2 times taken the real GMAT, what should I do?

[mertmert]

Hi,

My GMAT history is very interesting and I need your urgent help

In September my GMAT Prep results were 710 and 640

Then I took the real GMAT in September and my real GMAT score was 610 (Q-48 V-26)

I thought that this score is not enough for me to apply for the top-10 Business Schools and wıth the hope of improving my score I scheduled a new exam for 20th October.

Meanwhile I practiced verbal section where I have been weak. Especially my study was focused on sentence correction and a little bit Critical Reasoning.

I took your MGMAT exams and I tried to simulate the real situation as close as possible (obeying the time limits and not stopping the clock)

My MGMAT scores were as following:

CAT #1: 680 (Q-47 , V-35)
CAT #2: 730 (Q-51 , V-38)
CAT #3: 640 (Q-51 , V-29)
CAT #4: 660 (Q-50 , V-32)
CAT #5: 710 (Q-50 , V-36)

Also on other CAT exams that simulate the real exam I got 660,640, 660.

Today I took the real GMAT second time and it was really disappointing for me to get a score of 570 (Q-50 , V-19)

I don't know what should I do for that and I need your help. I know that I have the potential to get a score over 640 since in the simulation exams my scores did not go under 640.

Especially my reading comprehension is weak and I know that I cannot improve it in short time. Can you give me an advice to overcome that situation.

Here is the assessment report of the 5 MGMAT exams I have taken.

Report Date: Oct 20, 2008
Assessment Summary

QUESTION FORMAT Total Right Wrong Blank % Right Average Average Average Average
Time Time Difficulty Difficulty
RIGHT WRONG RIGHT WRONG
Answers Answers Answers Answers
Problem Solving 110 84 26 0 76% 01:36 03:03 670 700
Data Sufficiency 75 56 19 0 75% 02:01 02:22 700 730

Sentence Correction 75 43 32 0 57% 01:30 01:26 660 710
Critical Reasoning 70 43 27 0 61% 01:47 01:57 660 720
Reading 60 27 33 0 45% 02:13 02:16 640 660
Comprehension

QUANTITATIVE Total Right Wrong % Right Average Average
CONTENT AREA Time Time
RIGHT WRONG
Answers Answers
WORST Word
Translations 44 28 16 64% 02:04 03:01 SLOWEST
Geometry 27 22 5 81% 02:11 03:05
Number
Properties 41 29 12 71% 01:30 02:48
BEST Algebra 40 35 5 88% 01:37 01:45 FASTEST
FDP's 33 26 7 79% 01:36 02:37

[StaceyKoprince]

Obviously, your verbal is pulling your score down. We need to figure out why so that we can do something about it.

When you took the practice tests, did you also take the essays? Did you spend as much time and mental energy on the practice essays as you did on the real essays?

How was your timing in the verbal section? Did you generally move steadily through the test, giving appropriate time and attention to each question? (1.5m for SC, 2m for CR, 2-4m to read a passage, 1m for general RC questions, 2m for specific RC questions) Or did you have to rush at times and possibly make random guesses? If you did have to rush and/or make random guesses, on how many questions would you say you did that? Did you do it on a lot of questions in a row or were the guesses scattered?

How was your stamina? How did you feel toward the middle and end of the verbal section? Did you have something to eat and drink on the breaks? Did you get up, walk around, and stretch?

What other differences can you think of between your practice test experiences and your real test experiences? Anything, no matter how small, and no matter whether you think it wouldn't have made a difference to your score. Any differences at all?

[Mert Mert]

Thank you Stacey for your reply,

Although I tried to simulate the exam situation as close as possible, in fact there were some small differences between my practice exams conditions and real exam conditions and I was not expecting them to to have so great effect on my exam.

For example, usually I was not taking the essays on my practice exams since I came late at home because of my demanding job conditions and I had limited time at evening to do the practice exams. But sometimes at weekends I were making the practice essays but definitely I was not spending as much time and mental energy on practice essays (the MGMAT scores of 660 and 640 are the scores where I have written the practice essays).

