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Very LOW GMAT practice test score

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Very LOW GMAT practice test score

by H2O » Mon Jun 30, 2008 3:35 pm
Hi,

I'm new to this forum and I have a question for others who might have been in this situation. I have just taken my first practice test from mba.com and I got a score of 480. This is very low considering that on other practice tests I've taken (Peterson's, etc) I've scored at least a 620. The math section was poor, I got 20 questions wrong, but the verbal I got 12 questions wrong.

Math = 17/37
Verbal = 29/41

I read someone else's posting on this website that they got a score of over 600 but they also got at least 20 questions in the quantitative section wrong and 12 wrong in the verbal. Why is my score so low? I'm worried about the actual test because I will be taking that in a couple of weeks and I don't feel confident at all with this score. I've been studying for a few months now and I did much better on the other tests. Please advice.
Last edited by H2O on Wed Jul 02, 2008 9:15 am, edited 2 times in total.
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by beatthegmat » Wed Jul 02, 2008 8:56 am
This might have been a fluke. In my experience, people tend to do better on GMATPrep tests than they do on company created tests.

Have you tried the other GMATPrep?
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Going to do the second test this week

by H2O » Wed Jul 02, 2008 9:13 am
Thanks for your response. I made a minor change to my scores because I got 12 wrong in the verbal section, which is not too bad. It's the math I'm worried about. I hope you are right and it was a fluke because I just don't know how there could be such a huge point difference between the practice GMAT and other tests I've taken. I'm going to take the second test this weekend and I hope to do better. If I don't than I don't know what I'm going to do. I've been studying for this thing for over 6 months because I work full time and it's been so hard for me dealing with the math because I'm much better with the verbal. It's too late for me to take a class, but I'm going over every problem I got wrong and trying to figure out why I got it wrong. Does it matter if you get the first 2 or 3 questions wrong and the last 3 or 4 questions wrong as far as your overall score? I was running out of time so I had to quickly work the last 3 problems.

Thank you again for your advice!
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by beatthegmat » Wed Jul 02, 2008 9:18 am
Check out this post: https://www.beatthegmat.com/my-blog-erro ... 99-75.html

It's a myth that it's critical to get the first few questions of each section correct. It is WAY more important to finish the section!
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Got a 610

by H2O » Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:31 am
Hi!

I took the GMAT yesterday and got a final score of 610.

Q = 34 (38th percentile)
V = 42 (89th percentile)
Overall = 69th percentile

As I expected, I did well on the verbal but poorly on the math. I took 6 practice GMAT tests (4 of them were from the GMAT test prep software) and all but one of the practice tests showed a score of 600 - 610. So I got what I was getting on the practice tests. The interesting thing is that on the Peterson's CAT exam I got a 640, which was higher than any practice GMAT.

Should I retake the GMAT in about 2 months? I don't know if I'd do better in the math. I studied for 6 months for this test using various study materials and took 6 practice tests, but my score pretty much always stayed within the 590-640 range. So I wonder if taking it again would show a significant improvement? Do I have a chance of getting into a good business program such as Berkeley with a score of 610? My goal was 650, but I just don't know if taking it again would help me improve by 40 points.
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by jiujitsubri » Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:44 am
sorry I can't advise on your questions, but I'm curious to know your background. Do you consider yourself a math person, do you soeak english as the native tongue?
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by H2O » Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:38 am
English is not my first language, although I have been speaking it since I was 10 years old. I'm not at all a math person. I never liked math and the only reason I did well on it in school was because I studied a LOT. But this method didn't work on the GMAT for me because they don't tell you the exact type of problems that will appear on the test. There are problems from previous tests but that doesn't mean that you'll get similar problems. Only about 20 of all the problems I got were a little similar to the problems I practiced. But I almost never practiced the verbal part yet still scored in the 90th percentile.
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Help me please

by Sara1804 » Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:34 am
i have taken my first gmat exam a couple of weeks back...
i got 610.
i consider myself good at math...but i got better score in verbal...
however..i worked on all the mistakes i did on math..
i feel that i need more practise on verbal sections to improve my score....
i am aiming at a 750.
i have done the following so far..
OG-11
OG-verbal
OG-math
manhattan guide for SC

could anyone suggest me what else i need practise ???? i have my test booked for aug 26th...please suggest.
thankyou..
Sara
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by freezehale » Sun Jul 27, 2008 2:32 pm
Hi H20...

