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score dropped please help

by woodahy » Tue Jul 06, 2010 9:12 am
i was doing well on my practice exams but then my actual score dropped like 100 points. i looked through the article about why my score dropped to see what went wrong, and stamina and timing was not that big of a deal. i also took the practice exams like the real one.

the only thing is that i did not sleep very well the night before, but i've taken 7 professional exams (CPA and 3 levels of CFA) before so i've been training my entire life for these exams. below is the printout of my mgmt exams and my guess on the real one. please help

Exam 1 42 34 630

Problem Solving 22 12 10 0 55% 2:15 3:01 530 570
Data Sufficiency 15 9 6 0 60% 1:18 1:02 520 600

Sentence Correction 15 11 4 0 73% 0:51 1:06 660 700
Critical Reasoning 14 6 8 0 43% 1:13 1:31 580 700
Reading Comprehension 12 6 6 0 50% 1:06 1:51 590 670

Exam 2 43 36 650
Problem Solving 22 14 8 0 64% 2:03 2:57 610 650
Data Sufficiency 15 5 10 0 33% 1:28 1:30 590 660

Sentence Correction 15 9 6 0 60% 1:20 0:47 650 700
Critical Reasoning 14 7 7 0 50% 1:07 1:28 630 750
Reading Comprehension 12 8 4 0 67% 1:24 2:02 630 730

Exam 3 41 36 640
Problem Solving 22 10 11 1 45% 2:34 2:27 500 550
Data Sufficiency 15 10 5 0 67% 1:10 1:39 560 600

Sentence Correction 15 10 5 0 67% 0:51 1:09 650 670
Critical Reasoning 14 11 3 0 79% 1:34 1:43 650 680
Reading Comprehension 12 5 7 0 42% 2:20 1:21 670 660

actual i don't rememebr the breakdown but i got a 550. i think my verbal was a 31 and my math was about a 36 or something.
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by uwhusky » Tue Jul 06, 2010 9:26 am
3-5 point drop on verbal from practice to actual exam is considered normal, so the focus should be on quant. I think maybe GMAT was able to highlight your weakness in quant by throwing bunch of similar questions you are struggling with at you.

Study harder on quant might be the way to go.
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by Stacey Koprince » Tue Jul 06, 2010 12:57 pm
I've been looking at your data for 10 seconds and I've already found multiple timing problems. :)

Finishing a section on time does NOT mean that you don't have timing problems in that section. You can have MAJOR timing problems and still finish the section on time.

Specifically, you are spending too much time on PS at the expense of DS. Look at exam 2 - see how DS dropped big time? Look at the time you're spending - you were averaging 1.5m on those - only 75% of the time that you're supposed to spend. Of course your performance is going to suffer when you go that quickly. Then, your performance fluctuated: on exam 3, your DS performance was great (but you were still way too fast). Basically, when you have these kinds of timing problems, you don't know what's going to happen on any given test - maybe you'll be fine and maybe you won't.

Did you take the practice tests under full official conditions, including essays? If you didn't, then stamina may have been an issue, even if you didn't notice it. You're hyped up an adrenaline during the test, so you can't necessarily notice when your brain is getting a little fatigued and not thinking as efficiently and clearly as it normally does. And nobody on the planet can think as efficiently at the 3.25 hour mark as they can at the 0.5 hour mark. If you skipped the essays, for example, then you were starting the verbal section right around the time you were used to finishing the test. That's going to mess almost everybody up.

On the verbal, your timing looks super fast. SC was strong on all three; RC and CR fluctuated. Speed could have caused some problems there in terms of making too many careless mistakes. If your brain wasn't used to the full length of the test, then that likely would have compounded the errors.

Do the analysis described in this article on your most recent MGMAT practice test:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/09/23 ... tice-tests

Then come back and tell us what you discovered.
3-5 point drop on verbal from practice to actual exam is considered normal
That's not something I've heard or seen evidence to support. Do you have data?
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by woodahy » Tue Jul 06, 2010 1:39 pm
yes, i took the practice test under the real conditions. in fact, when i came back i was so upset that i retook the math section from the GMAT exam and did 4 points better than my real exam--i did skip the essay format.

my timing has been ok on the math part. i do spend the most time on the PS because i sometimes get bogged down in the math part.

as for the verbal, i usually finish everything very quickly and have about 20 minutes to spare. during the real exam, i tried to go more slowly, seeing as i missed a lot of questions specific-type questions on the RC part. i finsihed the verbal part of the real exam with about 7 minutes to go. although i spent more time during the real exam, did clearly didn't help as my verbal portion of the real exam fell about 7 points (i think i got a 29 on the real exam).