Secondly, I have some timing problems with the verbal section. Usually my speed is not steady throughout the exam. I usually fall into the situation of 15 minute / 15-10 question left and I rush towards the end of the exam randomly guessing 4 - 6 questions at last. Also this time pressure affects my performance on some reading comprehension and critical reasoning questions because sometimes I do not have the time to read the reading comprehension passages carefully. Similarly I face some difficulty in focusing on critical reasoning problems towards the end of the exam and read the argument at least twice which definitely makes me loose even more time. But these timing problems also happened me in the practice exams.

It is true that I start to loose some of my stamina after the half of the verbal section especially in the 3rd quarter of the (usually in the last 15 questions). After seeing easy questions towards the end of the exam, I feel ashamed. Also, most of my practices were at evenings but the only option for us to take the real GMAT exam is at at mornings at 9:30 where I drink much coffee to wake up. Also during the break before verbal section I drink coffee and eat banana.

What matters the most is the sequence of the questions. Especially I am weaker at reading comprehension questions and when a reading comprehension question comes out to be in the first 5 questions, usually I make several mistakes that lowers my scores at most. But anyway that also happens in the practice exams where I get definitely higher scores.

So I have scheduled a new exam for the next month, I would be very glad to hear your recommendations. Thank you for your interest.

My best regards,
Mert Mert

[StaceyKoprince]

Okay - those are actually pretty major differences, not small ones.

Taking the essays is critical - you have to spend a full hour on the essays. If you aren't practicing with the essays, you're only preparing yourself for a 160-min test, not a 230-min test (including breaks). That's a major difference in terms of your stamina and your ability to maintain your verbal performance throughout that entire section. So, from now on, always do the essays.

You shouldn't be taking a test more than once a week (and for many people, it should be more like 2-3 weeks between exams), so you should be able to do this on week-ends.

Second, it's important to take your practice tests at the same time of day that you will take the real test. Again - stamina / mental alertness can have a major impact on your score, and that can fluctuate depending upon time of day.

Third, mismanaging the timing can also have a major (downward) impact on your score. If you have only 1 to 1.5 min per question for the last 10-15 questions, you're going to get more wrong. The question is: how many additional ones? And how many wrong ones will you have in a row? When you're guessing randomly on 4-6, you might get lucky and get a couple or you might get unlucky and get none of them. Depending on how all of that plays out, your score can easily drop 100 points.

A lot of the difficulty you mention with verbal has to do with your ability to concentrate towards the end of the exam and that takes us right back to the stamina thing, especially when you add in the stress of knowing that, this time, it's the real thing and your score is going to count.

At this point, you have to assume that your current scoring level is somewhere in the mid-600 range, because you didn't do the essays on the tests on which you scored 700+. So part of this is going to involve building up that stamina over the next month. Because stamina is such a major issue for you, you should do one test a week (on the week-end, at 9:30a).

Next, you need to go figure out where / why you're mismanaging your time on the test. Go look at the reports for the various verbal question types / content areas (run the reports for your last two or three tests combined). Look for specific grammar areas on which your average time is >1:45 or you spent more than 2m on any one problem. Then go look at those specific problems and try to figure out why you went over. Was it a really long sentence or was the entire thing underlined? Did you now know what to do with any of the differences, or did you get rid of some choices relatively easily but then spend a lot of time agonizing between two answer choices? What was going on that you didn't know how to handle? Etc.

Then do the same for CR and RC question types, but use this timing instead. For CR, any categories for which your average is 2:30 or greater, or any individual problems on which you spend more than 3 min. For RC, you have to dig a little deeper, unfortunately, because the first question's "time" will be artificially inflated (since this is when you're reading the passage). Go to the problem list and look for any "first question in a passage" problems on which you spent more than 5 min and, for non-first-questions, any on which you spent more than 2.5 min. Again, go figure out why you spent so much time on each specific problem.

