same amount of knowledge or the same percentage of correct/incorrect. The GMAT scoring algorithm takes many factors into account including where you make errors, how many mistakes you commit in a row, whether you finish both sections or leave questions out, whether the last few questions of either section seemed like they were guessed at, how you felt on test day, etc. These factors can all affect your score.

From one test to the next you can easily jump +/- 30 points (and even up to 80 or so) depending on where the mistakes are made. *Where* you make mistakes can often be more important than how many. Overall, when a student wants to know where he/she stands, the best way to do so is to take the average after a few sim tests. This should get you to a fairly close estimation of where you are at.

As for Economist GMAT Tutor, in general, our students tend to score within about +/- 30 points or so from what they get on our tests and the GMAT test preps.
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by [email protected] » Fri Apr 25, 2014 2:56 pm
Hi swatik,

When comparing one CAT result to another, the details of each event really matter. Your scores seem to revolve around 640 - sometimes higher, sometimes lower - so you have to look at the specific details of each exam to properly define what happened (and hopefully learn what helps you to gain points and what costs you points).

My initial suggestion is to do a question-by-question breakdown of every questions that you got wrong. How often did you get a question wrong due to a silly mistake and how often did you get a question wrong because is was too hard? Examining your pacing (and if you had to rush through questions at the end of each section) can also reveal some positives or negatives about your performance. Fix the little/silly mistakes first - they're likely the biggest problem you're facing right now.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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