i traditionally go through exams quickly, which is part of me making careless mistakes. however, i tried to spend more time on the verbal on the real exam because i had teh time to spare.
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by Stacey Koprince » Sat Jul 10, 2010 9:49 am
my timing has been ok on the math part.
That's not what I read from your timing data. I think you are mismanaging your time. You don't necessarily have a terrible problem, but you do have a problem that needs to be fixed in order to maximize your score. (I can't tell how bad the problem is without more data.
i do spend the most time on the PS because i sometimes get bogged down in the math part.
This is further evidence that you are mismanaging your time. Everything is related when you take a timed test. You mentioned careless mistakes later in your post. If spending more time (usually on a hard question, which you often get wrong anyway) causes you to make a careless mistake elsewhere (usually on an easier question, one you knew how to do so you chose to do it quickly), then you have just hurt your score. Do that enough times, and your score really begins to drop.

If you would like a more detailed analysis from me, then please do the analysis described in the article I linked to in my last post. Give me that data and I will be able to tell you more about where you're spending too much time (and where you're not spending enough), and what to do about it.
as for the verbal, i usually finish everything very quickly and have about 20 minutes to spare. during the real exam, i tried to go more slowly
Ah, okay - that's good to know. As a general rule, DO NOT suddenly switch your strategy or do major things differently on the real exam. Do what you practiced, even if you know that part of what you practiced was problematic. You can't fix a problem or weakness while taking the real exam. You either fix it ahead of time or you just have to forget about it when the real exam comes around. Were there any other things that you changed while you were taking the real exam?

As you found it, it is not always better to suddenly spend a lot more time - that doesn't always result in a better score. In fact, sometimes, people will start to second-guess themselves too much when they have extra time, and then they will change right answers to wrong ones!!

Slowing down can help you to make fewer careless mistakes, but only if you are already aware of the kinds of careless mistakes you make and you have already spent time building or breaking certain habits in order to minimize the chances of making those same careless mistakes in future. Simply spending more time without actually figuring out HOW to spend that extra time - that doesn't help so much.

To learn how to learn from your errors, try this article: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... our-errors
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by woodahy » Sat Jul 10, 2010 10:57 am
Thanks again for all of your help. Here are the data from my last gmat exam

Problem Solving 22 10 11 1 45% 2:34 2:27 500 550
300 - 500 7 4 3 57% 1:55 2:29
500 - 600 10 5 5 50% 2:52 2:09
600 - 700 4 1 2 25% 3:40 2:30
700 - 800 1 0 1 0% NA 3:43
Data Sufficiency 15 10 5 0 67% 1:10 1:39 560 600
300 - 500 2 1 1 50% 0:27 2:05
500 - 600 8 7 1 88% 0:59 0:21
600 - 700 4 2 2 50% 2:12 2:31
700 - 800 1 0 1 0% NA 0:46

This report was generated with DATA from the following exams:
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by woodahy » Sat Jul 10, 2010 11:15 am
Thanks again for all of your help. Here are the data from my last MGMAT exam for each section by question format and difficultly

i got a 640 on this exam 41 quant, 36 verbal

Problem Solving 22 10 11 1 45% 2:34 2:27 500 550
300 - 500 7 4 3 57% 1:55 2:29
500 - 600 10 5 5 50% 2:52 2:09
600 - 700 4 1 2 25% 3:40 2:30
700 - 800 1 0 1 0% NA 3:43

Data Sufficiency 15 10 5 0 67% 1:10 1:39 560 600
300 - 500 2 1 1 50% 0:27 2:05
500 - 600 8 7 1 88% 0:59 0:21
600 - 700 4 2 2 50% 2:12 2:31
700 - 800 1 0 1 0% NA 0:46

Critical Reasoning 14 11 3 0 79% 1:34 1:43 650 680
500 - 600 3 3 0 100% 1:12 NA
600 - 700 7 5 2 71% 1:39 1:08
700 - 800 4 3 1 75% 1:46 2:54

Reading Comprehension 12 5 7 0 42% 2:20 1:21 670 660
500 - 600 2 1 1 50% 2:09 1:07
600 - 700 6 2 4 33% 1:37 1:25
700 - 800 4 2 2 50% 3:08 1:19

