I took GMAT yesterday and ended up with the very low score of 590 - Q45, V25. I was hoping to score in the range of 650-710. I did good on the Quant, but couldn't do very well on Verbal.
These are my scores from practice tests -
GMATPrep 1 - 720 (3 months before real exam, without Essay and IR)
GMATPrep2 - 600 (2 months before real exam, With IR only)
MGMAT 1 - 640 Q44, V34 (1 month before real exam, Without Essay and IR)
MGMAT 2 - 690 Q45, V35 (1 week before real exam, With Essay and IR, under 100% official conditions)
MGMAT 3 - 640 Q48, V31 (1 day before real exam, With Essay and IR, under 100% official conditions))
Sentence correction and critical reasoning were my strong areas in verbal, but I ended up doing most of them wrong. On the other hand, I did well on RC which was my weak area.
Please suggest me how I should proceed from here. For verbal, I did all the problems from OG, Verbal review, Manhattan GMAT SC, Powerscore CR bible, Powerscore SC bible, Manhattan GMAT RC, and all the GMAT prep CR and SC questions available online.
Real exam threw so many strange questions that I could not relate to any that I had studied. Should I retake the test (I have actually lost confidence in doing so). Please help.
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- suvkosh
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- StaceyKoprince
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Re: Low verbal score on real test
I'm sorry that you had a disappointing test experience. Do you have any more ideas about why your verbal score dropped so much?
I have one idea: I suspect that you worked too hard in the week leading up to the exam. For example, you took a practice test the day before, when the recommendation is NOT to take a test within 5 days of the real exam.
Another idea: you also said that you found the real test very strange and you weren't even sure what you were reading at times. That is a symptom of mental fatigue. Read here for more:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/
Do you think you were experiencing something like that article describes? On the practice tests, were you taking IR and the essay as seriously as you did on the real test? A lot of people don't take those as seriously in practice, and then they're surprised by how much those sections tire them out on the real test. If you were also going into the test having studied way too much in the several days beforehand, this would have made your mental fatigue even worse.
A third idea: if #1 and #2 are true, then that probably caused you to take more time on questions, which would have caused you to have to rush later on - and that would have exacerbated the other problems, causing your score to drop even more.
This actually reinforces the idea that you did too much - and probably didn't learn enough.
Read the how to study / how to learn section of this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/
And this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/
Use that to help you learn HOW to study. Then come back here and tell me your understanding of the articles and how you think that changes your study strategy.
Finally, I'm going to speculate on something for SC. I'm going to speculate that you didn't spend very much time studying meaning but concentrated more on grammar. I'm also going to speculate that you struggle more with long-underline sentences where the answer choices change a great deal. In these sentences, the structure changes - so that's harder to deal with for someone who mostly studied from the point of view of individual grammar errors. The kinds of sentences I'm describing are more common on the real test now.
Does that sound like it could be the case? If so, start here:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/
I have one idea: I suspect that you worked too hard in the week leading up to the exam. For example, you took a practice test the day before, when the recommendation is NOT to take a test within 5 days of the real exam.
Another idea: you also said that you found the real test very strange and you weren't even sure what you were reading at times. That is a symptom of mental fatigue. Read here for more:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/
Do you think you were experiencing something like that article describes? On the practice tests, were you taking IR and the essay as seriously as you did on the real test? A lot of people don't take those as seriously in practice, and then they're surprised by how much those sections tire them out on the real test. If you were also going into the test having studied way too much in the several days beforehand, this would have made your mental fatigue even worse.
A third idea: if #1 and #2 are true, then that probably caused you to take more time on questions, which would have caused you to have to rush later on - and that would have exacerbated the other problems, causing your score to drop even more.
For verbal, I did all the problems from OG, Verbal review, Manhattan GMAT SC, Powerscore CR bible, Powerscore SC bible, Manhattan GMAT RC, and all the GMAT prep CR and SC questions available online.
This actually reinforces the idea that you did too much - and probably didn't learn enough.
Read the how to study / how to learn section of this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/
And this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/
Use that to help you learn HOW to study. Then come back here and tell me your understanding of the articles and how you think that changes your study strategy.
Finally, I'm going to speculate on something for SC. I'm going to speculate that you didn't spend very much time studying meaning but concentrated more on grammar. I'm also going to speculate that you struggle more with long-underline sentences where the answer choices change a great deal. In these sentences, the structure changes - so that's harder to deal with for someone who mostly studied from the point of view of individual grammar errors. The kinds of sentences I'm describing are more common on the real test now.
Does that sound like it could be the case? If so, start here:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
2 posts Page 1 of 1