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Verbal Section destroyed - Can we challenge GMAT score?

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Verbal Section destroyed - Can we challenge GMAT score?

by xs2infa » Fri Jul 22, 2011 4:44 am
Hi All
I took the GMAT today and was destroyed to see the GMAT score.
I scored 590 Q47 and V25.
I expected 46 + in Quant, but the big disappointment was verbal section. I never thought and expected that I will receive such a low score.
If the paper did not went well, I can think that verbal score is low, but I was pretty confident after doing the verbal questions and definitely thought I should get 38+ marks as I was able to apply fundamentals to SC and able to deduce CR questions and able to work out RC question.

Honestly, this is my lowest verbal score ever. During the Practice test, I was consistently getting 35+ in verbal section and day before yesterday, in my final practice test, From the last few weeks, I was only concentrating on verbal section and was improving well and thus I got a 41 verbal score in my last practice test couple of days back.

I dont know what to do now. Is there a way I can challenge GMAT verbal score as I am confident that I should have got more than 25 marks for sure?

Please help.

Thanks
Ravi
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by vineeshp » Fri Jul 22, 2011 6:24 am
Hard luck Ravi. It is certainly disheartening when things go in the opposite direction. Do you want to think about taking the test again? If you are confident you cna improve.

Regarding Chjallenging scores, no, not possible.

You can try but I can guarantee you GMAC will entertain no such request. The test has been taken by millions of students and GMAC is very confident that it's algorithm is fine.

If external factors affected your test taking at the center, GMAC does give retakes based on their study of the case, but if you approach them saying I am sure I should have got more, they don't act on it.
Vineesh,
Just telling you what I know and think. I am not the expert. :)
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by xs2infa » Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:00 am
Hi Vineesh
Thanks for the response.
Retake is the only option for me, if challenging is not possible.

But I just want to check from others if they have faced similar issues with the accuracy of GMAT score.
Or is it something which I have interpreted incorrectly.

This is important for me because I dont want to face similar situation during my retake.

I will appreciate if you guys can share your GMAT experience.

Thanks
Ravi
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by lemondedephil » Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:30 pm
Hello:

I took the test on July 20th and faced a very similar situation to yours. On all practice tests (including GMAT Prep), I was scoring 38-41. On the actual test day, my verbal ended up scoring at 31. My math (like you) was right where I thought it would be.


After reading your post and hearing additional "buzz" from other online communitie around significantly lower than expected verbal scores from a recent testing, I am indeed challenging the scoring. I was part of a test group that got additional questions for the new analytics section that GMAT intends to role out next year. This test section immediately followed verbal. Since this section was out of the ordinary from previous testing experiences, I am using this situation as an excuse to request a further investigation.

Kindly find my letter of complaint submitted below. I do encourage you to challenge as well and all else out there in this situation.

Best,
Confused GMAT Fellow

____________________-


Hello:

I took the GMAT on July 20, 2011 at XXXXX in XXXXXXX. I would like to challenge my verbal score. I am fearful that the additional "test analytical section" (the 12 questions not part of the official test used for research purposes) may have impacted the test scoring programming for the verbal score calculation since it immediately followed the verbal section with no opportunity for a break in between the two sections.

Could you please confirm that verbal was indeed scored correctly on my test day? My GMAT ID number is XXXXXXX and my authentication code is XXXXXXX.

I do not believe my verbal score of 31 is reflective of what I received on general practice tests (including GMAT prep - where my score range was 38-41) nor correlated to my 6.0 received on the AWA.

Normally, I would pass this lower score than expected as an individual testing experience problem. However, I have heard from online communities that many others who have taken the test during the last week faced a similar situation with their verbal scores, including those who took the official test previous times and scored much higher on verbal the initial time which they took the test. The normal statistical deviation does not seem to be the case here.

How can we be reassured that there was not a programming error in the general scoring for verbal? Any closure you could provide would be appreciated.

Kind Regards,
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by xs2infa » Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:14 am
Hi lemondedephil
Thanks a lot for your response.

Your response has given some kind of hope to me.
I too got additional questions related to integrated reasoning and some how I also feel that the integrated reasoning has to do with the lower score.

I took the test on 22nd July.