Then go figure out what you can do to trim that time next time. Was there a way to move through more efficiently, such as using a "vertical scan" to find the differences in the answers and then concentrate only on those differences that you immediately know how to do? Alternatively, if you spent half your time just agonizing between two choices and then ended up mostly just guessing between the two anyway... now you know that when you aren't sure how to decide between two, you should just pick something and move on. (This is huge: NEVER sit there agonizing between choices on verbal. Give one good look at each choice. If you still don't know what to do, pick one and move on.)

Note: my focus above is how to trim the time. Notice that I don't say "how to trim the time and get it right" - if you literally got the same problems wrong but just get them wrong faster, then you'd be able to address more questions at the end! Or, in some cases, I'd actually want you to take a problem you got right and get it wrong, but faster. If you spend more than double the expected time on a given question, then it doesn't matter if you get it right - you've just guaranteed yourself a wrong question towards the end because you've used up the entire time for another problem. (And, from a practical perspective, you've probably just guaranteed yourself two wrong questions, not one, because most people will notice they're behind and say, "oh, I can do these two SC problems in 45 seconds each, instead of doing one in 1.5m and not having time for the other at all!" But all you've done there is increase the chances that you'll get TWO questions wrong now instead of one.)

Also, tally your performance for those problems. Add up how much time you spent, total, and how many you got right vs. how many you got wrong. Also go back to the problem list and add up how many you got wrong because you spend <30 sec on SC or <1min on CR or RC (that is, you were rushing). Add that number to the number you got wrong when you spent too much time. Take a look at the numbers and ask yourself: how is spending this extra time working out for me? I predict that the numbers won't look very good... :)

I want you to add up the numbers because I want you to prove to yourself that spending all that extra time is really not helping you.

As you're doing the above analysis, if you have any questions about how to change your habits or save time on a particular type of problem, just ask!

[Mert Mert]

Stacey,

Than you very much for the nice advices , now I will plan my study plan based on your recommendations . I hope I would do better on the next test. By the way could suggest me a way to improve my stamina ?

By best regards,
Mert Mert

[StaceyKoprince]

Sure. From now on, your study sessions should be 2 hours long with only one ten-minute break in the middle. Other than that break, make sure you are actively studying - hard! - the entire time. Take 5 or 10 minutes before you start to decide what you're going to do during that study session so that you don't have to stop and think, "Ok, what am I going to do next?"

Because you are struggling with stamina and you're planning to take the test next month, you should take a practice test once a week from now on. Take it from start to finish, under exact testing conditions (with essays!), at the same time of day as you plan to take the real test. You could even take it in a library or some other quiet place that has free wifi (if such a thing exists near where you live!). Get up at the same time you'd have to get up, then eat breakfast, take whatever time you'd normally have to take to get to the center - go drive or walk around during that time - and then sit down and take the test. Hold yourself to all of the rules - no eating and drinking unless it's a break, no getting out of the chair unless it's a break, no talking on the phone or to anyone else around you, etc.

Also, think about whether caffeine is the best thing for you here. Caffeine often does wake people up, yes, but then it eventually makes them crash, and the test is long enough that people often do crash during the verbal section (even when they drink more caffeine right before). So you might experiment with different levels of caffeine during your practice tests and see what seems to work best for your body.

[Mert Mert]

Stacey, first of all I would like to thank you very much for the nice recommendations. I have a couple more questions.

I have recognized that performance on harder questions is better than on medium difficulty questions. I attribute this situation to my mental stamina, since most of the mistakes are careless mistakes. With the help of your recommendations I will try to overcome that situation. What do you think could be the reason?

My second question is that for practice purposes, would you recommend us to buy the KAPLAN quiz bank or is it enough for us to study from the official guide. Would it help us practicing the medium difficulty level questions or questions based on the topics?

And my last question is whether the order of the official guide 11 verbal section questions really reflects the difficulty level of the questions?

Thank you for your interest.
My best regards,
Mert Mert

[StaceyKoprince]

If you have examined the mistakes and determined that they really are careless mistakes, then yes, they're probably caused by a combination of mental fatigue and the "Oh, this is easy, I can do this" mistake - where we lower our concentration a bit and then make a careless mistake.

It is CRITICAL to minimize careless mistakes on problems that you can actually do because, if you make enough mistakes on these, you won't lift yourself to the harder questions... and, therefore, your score won't be lifted either.

