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Need suggestion - got beaten up

by thenits » Tue Nov 19, 2013 8:07 am
I appeared for my GMAT yesterday and had a very dismal performance 560 (Q44/V22 I8), I am very disappointment with my score and still not able to understand what went wrong. While I was writing the verbal exam, I was fairly confident of selecting the best answer and I could see what was wrong with other choices. Somehow my score ended up just 22 for verbal. My past performance was much better in the mock tests, here is the quick summary.
GMAT Prep1 - 640 (Q49/V28)
GMAT Prep2 - 660 (Q49/V30)
MGMAT 1 - 660 (Q46/V32)
MGMAT 2 - 660 (Q46/V32)
MGMAT 3 - 680 (Q47/V36)
MGMAT 4 - 650 (Q44/V35)
MGMAT 5 - 650 (Q44/V35)
MGMAT 6 - 680 (Q44/V38)

I am still not able to understand what went wrong and what should I do differently now to beat the GMAT. Please advise, if anyone had any such experience and what could be wrong?

Any help is highly appreciated.
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by [email protected] » Tue Nov 19, 2013 1:39 pm
Hi thenits,

While these type of score drops can sometimes be attributed to a "bad day", they're more often the result of some significant difference between how you took your practice CATs and how you took your Official GMAT.

As a way to gauge what happened, can you answer a few questions:

1) Did you ever skip any sections on your practice CATs (such as skipping the Essay and/or IR section)?
2) Did you ever take any of these practice CATs before? Had you seen any of the questions before?
3) What time of day/day of week did you take your practice CATs? And how about your Official GMAT?
4) How many practice CATs did you take in the week leading up to your Official GMAT?
5) Was there ANYTHING else that you can think of about Test Day that may have thrown off your performance?

As it stands, Business Schools don't care if you retest, so that's not a problem. It's important though to figure out what went wrong before you retest.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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by thenits » Tue Nov 19, 2013 3:14 pm
Thanks Rick, I appreciate you are helping me here, here are the answer to your question

1) Did you ever skip any sections on your practice CATs (such as skipping the Essay and/or IR section)? - I did write essay on three test but skipped for the last few as I was running out of time. But I did IR and I tried to simulate test environment as much as possible.

2) Did you ever take any of these practice CATs before? Had you seen any of the questions before? - Nope, all these test are afresh, I never saw these questions before.
3) What time of day/day of week did you take your practice CATs? And how about your Official GMAT?
I gave last four test in the morning between 5 - 8 AM and the fist few between 10 AM - 2 PM. My GMAT was at 8 AM. So more of less all the mocks and the GMAT test were in the morning time only.
4) How many practice CATs did you take in the week leading up to your Official GMAT?
I gave 4 CAT in the last week and did not give any test in the last two days before the test. Last two days I was just revising the concepts and went through the SC from OG 12 as revision.

5) Was there ANYTHING else that you can think of about Test Day that may have thrown off your performance?
There was nothing unusual on the test day, everything was smooth and test experience was pleasant. I was some of confident that I was selecting the best answer as I could identify the errors in the other answer choices, RCs were also decent, had no trouble answering the RC questions. I am equally perplexed on why I was unable to score higher in verbal.

Have you ever observed any such situation with any other students or have any experience dealing with this, do let me know if you can make out something from my replies?

Thanks in anticipation.

regards
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by amirhakimi » Tue Nov 19, 2013 9:15 pm
Hi my friend,
Considering your reply, there might be some flaws in concept of your reasoning while dealing verbal section. You mentioned that you were confident to identify errors and select best answer choice. Considering your verbal score, you must answer a pack of questions wrong wile you were confident that you're just doing fine.
Did you analyse why you answered some questions wrong in mock tests you took?
It's likely that you make the same mistake in dealing with similar questions and walked away assuming you get them right.

Analyzing your mistakes is the half way of getting them right in future.

Good luck!
Sincerely,
Amir,

The only place that "Success" comes before "Trying" is in the dictionary!
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by [email protected] » Wed Nov 20, 2013 1:34 am
Hi thenits,

Just one more set of questions: Did you have a pacing problem in either the Quant or Verbal section? Did you have to guess on any questions at the end? If so, then how many? Did you leave any questions unanswered?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
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by thenits » Wed Nov 20, 2013 8:13 am
Hi Rich,

Thanks for looking into this.

I was able to manage my time well in mocks, but in GMAT Quant section I did struggle a bit, I had to guess last three questions and that already reflected in the score. However, in verbal I did fairly well, I had about 1 min and 30 sec left for the last question. I did not leave any question answered.

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by thenits » Wed Nov 20, 2013 8:24 am
Thanks Amir for your valuable inputs. Now when I am reading your email, I am realizing that you may be correct. There could be some flaws in my approach, now when I am thinking more deeply about this, it seems that I am indeed good with the concept 'theoretically' but have had difficulty in using those concepts. I guess I had put too much focus on learning the rules than in the application of the rules.

I did analyze the questions which I answered wrong, but now I am gravely questioning myself, have I really understood those mistakes? did I ever stop making those mistakes? Apparently not. I think, I am getting it now what got missed out. Thanks for your input, highly appreciated.
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by amirhakimi » Wed Nov 20, 2013 9:49 am
I'm still in way of preparing myself for the exam but I can tell how I analyse my mistakes on questions.

First, I try to understand why a wrong answer was so tempting that blinded my eyes in recognizing the right answer.
Second, What should be done in order to avoid that kind of mistake in the future.

Generally speaking, knowing the concepts in GMAT is substantial but it holds only 30-40% of toolbox of any test taker. The rest demands mastery which rewarded as one practices strategies and concepts with as much questions as required. An expert once told me that you should master concepts and strategies as you can apply them quickly even in a sudden wake up in 3 A.M.

Hope that helps.
Sincerely,
Amir,

The only place that "Success" comes before "Trying" is in the dictionary!
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by thenits » Wed Nov 20, 2013 3:31 pm
That is really a great help, Amir. After reading through your approach it seems like I really missed out to understand what was so tempting with the wrong answer choice; this could possibly be the reason why my score is low. I agree with you that it is also very important to be able to apply these concepts quickly. Thanks for sharing your approach, this really explains a lot what I was missing. Many thanks and wish you good luck for your upcoming test.
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