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I can't, I just can't!!!

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I can't, I just can't!!!

by gnod » Sat Feb 07, 2015 1:35 pm
So even though I wanted to write on this forum after beating the gmat, I got beat again today for the 5th time. Yep 5th time. I just can't..

I haven't been able to beat my first score of 670, with a Q45 and V37 ever since June 2014.
All exams post that attempt were anywhere from 620 - 680. Today was my lowest, 620 (q: 48, v: 27).

I was able to improve my Quant score significantly to a 48-49 consistently after taking Rich's empowergmat.
I thought by doing so, I would be able to break 700 but ever since that exam I haven't been able to score a 37 again on verbal. And it's driving me nuts!! I have read through all manhattan verbal books, studied slides on empowergmat, and even gmatpill for my 2 weakest areas (SC, RC). How do I know this? I took advantage of the new reporting available by mba.com and yep, consistently I'm scoring really low in SC and RC in all my actual gmat exams.

Today though was a different story.

I actually felt like I was performing well in verbal.
SC questions seemed very straightforward but maybe that was a sign that I wasn't performing that well.

RC passages (4) were actually interesting to read! I was getting more and more into the verbal section as I actually believed I was performing well.

Well to my dismay, I click through all the options at the end quickly cause you know, I took the test like 5 times and there's 6 questions to fill out... and scored a bloody 27 in Verbal.

like really, I can't..

Sorry I needed to vent a little. Maybe I'm just inherently bad in verbal.
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by MartyMurray » Sun Feb 08, 2015 3:49 pm
Maybe I'm just inherently bad in verbal.
There's no such thing.

So that's not your answer.

Something is going on. It could be your perception of how verbal works. It could be that you are relying on all kinds of rules and strategies for verbal questions, when the real basis of it all is logic.

To figure out exactly what you could do differently, I would need more information.

One thing's certain though. YOU COULD SCORE 51 ON VERBAL, FOR SURE. End of story.
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by [email protected] » Sun Feb 08, 2015 4:30 pm
Hi gnod,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as hoped. There's clearly some kind of "disconnect" happening when you're working in the Verbal section. The "connections" and improvements that you made in how you dealt with the Quant section don't seem to be happening in the Verbal section. You said it yourself - you felt like you were performing well, so you were convinced that you were choosing the correct answer even when you were not. That's one of the tricky aspects of the Verbal section - there is NO 'safety net', so you'll never know when you've made a mistake.

Since you have the Enhanced Score Reports, I'd really like to know as much as possible about each of your GMAT exams. I understand why you would not want to post that information publicly, but if you email me directly, then we can review it.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Mon Feb 09, 2015 3:24 am
You might want to talk to an admissions counselor about how beneficial it is to keep taking the exam, and to your target schools about whether they look favorably on six or more test scores provided that the last one is really good. We have a post on this subject on our blog, but the bottom line is that a few extra points might not make THAT much of a difference, while having a history of six or seven actual exams could be a real demerit in the eyes of some adcoms. (Some schools shouldn't mind, but there are definitely a few out there that look askance on an application with more than 3 official results.) Don't spend your whole life on this test - it isn't the only part of the application process, or even the most important one, and any school that rejects you solely based on your GMAT score is shallow anyway.
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by gnod » Mon Feb 09, 2015 6:51 am
Thank you everyone for your feedbacks.. I really appreciate it.
I was debating whether I should speak to someone else about my progress but 3 experts on my first post here seems pretty good for now.

I don't know what is causing the disconnect. I thought it was because I was retaking practice exams on MGMAT, and GMATprep that I felt like my score was highly inflated. I ended up purchasing exams from Veritasprep. Regardless of whether it's accurate or not, I thought it at least gave me a fresh set of questions to gauge my verbal abilities.

First Veritasprep test - 710 (M:47, V:39)
Second Veritasprep test - 680 (M:48, V:37)

and my real gmat test - 620 (M:48 V: 20 something)

Marty, I really appreciate your level of confidence. Please let me know what other information you would need.

Rich, you and I have sent each other countless messages and it kinda sucks I still haven't found out what my disconnect is (obviously nothing to do with you). I admit that there is some disconnect. Whether it's just a mental game at this point, or just purely my lack of verbal abilities I do not know.
I looked at my last 2 real exams prior to this past Saturday's exam and here were the results in verbal.

Test 1: Verbal 31
CR 78th %
SC 51st %
RC 46th %

Test 2: Verbal 31
CR 78th %
SC 38st %
RC 66th %

Guess CR is fairly consistent for me but the other 2, not so much.

Matt, I have been thinking that as well. My aim is to get a 710 at least so that I'm part of the 80% of the accepted median of the Gmat scores. My undergraduate gpa is nothing to boast about (3.2) and I only have my work experience so far. While I am proud of my accomplishments in my company, I feel that I haven't put my best foot forward in applying to these top schools with my less than stellar undergraduate performance.

In terms of how I attack these questions, I do believe that the strategies I've learned over this past year is beneficial for the test. There are countless prep companies and websites and what I've found is that at the core of it all, it's all very similar in approaching the questions.
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by MartyMurray » Mon Feb 09, 2015 9:13 pm
The Veritas CATs are pretty accurate. So part of this seems to be some kind of wild mental block into which you are running when taking the actual test.

As far as my having more information goes, I have a fair amount now that I have seen your scores. At this point I guess it might help to know how you go about actually doing the questions.

One thing that does jump out at me is your talking about strategies. If you read my recent post on how I do GMAT verbal, I don't really even use strategies, and I wonder if you may have taken the whole strategy thing too far or alternatively if you may be trying to use strategies as substitutes for being careful and detail oriented.

My guess, I could have it wrong, is that you are done with learning strategies. That's enough. Now you need to get really really determined to get the questions right. As I said, you can score V51, and maybe at this point the only things keeping you from doing that or at least coming close to doing that are lack of confidence and something along the lines of not realizing that things like attention to detail, basic common sense and logic are the most important things to use to get the questions right.
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