Sentence Correction 15 10 5 0 67% 0:51 1:09 650 670
300 - 500 1 1 0 100% 0:34 NA
500 - 600 2 2 0 100% 0:47 NA
600 - 700 7 3 4 43% 0:42 1:19
700 - 800 5 4 1 80% 1:04 0:27

below is the question list from my quant. it is listed in the following order: result, question number, type, title, difficulty , time spent, cumulative time, target cumulative time, area tested
wrong 1 PS 600 - 700 1:50 1:50 2:00 Percents Rates & Work
correct2 PS Single Prime 300 - 500 0:25 2:15 4:00 Divisibility and Primes
correct 3 PS Four to the Fourth 600 - 700 3:40 5:55 6:00 Exponential Equations
wrong 4 DS Deviant Set 700 - 800 0:46 6:41 8:00 Statistics
wrong 5 PS Variable Inversion 600 - 700 3:10 9:51 10:00 Variables in Choices (VIC)
wrong 6 DS Equation Combination 300 - 500 2:05 11:56 12:00 Basic Equations
correct 7 DS Cats and Dogs 300 - 500 0:27 12:23 14:00 Ratios Percents
correct 8 PS A Mess With 5 To The X 500 - 600 4:54 17:17 16:00 Exponents and Roots
wrong 9 PS Decks of Cards (2) 700 - 800 3:43 21:00 18:00 Rates & Work Variables in Choices (VIC)
wrong 10 DS Two Sides of a Triangle 500 - 600 0:21 21:21 20:00 Triangles and Diagonals Circles
correct 11 PS Hexa 300 - 500 1:54 23:15 22:00 Polygons
correct 12 PS Run Bill Run 500 - 600 2:42 25:57 24:00 Algebraic Translations
wrong 13 PS 49 Times 500 - 600 0:34 26:31 26:00 Fractions
wrong 14 PS The Biggest Piece 300 - 500 2:29 29:00 28:00 Fractions
correct 15 DS Simple Quadratic 500 - 600 0:31 29:31 30:00 Quadratic Equations
correct 16 DS French and Spanish 500 - 600 1:56 31:27 32:00 Overlapping Sets
wrong 17 PS Absolute X Plus Y 500 - 600 2:28 33:55 34:00 Positives and Negatives
correct 18 DS Pizza Pi 500 - 600 0:42 34:37 36:00 Circles and Cylinders
correct 19 DS Powers of R and Q 500 - 600 1:59 36:36 38:00 Exponential Equations
wrong 20 PS A Political Fundraiser (2) 300 - 500 1:22 37:58 40:00 Non-Standard Word Prob
FDP Connections
correct 21 PS Bus Stops (2) 500 - 600 2:27 40:25 42:00 Formulas
wrong 22 DS M Over N 600 - 700 2:44 43:09 44:00 Divisibility and Primes
wrong 23 PS Tip (2) 300 - 500 3:37 46:46 46:00 FDP Connections
wrong 24 DS Selecting a Panel 600 - 700 2:17 49:03 48:00 Combinatorics
wrong 25 PS Powers Of 2 500 - 600 3:51 52:54 50:00 Exponents and Roots
correct 26 PS False Digits (2) 300 - 500 3:46 56:40 52:00 Digits
correct 27 DS Silos 500 - 600 0:30 57:10 54:00 Circles and Cylinders
correct 28 PS Low Standards 300 - 500 1:35 58:45 56:00 Statistics
correct 29 PS Certain Colinearity 500 - 600 2:57 61:42 58:00 Lines and Angles
correct 30 DS Exactly Positive or Negative? 500 - 600 0:52 62:34 60:00 Inequalities
correct 31 DS Odds and Ms 600 - 700 3:04 65:38 62:00 Odds and Evens
wrong 32 PS Tile Floor 500 - 600 1:17 66:55 64:00 Rates & Work
wrong 33 PS Renee's Raise 500 - 600 2:34 69:29 66:00 FDP Connections
correct 34 DS Recursive Function 600 - 700 1:19 70:48 68:00 Functions
correct 35 PS Divisibility Exception (2) 500 - 600 1:19 72:07 70:00 Divisibility and Primes
correct 36 DS Winning Season 500 - 600 0:23 72:30 72:00 Percents
Skipped37 PS No M's in Algebra 600 - 700 75:00 74:00 Variables in Choices (VIC)

please let me know what else you need.
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by Stacey Koprince » Sat Jul 10, 2010 11:38 am
You need to do the analysis described in the article - don't just give me all of the raw data. You need to learn how to do this analysis yourself; if I do it for you, then you won't have learned how to do this for yourself and I will have to do the analysis for you every time you take a test. Obviously, that's not a workable situation. :)

Then, when you post your analysis (based on that article), I will show you how to interpret your analysis and do something with it - and then you will have learned how to do that part of it yourself, too!

Just to give you an idea, it typically takes me 30-45 minutes to conduct the analysis on a student's test. You should expect to take longer (maybe twice as long) because you have to read the instructions step by step (whereas I already know what to do for each step because I created the analysis!).
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