Start making an error log of the specific careless mistakes that you make and try to articulate why you made each one. (You can go back to recent homework or practice tests to flesh this log out, and then keep adding to it as you study going forward.) For instance, did you pick the wrong thing as the conclusion on a CR question? Maybe you need to get into the habit of checking the question for clues about the conclusion and/or noticing all claims in the argument and playing the "therefore game." (Is it "claim A is true, therefore claim B is true" or "claim B is true, therefore claim A is true"? Whichever one comes last is the conclusion!)

Or did you get sucked into a trap answer on that inference question? Why did you get sucked in? Oh, it was something that people would probably assume in the real world but no support was given for that answer in the passage... so it's plausible in the real world but it's not actually in this passage. Next time I have to answer an inference question, I'll make sure to watch out for that trap.

Or did you mean to pick B but you picked C instead? Did you have the 5 answer choices written on your scrap paper? Did you cross off the ones you didn't want to pick and circle the one you did want to pick? Maybe you need to be more systematic about how you do that so you don't make that mistake on the real test.

And so on. There are tons of careless mistakes we could make and there are tons of reasons why we could make any given careless mistake. You need to figure out both the nature of the mistakes themselves and specifically why you made them. Then figure out what you can do differently next time (in terms of how you use your scrap paper, how you work through the problem, what traps you caution yourself about ahead of time, whatever!).

[ajaygupta39]

Hello:

I have just finished taking the GMAT for the second time and I cannot understand what I am doing on test day. I need some feedback to understand what is going wrong on test day. After studying for 2 months I took the test at the end of Jan 2009. My practice test scores were:

GMAT Prep1: 690
GMAT Prep2: 690

My real GMAT was a 570.

So I studied again for one month and took the test yesterday. My practice exams before this second test were:

MGMAT 1: 660
MGMAT 2: 680
MGMAT 3: 700
GMAT Prep1 Retake: 710

My real score 610.

I cannot understand what is going on. Even when I finished the exam the second time, I thought I had done well. HELP.

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm going to ask you some of the same questions I asked the person who started this thread, copied from above, plus some new questions:

What were your math and verbal subscores on your practice tests? On your official tests? Is your score dropping substantially in both sections or mostly in just one section?

How was your timing in each section? Did you generally move steadily through the test, giving appropriate time and attention to each question? (2m for quant, 1.5m for SC, 2m for CR, 2-4m to read a passage, 1m for general RC questions, 2m for specific RC questions) Or did you have to rush at times and possibly make random guesses? If you did have to rush and/or make random guesses, on how many questions would you say you did that? Did you do it on a lot of questions in a row or were the guesses scattered?

When you took the practice tests, did you also take the essays? Did you spend as much time and mental energy on the practice essays as you did on the real essays? Did you take them under full official conditions? (30m each for two essays, 10m break, 75m quant, 10m break, 75m verbal) Did you take them at the same general time of day as you took the real test? Did you take the real test at a time of day when you tend to be mentally alert and aware?

How was your stamina? How did you feel toward the middle and end of the verbal section? Did you have something to eat and drink on the breaks? Did you get up, walk around, and stretch?

What other differences can you think of between your practice test experiences and your real test experiences? Anything, no matter how small, and no matter whether you think it wouldn't have made a difference to your score. Any differences at all?

[ajaygupta39]

GMAT Prep1: 690 From what I remember: Math 46 Verbal 39
GMAT Prep2: 690 From what I remember: Math 45 Verbal 39

My real GMAT was a 570 Math 38 Verbal 33

MGMAT 1: 660 Math 42 Verbal 38
MGMAT 2: 680 Math 46 Verbal 37
MGMAT 3: 700 Math 42 Verbal 42
GMAT Prep1 Retake: 710 Math 45 Verbal 41

My real score 610. Math 43 Verbal 31

When I took the practice tests, I took them under the same conditions. The breaks were standard and I did the essays each time.

