scored 560 although scoring 700 on the practice tests

[splendidom]

Hi all!!!

I took the GMAT and scored 560 (q: 42 v:25) although i was scoring 700 on the practice exams. I was really sick during the test. Maybe that affected the score. I really don't know. My practice scores were

Kaplan
cat1 560
cat2 580
cat3 610
cat4 640
cat5 630
cat6 690
cat7 710
cat8 700
cat9 700


MGMAT
CAT1 600
CAT2 600
CAT3 630
CAT4 640
CAT5 680


gmat prep 1 640
gmat prep 2 650

I dont know what I did wrong. I need 700 or more of course What should i do? any advice?

[rishi raj]

Sorry to hear about your less than expected score. However, by looking at your scores, I'd not say that you were scoring 700 on the practice tests. Rather you may want to put it this way that you scored 700+ in a few tests while your overall average on all the tests is around 640,that's just a rough estimate looking at your scores across the tests.
Anyway, the GMATPREP scores correlate most strongly with the actual GMAT score. Since you got 640, and 650 on the two GMATPREP tests, so I'd like to take that as the reference point of your competency level.

What should you do depends more on when do you want to apply to business schools . Breaking the 700 barrier is going to take a considerable amount of "unlearning"-the usual method through which you learnt this time around and then learning again. And this process may take around 2 months ,on the lower side.

However, since you mentioned that you were sick during the exam, you may well think of appearing as early as possible ,if you think that you'd be sufficiently prepared. I think at this point of time what you have to decide is whether you wanna miss the deadlines for this season or you want to really apply this year. Accordingly, you may choose to re-take.

[splendidom]

Thank you for your reply rishi raj.

You are right actually. I am inclined to exaggerate my score here : ) My level should be somewhere close to 650. However 560 is still too far from that point. Maybe that's because i was really so sick.

Considering my health condition affected my score I am planning to retake the test at the end of February giving me 2 months. I will follow some new steps to score 700+. The new steps would be

1. I would engage myself more in this forum to keep myself more informed and also to provide support
2. I would keep an error log which i didn't keep before (actually i kept smthg similar to an error log for quantitative but not for each question)
3. I won't rush myself to finish all the questions in OG rather I will try to understand the logic behind each. (previously i rushed myself to finish all the questions in the og and thus did not spend enough time on my answers especially for RC.)
4. I would solve at least 10 question of each type everyday ( normally i solved like 100 questions a day and 0 questions the other day. I would try to balance my study everyday)

These are the things that I noticed I am doing wrong. Any more advice to score 700+ ?