I would like to invite other people who have faced similar issues and thus we can send our complains individually and the greater the number of complains we send, the greater our chances are to get some justice.

Thanks
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by girigmat » Sun Jul 24, 2011 4:55 am
Hi,
I wanted to explore this option too..but for me the case is just opposite of yours , I got a scaled score of 37 in Quants when I thought I had done well enough to get a 45 + score , I got 38 V which was in the range of what I was expecting. Me too gave my gmat on July 22nd in Bangalore...so let me know if you go ahead with your enquiry , I don't think it would hurt to enquire anyways..
cheers.
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by xs2infa » Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:21 am
Hi Girigmat
I am going ahead with the complain and enquiry as I am confident that my performance in Verbal section was much better than a mere 25 score.

I took GMAT in Delhi on 22nd July.

I have asked lemondedephil to let me the complain process and then we both can follow the same route.

Lets hope we get something out of this.

I again request other people to come forward and share their experience if they too are not satisfied with their GMAT scores.

Thanks again.
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by Frankenstein » Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:55 am
Hi guys,
I am not sure you guys are gonna get anything from your complaints. Even I have taken on 22nd July as well. My center at Hyderabad, India. I got pretty bad Verbal score(30) although my Quant score was 51, as I expected, with an overall 690. I have never got a Verbal score of 30 even in my first practice test just when I started GMAT Prep. As you guys have mentioned your practice scores just a couple of days before GMAT, my practice score on 20th July was 780(51,46), with AWA. This was Veritas Prep-test 5, and this was not a retake, and I don't think we can retake Veritas Prep tests. So, after I finished my GMAT, even I thought I did well. But, I was shocked for a moment after looking at my score. I am not gonna make any formal complaint about this because GMAC is the ultimate authority and we have signed that we agree with their scores. If I knew I did that bad, I wouldn't have clicked the 'submit' button at the end. I just consider I had an off-day. So, as I feel I have enough prep, I will just retake it next month. I hope lightning does not strike twice.
Good luck to you guys if you are really expecting to get revised scores!

P.S.: I have mentioned this only because you guys wanted to know whether others have also faced similar problems on 22nd July. I have solved about 3-4 questions of the Integrated Reasoning but after that I could not concentrate at all as I was already exhausted. I really don't expect that section to have any impact on Verbal score.
Cheers!

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by gmat25 » Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:55 am
Hi guys,

All this stuff is really scary as i'm going to take my GMAT in first week of Aug and i too have to face those experimental questions.

@frankie, its really sad to know about your score. You are exceptionally good not just in quant but also in verbal. As from my past exp. scoring 30 in verbal means u answered atleast 15 questions wrong. If something is really wrong with the GMAT alogrithm then its really scary and if not then i say it was just a bad day for u buddy.

Final words: here is the link of a guy who scored 780 and he too got those experimental questions. See, i don't wanna become a shit head jerk over here, what i just wanna say is there are some good results too. Now, it may be possible that this guy who scored 780 might have answered really good in those experimental questions or may be there is no problem with the GMAT alogrithm. Here is the link

https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-cheap-la ... 87860.html
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by kevincanspain » Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:55 am
xs2infa wrote:Hi All
I took the GMAT today and was destroyed to see the GMAT score.
I scored 590 Q47 and V25.
I expected 46 + in Quant, but the big disappointment was verbal section. I never thought and expected that I will receive such a low score.
If the paper did not went well, I can think that verbal score is low, but I was pretty confident after doing the verbal questions and definitely thought I should get 38+ marks as I was able to apply fundamentals to SC and able to deduce CR questions and able to work out RC question.

Honestly, this is my lowest verbal score ever. During the Practice test, I was consistently getting 35+ in verbal section and day before yesterday, in my final practice test, From the last few weeks, I was only concentrating on verbal section and was improving well and thus I got a 41 verbal score in my last practice test couple of days back.

I dont know what to do now. Is there a way I can challenge GMAT verbal score as I am confident that I should have got more than 25 marks for sure?

Please help.

Thanks
Ravi
Your English may have kept you from doing better on SC questions. Did you really understand all of the SC questions in the Official Guides? How many repeated questions did you see in your practice tests?
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by Frankenstein » Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:30 pm
gmat25 wrote:Hi guys,

All this stuff is really scary as i'm going to take my GMAT in first week of Aug and i too have to face those experimental questions.

