I got beat by the gmat

[letsgogiants]

I am generally a horrible test taker and my experience with the gmat supports this claim.

I took my first CAT in the beginning of July 2013(without essay or IR) and got a 590. Honestly, since I am such a bad test taker, I was surprised that I scored so high. I am taking a gmat prep course, did all the required homeworks, and definitely felt like I was improving.

I decided to put my new found knowledge to the test and schedule a gmat for late August 2013. I was expecting to score in the same ball park as my first practice exams (or maybe even slightly better) but boy was I wrong. I scored a 530 (I dont remember the breakdown but I can post it later tonight; I did do better in math though). During the essay, I felt confident. During the IR i got a little nervous. When quant came around, I was just overwhelmed, especially since I came back from my break 3 mins late.I did things that were completely out of character for me since I was so nervous. I was guessing randomly just so I could get back on schedule. I was taking 5 minutes for easy questions (something I never did when I was practicing). For some reason I felt more comfortable during the verbal (even though I did worse in this section).

I mainly took the gmat so soon because I wanted to benchmark where I was. I was also beginning to burn out so I wanted to "cash in" my gains. I knew I would have to take the exam again but I did not expect to do so poorly. Now I just feel discouraged and am beginning to questions if I can ever beat the gmat. I was hoping to get some insight on this forum on what I did wrong. Any recommendations? Thanks for you time.

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Hi letsgogiants,

After reading your post, I can point out some things that likely hurt you during your ramp up to your August Test (and what you can do to fix them).

1) Taking a practice CAT and skipping ANY section - this leads to an unrealistic, often "inflated" score and does NOT prepare you for the rigors of the ACTUAL GMAT. Even doing this on your first CAT sets a bad theme for the rest of your studies (there's no way to tell what else you may have "skipped over"). As you continue to study, DON'T EVER skip a section on a CAT - you need to learn how to handle the endurance aspect of the GMAT

2) You spent fewer than 2 months studying. With our experience, the ideal study period for most people is 3 months (although some people take more time than that). You note that you were planning to take the GMAT again anyway, so I have to ask why you felt the need to rush in to take the Test at the end of August? I'll chock it up to optimism on your part, but you shouldn't have "rushed" in to take the Test.

3) You weren't prepared for the psychological and physical elements of the exam, which is why you got nervous in spots and came back late from your break. Everything on the GMAT can be practiced and prepared for. You didn't get in enough practice, so these "little things" went wrong. The good news is that you now have a reference point, so you should be able to avoid these issues next time.

Business Schools don't care if you retest, so you shouldn't get too down on yourself about this first experience. What were your Scaled Scores for the Quant and Verbal sections? With that data, I'll be able to offer some additional advice about how to proceed.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[letsgogiants]

Hey Rich,

My scaled total score was 560. i got a scaled quant score of 36 and and verbal score of 31.