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Help me Beat the GMAT

by melisaaslan » Wed Nov 21, 2018 7:41 am
Hello,

I have a quick question for the experts. I have been studying for GMAT and taken several practice tests (details listed below) under the exam conditions. My last 5 practice tests were above 700, so I arrived to the test center with a little confidence. However, I left with a surprising score of 650 (Q47, V32). I won't lie I was super nervous, kept studying until the last minute, and felt already tired by the exam time. I am devastated and have started questioning my test taking abilities. I will attempt to take another exam in two weeks. I would greatly apprciate any insights and advices. I can't seem to find what went wrong.

All these exams were taken at the same time as my scheduled exam under the exam conditions.
GmatPrep: 750 (Q51, V40)
Gmat Club Test: 710 (Q50, V37), V40, V37
Manhattan CATs: 750 (Q51, V41), V40, 710 (Q49, V37)
Kaplan: 730 (Q51, V40)

Thanks!
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by [email protected] » Wed Nov 21, 2018 11:55 am
Hi melisaaslan,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. If you can answer a few questions, then we should be able to figure this out:

When you took your CATs:
1) On what date did you take each of these CATs?
2) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
3) Did you take them at home?
4) What time of day did you take your CATs and the Official GMAT?
5) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
6) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE (re: on a prior CAT, in an online forum or in a practice set)?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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by ceilidh.erickson » Sat Dec 01, 2018 4:58 pm
melisaaslan wrote: I have a quick question for the experts. I have been studying for GMAT and taken several practice tests (details listed below) under the exam conditions. My last 5 practice tests were above 700, so I arrived to the test center with a little confidence. However, I left with a surprising score of 650 (Q47, V32). I won't lie I was super nervous, kept studying until the last minute, and felt already tired by the exam time. I am devastated and have started questioning my test taking abilities. I will attempt to take another exam in two weeks. I would greatly apprciate any insights and advices. I can't seem to find what went wrong.
You can't find what went wrong? You just told us what went wrong - you over-studied! Being well-rested is absolutely critical for brain functioning (see the studies that say that being sleep-deprived made people perform worse on driving tests than being drunk).

There's nothing that you could cram the night before the test that would be helpful, anyway. Cramming helps you store rote-memorization information in your shirt-term memory. Doing well on the GMAT requires deep understanding... in other words, long-term memory and deep-processing stuff! Cramming is useless there.

Here's what you do for the next few weeks:

1. Get 8 hours of sleep every night, no matter what. Even if that means skipping studying on many of those nights.

2. Deeply review everything you've done so far. If you've gotten 4 CAT scores over 700, you probably don't need to do any new work. But to quell anxiety & feel confident, you want to spend time reminding yourself about the things you already know, and the strategies you've already employed.

3. Check out these posts which details lots of resources to help with test anxiety:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/need-advice ... tml#816427
https://www.beatthegmat.com/taking-the- ... tml#819833

Good luck!
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
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by MartyMurray » Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:32 am
Hi melisaaslan.

Many people score lower on the verbal section of the real test than they had on practice tests, and, much of the time, the reason for the difference is that they didn't really learn how to use sophisticated thinking in answering verbal questions. Rather they picked up on some patterns that they were able to use to score high on practice tests.

It could be that you had such an experience, and if so, the way to a higher verbal score, and a higher GMAT total score is to adjust the way in which you have been training for verbal.

Probably, your move is to slow way down in practice and fully analyze the answer choices to the questions you see, training yourself to very clearly define why incorrect answers are incorrect and correct answers are correct.

Your reasoning has to be less like the following:

- This choice is irrelevant.

- This version is awkward.

and more like the following:

- While it may be possible to somehow spin what this choice says to make it seem to affect the argument, the truth is that even though people may perceive the most expensive items to be the most desirable, people are not ordering those items. So, what this choice says does not affect the conclusion that removing the items will result only in increased efficiency and thus increased profitability.

- This version conveys the illogical meaning that the team members train in the mountainous region because they are aware of cyclists who are riding up hills. Also, because of the placement of the phrase "building strength and stamina," this version nonsensically conveys that the hills are "building strength and stamina."

Once you learn to really clearly see what's going on in verbal questions, you'll almost always get them correct, and a higher verbal score paired with the types of quant scores you have been getting will result in a rather high total score.
Marty Murray
Perfect Scoring Tutor With Over a Decade of Experience
MartyMurrayCoaching.com
Contact me at [email protected] for a free consultation.
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by bronx666 » Wed Jun 12, 2019 2:21 pm
Hello, I'm a beginner at GMAT. I worked on https://iprice.co.id/ as graphic design. my last 5 practice tests were above 700, so I arrived to the test center with a little confidence. However, I left with a surprising score of 650 (Q47, V32). I won't lie I was super nervous, kept studying until the last minute, and felt already tired by the exam time. I am devastated and have started questioning my test taking abilities. I will attempt to take another exam in two weeks. I would greatly apprciate any insights and advices. I can't seem to find what went wrong.

All these exams were taken at the same time as my scheduled exam under the exam conditions.
GmatPrep: 750 (Q51, V40)
Gmat Club Test: 710 (Q50, V37), V40, V37
Manhattan CATs: 750 (Q51, V41), V40, 710 (Q49, V37)
Kaplan: 730 (Q51, V40)
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by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Thu Sep 12, 2019 6:06 pm
Hi bronx666,

It has been some time since we heard from you. Did you end up retaking the GMAT?

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder and CEO
[email protected]

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tip

by miraleesa89 » Sat Oct 05, 2019 4:41 am
Here is my tip for all those students who are average and are desperately looking for that magic '7'!

Know your strengths and weaknesses. This will save up a lot of your prep time and help you focus on areas where most of your score can increase. The 80-20 rule applies to the GMAT as well. 80% of your improvement in score will come from 20% of the weaknesses. So it helps to identify those 20% of your weaknesses soon and work on them.
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