Got hit by GMAT on 2nd attempt

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Got hit by GMAT on 2nd attempt

by psm12se » Fri Sep 13, 2013 4:43 am
Hello friends,
Today I gave my GMAT exam, which was my 2nd attempt but got failed. My first attempt was in Mar 2013 and the score that I got was 560(Q48, V20) and today's was 580(Q44, V26).
I prepared for 3 months for the 2nd attempt and was expecting 650+ score but this is what it was. I am not sure, should I retake the GMAT now as there is hardly any improvement in my 2nd score. What is more frustrating for me is the quant score, which I was expecting on the higher side as the questions looked pretty easy. It seems I made too many silly mistakes in that. Verbal score, I did made some improvement as I was more focused this time but even this improvement did not excite me.

I am from India with 7+ years of experience. Even though I do not plan to apply for b-schools for the next 2 years, I had thought that I keep a reasonable score ready so that after 2 years I can focus on my applications.

Should I retake the GMAT now or wait for sometime, I would like to have the expert opinion on this. Now I am feeling very tired and GMAT would be out of my mind for sometime.

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by faraz_jeddah » Fri Sep 13, 2013 5:05 am
Sorry to hear that!

I believe the most obvious and repeated questions that will be asked is - What was your gmatprep CAT score? If you were achieving 650+ in the mocks then you might want to work on your test taking skills.

I believe a score of 580 shows that your basic concepts are in good shape especially your quant and that you may need a special focus on verbal.

I am not an expert, but I am just trying to help.

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by psm12se » Fri Sep 13, 2013 5:16 am
Thanks faraz_jeddah for reply,

my GMAT prep score where
No. Quant Verb
GMATPrep Exam 1 50(C-31) 29(C-19)
GMATPrep Exam 2 49(C-29) 30(C-25)
GMATPrep Exam 1 50(C-33) 30(C-28)
GMATPrep Exam 2 47(C-29) 35(C-28)

In between I took many quizzes of verbal and scored quite decent in those.

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by [email protected] » Fri Sep 13, 2013 12:05 pm
Hi psm12se,

What schools are you thinking about applying to?

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by psm12se » Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:02 am
Rich, sorry for the late reply. I was away from the GMAT for last few days.

I intend to apply to below schools;

1. Indian School of Business
2. IIM - Lucknow
3. XLRI
4. MIP - Italy
5. Nayang School of Business.
6. SP-Jain

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by vinay1983 » Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:42 am
If I were you, I would not worry. You still have time to study and apply again. Don't worry you will do well the next time. You just need to know some tricks and spend time on this forum.

All the best
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by [email protected] » Wed Oct 02, 2013 10:44 am
Hi psm12se,

Based on your list of target schools, it's likely that you're going to need to retest. The good news is that you have plenty of time to do so (your long-term plann was a smart choice) and Business Schools don't care if you retest. Based on your practice CAT scores, there was some type of "disconnect" on Test Day.

Can you think of anything that was different between how you took those practice CATs and how you performed on Test Day?

For example, did you skip the Essay or IR on those practice CATs? Did you take them at a different time of day or different day of the week? Did you get enough sleep? Etc. Sometimes there's a big change that accounts for a score drop, but in most cases it's something that you think is minor (but that had a "ripple effect" through your exam and hurt your overall performance).

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by psm12se » Sat Oct 05, 2013 7:31 am
Thanks you folks for the replies.

@Rich : I do not want to give any excuses for the bad performance in the second attempt but you asked for some type of disconnect that I had on the test day. Truly speaking, I was not well on the test day. I had caught fever just 2 days before the test and took complete rest for the 2 days. On the morning of test day, even though I was feeling somewhat OK but after traveling 90 min(Changed 3 buses :) from my house to test center ) to arrive at the test center, I felt like my body temperature started to rise again. This may be the reason why I was not able to concentrate but in the verbal section I was extra cautious about choosing my answers and that's why I was able to score 26 when compared with 20 in the first attempt.

Well, I took the complete mock tests with AWA, IR. I took the mock tests mostly in the afternoon and the actual test was at 9.00 AM. Well by the way, I got my official score card which is 580(AWA 5.5, IR 5, Q44, V26)

Well, I am not that much worried about the Quant as I am sure I can do much better than this but the scary part for me is the Verbal and maybe IR :)