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A higher score on the REAL GMAT compared to practice tests??

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A higher score on the REAL GMAT compared to practice tests??

by odannyboi » Wed Sep 22, 2010 3:01 pm
I've been reading posts of people getting high 600's and low 700's on practice CATS then getting mid 500's on the real thing. How much more difficult are the real GMAT tests compared to the practice CATS?

From what I learned... the RC part is even more brutal than the prep CATs. What other differences did anyone else notice.

I want a 620 minimum... but I could only muster a 580 a couple weeks back. I'm not taking anymore CATS till Sat (D-day). I've been brushing up on Q concepts for inequalities and word problems.

I'm not the sharpest nail in the wood, nor the quickest of cats... I'm kinda smarter than a "Joe Bloggs" that my stupid princeton review kept bringing up (I stopped reading that book after a week or two)... should I expect to score slightly lower my actual?
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Wed Sep 22, 2010 3:24 pm
Hey odannyboi,

Always a pleasure to help out a fellow Irishman and/or Outkast fan!

Actually, I've heard just as many (if not more) cases of the opposite happening - people often find that the practice tests themselves will undervalue their scores and they exceed their practice targets on test day.

A lot probably depends on the situations in which people take the practice tests and on the test-takers themselves, as well as obviously the tests and how they're scored:

-Those who retake practice tests will probably inflate their scores by seeing repeat questions; even if it's only a few repeats, those should guarantee correct answers in a shorter amount of time, leaving more time for future questions and building a higher minimum score just based on a few "gimme" questions.

-Those who turn off the clocks and give themselves extended time on practice tests (which many tests allow for) will similarly see an inflated score.

-Those who are prone to test anxiety may well just underperform on test day based on a lack of focus or concentration, which aren't problems on the lesser-stakes practice tests.

On the flip side, many tests are designed to skew harder than the actual test (either in overall difficulty or scoring algorithm, or both). I had a potential instructor say that he quite nearly walked out of the test center because the official test felt too easy (I had provided him with our practice tests for study since he missed our 99th percentile cutoff by 10 points and needed to qualify). He had been scoring 730s and 740s on his practice tests and thought that those tests were showing him tougher questions than the real thing; he stuck with it and scored 770.

There's plenty of evidence to support either side, that you'll either score higher or lower than your practice tests. Quite honestly, I tend to hear more evidence to suggest that you'll improve upon your practice test scores. And regardless, it doesn't hurt to go in confidently, so please, please tell yourself that:

-your 580 a few weeks ago was probably closer to a 600-620
-you've undoubtedly studied your mistakes and tendencies since then, as well as worked through some new content so...
-you'll probably score significantly better than your practice tests

What's that old saying? "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're probably right" Expect success...I think I have enough evidence to support the idea that you can, and either way you might as well err on the side of confidence, right?
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by odannyboi » Wed Sep 22, 2010 3:44 pm
Brian... you made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside....:oops:

Now, I am going to go study some more while listening to the 3 Irish Tenors. Seriously, thanks for the words.
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by beatthegmatinsept » Wed Sep 22, 2010 3:55 pm
Thanks Brian - This is just what I wanted to hear/read 3 days before the test.. Im hoping to get at least the 650 that Ive been seeing on my past couple weeks' practice tests.. Your post totally boosts the confidence level :)
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Wed Sep 22, 2010 4:16 pm
Glad I could help, guys! And I do really believe that you'll outperform your practice tests - I mentioned that a lot of underperformances may depend on the circumstances in which the practice tests were taken. Well, consider this too - you probably took your practice tests:

-After work
-On a weekend in which you had other things you'd rather be doing
-After you had put in a long day of studying the day before
-With your cell phone going off or a roommate butting in

Your practice test conditions were probably less-than-ideal, at least at times. On test day, you'll be rested, focused, etc., and the environmental factors should in fact help you.


I run marathons and triathlons a few times a year, and my confidence-builder should help with the GMAT, too. I try to remind myself that all the hard work and all the variability has already taken place in training...how I'll do on race day (or test day) is just a reflection of what I've already accomplished. The race itself is just the formality...the victory lap, even. Since I've usually trained pretty effectively, I rest easy the night before the race knowing that I've already determined how I'll perform in training...the race is just my chance to put it all in practice.

I think you can do the same - you've both (or I guess "all", since I'm sure others are reading!) put in a lot of work to this point. Test day is just your chance to watch it pay off!
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by nehs » Wed Sep 22, 2010 5:49 pm
Like the others have mentioned, Brian's reply has boosted my spirits too . My test is in 3 days ,oh no, 2 days :-).
I have taken all my tests under ideal conditions - no disturbance,taken breaks,written AWA for 2 tests,switched off mobile phones etc and even went to my local public library so that I could get a feel of how it would be in a 'non-home' atmosphere with a little distractions/disturbances around. I am getting around 580 now. I"ll be glad if a miracle happens and I score 600 on saturday !!
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by odannyboi » Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:16 pm
lol.. all 3 of us have the exam on Saturday...
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by beatthegmatinsept » Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:30 pm
odannyboi wrote:lol.. all 3 of us have the exam on Saturday...
Lol...I bet all of us are in different time zones though ;)
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by nehs » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:17 pm
Yes, it is 8 AM Eastern time for me. Good Luck to you guys :)
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by odannyboi » Sat Sep 25, 2010 2:02 pm
How did you guys do? I didn't report my score... I literally broke down halfway through verbal... I could not even digest what I was reading.