Hope you could help me...By the way, congratulations on the 610...
My problem is that I seemed to have been getting the same scores on the practice tests as you did...normally on the 470-550 range...I started using more practice (800score.com). I am going to take my GMAT exams on the 7th. Any advice you can offer? For me, a 610 score is more than enough because the school I am aiming for just requires a 550 average.
What additional practice materials did you use?

Thanks!
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by H2O » Wed Jul 30, 2008 10:21 am
I studied the math section of the test for at least 6 months prior to taking the test, a little each day. I did not study the verbal as I knew it was one of my strengths, so I focused all my energy on the math. If you are weak in math, I would suggest you buy the OG Quantitative Review and practice those problems. Also get a Peterson's or Princeton's book to help you with some of the basic math concepts. If you are weaker in verbal, you can buy the OG Verbal Review and do those questions. I have both the OG11 and the OG Quantitative Review. You must also practice finishing all the questions. This is one of the things that messed me up on the actual test. I spent too much time working some of the problems (that I probably got wrong anyway) so by the time I got to the end of the test I had to answer 5 questions in about 7 minutes. That's almost imposible to do so I guessed. Thus my score was much lower.

You should also do as many practice tests as you can, especially the offical ones. I consistently scored 600 on all of them, so they were a very good indicator of how I would do on the actual test. You can do each test more than once and it will give you different questions too. Make sure you understand why you got each problem wrong. They won't explain it so you need to ask someone who's good at math if you can't figure it out on your own.

I also received my official score report today and my AWA was a 5. I was happy with that.
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680 or lower?

by ruthvika.angadi » Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:17 am
Hello.. i took a practice test on the GMAT test prep and got a score of 680.

with a 47/51 and 36/51 for math and verbal respectively, for 13 incorrect quant and 14 incorrect verbal questions, i just dont feel the evaluations tally!
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by VP_Jim » Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:21 am
Remember: the GMAT is adaptive, meaning that it's not really about the NUMBER of questions you get right. More important is the DIFFICULTY of the question you get right. Harder questions count for more points. So, it's possible that you got a bunch of questions wrong at the beginning, and were then getting questions from the "easy" bin. Even though you got them right, since they were "easy", your score was still on the low side.
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First practice test

by vmon » Sun Nov 23, 2008 11:14 am
Hi all,

I just took my first GMAT practice test on mba.com, and it was totally cold without any prep. With preparation, how much can I expect it to increase? My score was a low 460. I need all the help I can get and still save money, that is unless, there is an almost perfect way to increase this. Since fellowship dollars are directly tied to the score, I need to get as high as I can get, 720 and up would be very nice. Thanks mucho.
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by gnikhilreddy143 » Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:20 am
VP_Jim wrote:Remember: the GMAT is adaptive, meaning that it's not really about the NUMBER of questions you get right. More important is the DIFFICULTY of the question you get right. Harder questions count for more points. So, it's possible that you got a bunch of questions wrong at the beginning, and were then getting questions from the "easy" bin. Even though you got them right, since they were "easy", your score was still on the low side.
I'm aware that the GMAT score do not have direct relationship with the number of questions answered correctly. But, I do not have faith on the scoring system of VeritasPrep. Simply bacause I do not think a verbal score of 26 is possible with just 11 incorrect, which are spread throughout the section (1,4,9,10,17,20,21,23,30,35,39). If you comment that the questions I have got are easy, why I haven't got difficult questions even I was answering good?
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by [email protected] » Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:45 am
Hi gnikhilreddy143,

To start, all of the other posts in this thread are over 7 years old, so it's likely that those posters are no longer on this website.

When it comes to studying for the GMAT, there are LOTS of different materials/resources that you can use. If you believe that a particular product is not worthwhile, then you can simply invest in some different products.

1) How long have you been studying for the GMAT?
2) What materials have you used?
3) What is your goal score?
4) When are you planning to take the Official GMAT?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
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