@frankie, its really sad to know about your score. You are exceptionally good not just in quant but also in verbal. As from my past exp. scoring 30 in verbal means u answered atleast 15 questions wrong. If something is really wrong with the GMAT alogrithm then its really scary and if not then i say it was just a bad day for u buddy.

Final words: here is the link of a guy who scored 780 and he too got those experimental questions. See, i don't wanna become a shit head jerk over here, what i just wanna say is there are some good results too. Now, it may be possible that this guy who scored 780 might have answered really good in those experimental questions or may be there is no problem with the GMAT alogrithm. Here is the link

https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-cheap-la ... 87860.html
Hey,
Don't think too much about these things. I am confident GMAC is good enough to deal with these things. Well, I am not sure what went wrong for me in Verbal, but all I can say is I never really loved and enjoyed doing RCs as I used to do while doing Quant and SC as I am not a native speaker and I have never been an inveterate reader of varied topics. That might be one reason as well. So, just focus on your prep. I don't think things like these will have an impact on your scores. Feel free to ask me if you have any specific questions about GMAT.
Good Luck!
Cheers!

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by gmat25 » Mon Jul 25, 2011 3:15 am
@Frankenstein

Good positive attitude. Even i believe in the same thing that GMAT can handle such situations and we should try not to suspect on their algorithm. Well in last effort i scored 31 in verbal and that's actually really poor if i compare from what i scored in practice tests and the amount of effort i put. The problem was after test i was actually not able to figure out what went wrong. Generally people stuck in RC and i do believe in the same but in exam i got fairly simple RC passages and answered confidently. Surprisingly, i believe its CR where i screwed up. The worst part if i tell u about my CR skills, i'm usually good in CR and exceptionally good in questions BOLD FACE (rare type) + WEAKEN. surprisingly i didn't get any rare type question. My weak areas are mainly ASSUMPTION TYPE and fill in the blank type. You may find it awkward as i mentioned above that i'm exceptionally good (100% accuracy) in BOLD FACE CR that means i usually have a good understanding of the argument, but still i'n not good in fill in the blank type questions. Most of the questions i got are based on conclusion.and that too..for example...which of the following logically completes the argument...fill in the blank type etc...and i don't know may be i was too tired that i was not actually able to put best of my focus in those questions. In sum it was a bad day and i screwed up. But i will fight again and its really good to see u have the same attitude. Regarding SC, i love SC and if someone ask me solve a SC question or Quant than i certainly solve the SC question. I'm confident that i'm screwed in CR.
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by beatthegmat » Mon Jul 25, 2011 12:14 pm
Sorry to hear about this experience, xs2infa. Just to chime in here, I haven't heard anything about GMAC trying to change its algorithm for calculating Verbal scores.
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by rixyroxy » Tue Jul 26, 2011 5:23 am
Dear All//

I have given the GMAT twice. Location - Dubai. Both the times , the experimental section was running. My first exam was on 21st Nov 2010.the 2nd one on 25th July 2011.

Results
GMAT 1 - Quant 42 , Verbal - 36 , 640
GMAT 2 - Quant 48 , Verbal - 30 , 640 !!

Honestly I do not feel there is anything wrong with the algorithm. I " know " for sure that the quant section went better this time. Verbal - I am pretty sure an RC in the 20s totally derailed me...Still waiting (and working ) for the 48 / 38 score....!!
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by abc2xyz » Tue Jul 26, 2011 12:54 pm
Not a different story at my end either. I wrote my GMAT today and got a shocking score. The tally was a meager 580 - Q49, V20. The verbal score was disgraceful. And this is when I have been consistently getting a 30 or more with GMATprep and Kaplan. I opted for the IR too. I am wondering if IR has really some impact on the Verbal section grading.
Like xs2infa, I was confident too about a lot of Questions i was answering. In fact, I would rate the difficulty of the Questions I experienced as "High" ( basing it on the fact that I got Bold faced CR Qs twice ).
I am not sure if writing to GMAC is really going to help but what I am sure of is the score I got wasn't quite a reflective of what I should have got.
Let me know what everyone else think of it and anyone else faced the same situation recently.

-abc2xyz
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