Help Me Please!_Test Performance Diagnose

[Lydia]

Hi Everyone,

I was really hoping to gain some advice from you in regards to my GMAT study. I have taken the real GMAT exam today in Melbourne and scored 570 (Q:48 ; V:21). Unfortunately, this is my third attempt in 2 years. I am extremely disappointed with my performance and was REALLY hoping to get some top tips from you all on how can i improve.

Firstly, I'd like to share bit of background of myself, I am from China and lived in Australia for the past 10 years. I studied my high school and university in Brisbane and worked in a large organisation for the past 5 years. Currently I am working as a Corporate Strategy analyst in Melbourne.

Last year, i decided to take the GMAT exam as I was really hoping to pursue my MBA education in a top business school overseas. After 9 weeks prep, I took my GMAT in May and scored a shocking 560 (Q:46; V:21). There were some disruptive behaviours (people chatting outside the test room; construction work on the road; lost time during writing pad renewal process), so i decided to retake the exam in Sep. Another 11-12 weeks prep, I went through all verbal guides from Manhattan GMAT, and redid every single question on OG 13 and verbal review (2nd Ed), i scored 610 (Q:47; V: 27). Unfortunately the results were still not great. I was too disappointed and exhausted from GMAT studying. In the meantime, I had 3 work promotions and worked on a few challenging projects. Hence, I decided to retake my GMAT again in 2013.

From 24th June - 1st Oct this year, I have studied diligently most weekdays after work (from 9 or 10 pm - 12 or 1 am) and 7-8 hours study for all Sat and Sundays. Key materials that i've used include : a few Manhattan guides (SC;CR;Number properties); all verbal sections from 'crack the GMAT'; all SC questions from OG12&13, and Verbal review (2nd Ed).

Below are the schedule for all prac test i've taken:

25th June: Paper Test Code 14: 610 (Q:45; V: 31)

15th July: MGMAT CAT1: 650 (Q46; V33)
26th Aug: MGMAT CAT2: 670 (Q44; V37)
10th Sep: MGMAT CAT3: 630 (Q46; V31)
17th Sep: MGMAT CAT4: 620 (Q45; V31)
22nd Sep: MGMAT CAT5: 660 (Q45; V35)
28th Sep: OG Prep1: 710 (Q50; V34)
29th Sep: MGMAT CAT5: 680 (Q47; V35)
30th Sep: OG Prep2: 710 (Q49; V35)

Except the 1st paper exam, all the other exams were completed under real exam time requirements, no pause, no extra breaks, full AWA, full IR section.

I was very nervous the day before the exam, but still tried to give my best shot. I took 3 and a half days off work, that's why I managed to do 3 prac exams in the past 4 days. I went to bed around 11pm as per normal routine. I felt ok with AWA, bit nervous about IR; kind of ok with Quant. However, I was very very unsure about the first few verbal questions, my Q4-Q8 were RC, I can normally achieve 50% accuracy in RC, so I was not feeling confident. Then i realised i was bit slow, so i tried to speed up. However except the front section, i didn't feel the verbal section much harder than any of my prac however I did run out of time for the last 5 questions, i guessed about 3.

I knew i may struggle to get 700+, i thought I might see some score around high 600s, surprisingly i got a shocking 570. :-(

I would really like to get a score around 700+ and am still planning to apply my MBA for Sep next year. (~apply in early Jan next year). Given limited time left before my application, I would really appreciate if anybody could help me to diagnose my poor performance today or point me to the right direction.

Thank you all

Best Regards,
Lydia

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry you had a disappointing test experience. It looks like your quant score is in line with your practice test scores, but not your verbal score.

It looks as though you were taking practice tests every day for the 3 days before your test date? If so, then you almost certainly tired yourself out mentally. That could affect you anywhere on the test but would be most likely to affect you on the last section - verbal.

Read this: did you feel any of this during the test?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

You mentioned feeling nervous. We do all feel nervous, but how much do you think test anxiety affected you? How do you feel when you're in the testing center? How have you done in the past on "high stakes" tests, such as final exams in school? Do you sometimes freeze up / have anxiety issues that make it harder for you to concentrate and perform well?

You also mentioned timing problems - if you ran out of time on the last 5 questions and only had time to guess on 3, then you also likely had to speed up some time before that. That caused a score drop at the end of the section - and this is a "where you end is what you get" kind of test. (That is, the score is not based on some average performance calculated once the test is over. Rather, your scoring level at the end of your last question IS your score.)

So if you left the last 2 questions blank, likely got the 3 before that wrong, and likely also had a higher incidence of wrong answers leading into those last 5 questions because you were already speeding up to try to catch up... then your score could have dropped quite substantially.

Read this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

And then these two:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

You need to fix this timing problem or you will continue to struggle with this section of the test.

After reading the above and this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

then use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Figure out what you think you should do based on that analysis and based on your understanding of those strategy and time management articles. Then come back here and tell us; we'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)