My Q didn't seem too bad.. I would've put it in the 39-41 range. Verbal? 25-30 range. I got a really small passage to read for RC near question 34 so I figured I was doing really bad. I absolutely could not concentrate. My body felt hot and the earplugs and headphones magnified the sound of my heartbeat... which is a sound worse than people typing.

This is bad.. some of the schools that I am applying to starts rolling admissions in OCT.. i'll be atleast 5 weeks behind everyone else.

I guess I underestimated verbal. I hate this test and wasted 2-3 months of my life on it. The GMAT is supposed to be a good indicator for b-school success so maybe I am not cut out for it. Overall, a horrible experience.
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by nehs » Sat Sep 25, 2010 2:39 pm
Those practise tests suck,man.Really. I timed many of my tests and still am shocked with my real scores. How could they be so different? Many of the quest in the GMAT prep are taken from OG actually but the real test verbal had NOTHING from any book in the world, leave alone OG.
During my prep tests, I even took my laptop to a public library, turned it on there and gave the tests just to feel like a real exam. Still, I screwed up. Don't know what went wrong. The whole experiece was unnerving for me.
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by odannyboi » Sat Sep 25, 2010 2:53 pm
nehs wrote:Those practise tests suck,man.Really. I timed many of my tests and still am shocked with my real scores. How could they be so different? Many of the quest in the GMAT prep are taken from OG actually but the real test verbal had NOTHING from any book in the world, leave alone OG.
During my prep tests, I even took my laptop to a public library, turned it on there and gave the tests just to feel like a real exam. Still, I screwed up. Don't know what went wrong. The whole experiece was unnerving for me.
nehs, they retire questions annually. The ones in the OG will NEVER appear in a future test. However, they are similar... sometimes they rearrange numbers. I think we were just nervous.

Take it as a learning experience. We'll do better next time.
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:59 am
Hey guys,

Wow, sorry to hear that it was such a frustrating weekend for those on this thread! I hope that we can all learn from the experience, and have a few comments on what you've written:

1) Honestly (and I know this is a day late and a dollar short) I don't think there are very many good reasons for anyone to cancel a score. You have far, far too much to lose (what if it was a great score? Even if not you can learn where you were stronger/weaker than you anticipated) and not that much to gain (unless your score reports show a pattern of awfulness, and I'm talking multiple low scores in succession, a low score can't really hurt you). I considered canceling my own score for a few seconds, and I know at least a few other 99th-percentile scorers who did the same - it's a hard test designed to make you feel like you got beat up a bit, but you're much more likely to surprise yourself with a high score than to somehow hurt your candidacy with a low score (which, like I said, is almost impossible to do just on one test).

2) Like you've said, the questions on the GMAT are not going to be carbon copies of those in the OG. The OG shows you the concepts and thought processes that the GMAT tests, but the authors of the GMAT are great at making the familiar look different. It's not enough to know "how to do" the problems in the OG - you need to know "why" and think about the types of thought processes that they're testing. Number Properties, for example, is more a way of thinking than a set of rules. If you learn from the OG that "even * odd = even", that's a decent rule to know, but it's not enough - you should really learn that "it's often possible to predict what kind of number an operation will elicit by looking for patterns when that type of calculation is performed". Finding patterns is a higher-order way of thinking...memorizing rules is much lower-level and not as likely to be rewarded often on a grad school test.


3) Odannyboi - I've actually said the same thing about those noise reduction headphones...I'd much rather deal with office background noise than hear my own heartbeat like I'm in an Edgar Allan Poe story! I'd definitely recommend to anyone that you use the essays as a warmup with some of that equipment - see if you like them or not by trying an essay with them and one without so that you have a gamplan ready once you get to the all-important quant.

Learn from this experience, guys - someone was telling me the other day that the average # of GMAT attempts per person is 2.2 (which I'm not sure about...it sounds high), so there's definitely not a scarlet letter for taking it twice. Just learn from the first experience and use it to improve!
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by odannyboi » Mon Sep 27, 2010 7:06 pm
Thanks Brian! It is advice I'll take to heart. The second time around shouldn't be as bad since I have alot of what I've learned already planted in my head.

I do realize that I've made a mistake of canceling my score... but I am going to study like I received a 490 (no offense nehs!)

I did learn what NOT to do during the real thing so it wasn't a complete loss. Back to the books! :lol:
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by Elizabethlo1 » Tue Sep 28, 2010 2:22 pm
Hi Brian!

Thanks for your previous posts! I felt much better after reading it. At the same time, I also feel very scared after reading what odannyboi and nehs posted. I am completely with you both regarding the frustration with practice tests and GMAT in general.

This is my situation and i really could use with some advice at this point. I have scheduled my exam to be a week from today. I started studying for GMAT about 1.5 month ago and worked through the OG review and the special editions of OG focusing on verbal and quants respectively. I took a practice exam a month ago and got around 690 to 710. I thought the score would improve at least 20 points as i get more practice for another month. So one month has passed and i did a few more practice tests and my scores are still within that range. I ususally score 47 to 49 on my quants and 37 to 38 on my verbal. I cant seem to breakthrough my range for verbal and i am getting EXTREMELY worried.

What could i do to improve on my score now? Is it a bit late for everything? I read the princeton review (and ditto on the Joe Bloggs comment) with the intention to improve on my verbal. It seems to be better but still, i cant break through my 38 on verbal. Any advice is very much appreciated. THANK YOU!!!!
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