Hi guys,
I took my GMAT exam today at 1AM IST. Though the scores have not come yet but I know I have screwed up.
Quants: I was not able to understand the questions at all, still not sure what happened as I was consistently scoring between 48-51 in official mocks. I was completely blank after seeing the first question (which I was able to solve after my exam was over). I don't know why but the first question shook my morale and I became too nervous. When the quant section was over I knew it did not go well.
Verbal: This section is still a mystery to me because of the happenings in last 15 days. When I took my 1st official mock and scored 600 (Q48, V23), I realised I had to work on my Critical Reasoning. Then after few days I took a mock again and scored a 650 (Q49, V28), cool a little improvement. CR and RC still needed a little work. I tried following "read slowly" approach in CR and RC to understand it well and I think it worked as my next non offical mock score was 670 but this time I had screwed up Sentence correction. I visited sentence correction basics, solved about 50-70 OG questions and then took the official mock 2 days before my actual exam and score a 700(Q51, V33) (took it at 1AM as per my booked time). I was elated as out of 14 Sentence Correction questions only 2 were wrong. CR had 9 questions out of which 6 or 7 were correct. I RC wasn't up to the mark but that was mostly because I was not able to read the last passage at all because of the time constraint and guessed all the questions in it and as expected all 4 were wrong. Also, I was not able to complete the verbal part (time expired when I had 1 question left). So overall, I was quite satisfied with the score. I was relaxed and thought of taking 1 more mock just to check if the previous mock was a fluke. I took it the next day at night 1AM again and scored 590(Q48,V25), just a day before my main exam. I analysed my mistake and realised I have been getting almost all CR and RC questions wrong. I was not able to understand what was happening. I started trying the questions again but it felt like my mind was blocked, I was not able to understand a single passage of RC or CR. I hoped it was just a bad day and waited for the main exam but the score was lingering at the back of my mind. D-Day arrived and I tried imitating everything I did on the day I scored 700. Drank coffee, watched a youtube video, and then finally started my exam. And I feel I bombed the verbal section too. I did not get a single boldface question in CR (read somewhere on this forum that getting a boldface indicated you have been attempting the CR questions correctly, not sure how true is this claim), quant's performance affected my verbal too, I could not keep my Quants performance out of my mind. Couldn't complete verbal again (attempted everything but last 4 questions were pure guess) as I got 3 RC questions at last and one CR.
After this section was done, I knew something was off today and then attempted IR and couldn't understand a single question there too ( my IR scores have been consistently between 5-7 in mocks).
Now, I am not sure what to do next as I am not able to grasp the CR questions and RC for sure goes over my head. I have tried "reading slow" technique and it did not work. I tried "skimming" technique and it did not work. Tried "Note making" for RC too but did not help either. And I am not sure what happened to my CR suddenly as I was doing quite well there. I am not able to pre-think like everyone else
I want to get into a good college this year, can not wait for another year. I thought I would be writing my GMAT score debrief like everyone else as to how well I scored but instead I am writing how I messed up.
Any guidance as to how should I approach the RCs and CRs would help and also how should I approach GMAT as a whole after this blunder. I just want to get into a good college by March 2021.
I took my GMAT exam today at 1AM IST. Though the scores have not come yet but I know I have screwed up.
Quants: I was not able to understand the questions at all, still not sure what happened as I was consistently scoring between 48-51 in official mocks. I was completely blank after seeing the first question (which I was able to solve after my exam was over). I don't know why but the first question shook my morale and I became too nervous. When the quant section was over I knew it did not go well.
Verbal: This section is still a mystery to me because of the happenings in last 15 days. When I took my 1st official mock and scored 600 (Q48, V23), I realised I had to work on my Critical Reasoning. Then after few days I took a mock again and scored a 650 (Q49, V28), cool a little improvement. CR and RC still needed a little work. I tried following "read slowly" approach in CR and RC to understand it well and I think it worked as my next non offical mock score was 670 but this time I had screwed up Sentence correction. I visited sentence correction basics, solved about 50-70 OG questions and then took the official mock 2 days before my actual exam and score a 700(Q51, V33) (took it at 1AM as per my booked time). I was elated as out of 14 Sentence Correction questions only 2 were wrong. CR had 9 questions out of which 6 or 7 were correct. I RC wasn't up to the mark but that was mostly because I was not able to read the last passage at all because of the time constraint and guessed all the questions in it and as expected all 4 were wrong. Also, I was not able to complete the verbal part (time expired when I had 1 question left). So overall, I was quite satisfied with the score. I was relaxed and thought of taking 1 more mock just to check if the previous mock was a fluke. I took it the next day at night 1AM again and scored 590(Q48,V25), just a day before my main exam. I analysed my mistake and realised I have been getting almost all CR and RC questions wrong. I was not able to understand what was happening. I started trying the questions again but it felt like my mind was blocked, I was not able to understand a single passage of RC or CR. I hoped it was just a bad day and waited for the main exam but the score was lingering at the back of my mind. D-Day arrived and I tried imitating everything I did on the day I scored 700. Drank coffee, watched a youtube video, and then finally started my exam. And I feel I bombed the verbal section too. I did not get a single boldface question in CR (read somewhere on this forum that getting a boldface indicated you have been attempting the CR questions correctly, not sure how true is this claim), quant's performance affected my verbal too, I could not keep my Quants performance out of my mind. Couldn't complete verbal again (attempted everything but last 4 questions were pure guess) as I got 3 RC questions at last and one CR.
After this section was done, I knew something was off today and then attempted IR and couldn't understand a single question there too ( my IR scores have been consistently between 5-7 in mocks).
Now, I am not sure what to do next as I am not able to grasp the CR questions and RC for sure goes over my head. I have tried "reading slow" technique and it did not work. I tried "skimming" technique and it did not work. Tried "Note making" for RC too but did not help either. And I am not sure what happened to my CR suddenly as I was doing quite well there. I am not able to pre-think like everyone else
I want to get into a good college this year, can not wait for another year. I thought I would be writing my GMAT score debrief like everyone else as to how well I scored but instead I am writing how I messed up.
Any guidance as to how should I approach the RCs and CRs would help and also how should I approach GMAT as a whole after this blunder. I just want to get into a good college by March 2021.