For the first real test, I will say that I did struggle with the first math question and that timing was an issue. I had to rush through the last 10 questions. I probably had to blindly guess on the last 3-4. However, the verbal seemed fine, no timing issues, yet my score was shocking. I will say that sentence correction seemed different. But not anything I could not handle.

For the second real test, on the math section, I had to rush again through the last 10 questions. Again, I had to blindly guess on the last 3. For verbal, I had to guess 50/50 on the first 2 questions. After that, the section seemed normal. Timing not an issue. Sentence correction seemed different, again nothing I could not handle.

Even if I missed the first 2 questions on verbal, second exam, could that alone have killed my verbal score? My verbal scores on my exams are not even close to my practice exams. Although I am mentioning that SC has seemed different, I do not know if that alone is killing my scores. When I do SC questions for practice, I do well, as my practice tests indicate.

Please let me know your thoughts. Thks. At this point I am at a loss to take more practice tests, do well and then stumble on the real exam again. The worst part is after I have finished the real exams, I have felt okay about them, and then when I get the score, I go into shock. I have tried spending more time on the first ten, as people have told me. Since the intricacies of the algorithm are still unknowm, I wonder if I am just missing questions in the wrong spots on the real exam.

Until I get some advice, taking the real exam again is not a good idea. 100 point differences between real scores and practice tests sucks.

[StaceyKoprince]

Okay, so for the first real test, both your math and verbal dropped. On the second one, only your verbal really dropped (I'm discounting your GMATPrep retake a bit, because you probably saw a few questions you'd seen before).

The drop in math on your first test is explained by the time mismanagement - the drop is not surprising in light of having to rush on the last 10 questions. You didn't have the same drop in math on the second, but that could be attributed to getting lucky.

So on the quant, you really need to fix this timing issue. If you don't, there's just as much chance that your score will drop again the next time around. Go read through my post from 24 Oct above. The other student was having timing issues on verbal, but the stuff I said applies equally to math. You need to figure out where you're losing time and then stop yourself from losing that time in the future. If you get a question right in 4 minutes, that's not a good thing - all you're doing is guaranteeing yourself at least one question wrong in the future. Practically speaking, you're more likely to get two wrong, because you're more likely to say "Oh, I have to do each of the next two questions in 1 minute each" and as soon as you think that, you've made it a lot more likely that you'll get both of those questions wrong. Getting one right to get two others wrong is NOT a good tradeoff. It's also not a good tradeoff to get one really hard one right and get one other easier one wrong. Your score is not hurt if you get a super-hard question wrong; it just doesn't lift. Your score IS hurt, however, if you get an easier question wrong.

Again, if you don't fix this timing issue, there's a good chance that your score will drop again. Let stuff go if you can't do it in 2 min (2.5 max).

On the verbal side, no, two questions cannot kill your score, even the first two questions. You don't report running out of time here - are you possibly not taking enough time? I just spoke with a student yesterday who thought his timing was fine and his verbal also dropped on the real test. When I looked at his score reports, I pointed out that he was actually generally going too fast on the test, increasing his chances of making careless mistakes. In general, our habits, bad or good, get magnified on the test. So if you're going a little too fast in practice, you go even faster on the test. If you're going a little too slow in practice, you go even slower on the test. Another possibility is that you may be going too fast on one type of question and too slow on another, so that your overall time balances out but you're still mismanaging your time.

Scan through the question list on your most recent MGMAT practice test. Make a list of:
- SC questions on which you spent less than 45sec or more than 1m45sec
- CR questions on which you spent less than 1m15s or more than 2m30sec
- RC first questions (which also record your reading time) on which you spent less than 3m30sec or more than 5m
- Other RC questions on which you spent less than 45s or more than 1.5m for a general question; or less than 1m15s or more than 2m30s for a specific question

How often did this happen? If just a few times, that's okay. (It's also okay if you went "too quickly" on something that you decided was just too hard and you gave up and made a guess.) If more than that, there's a timing problem. How was your performance on the ones on which you went too quickly or too slowly?

Next, when you answer questions on verbal, do you hold yourself to this standard?
- on all three types, I should be able to point to every answer I've crossed off and articulate the specific, valid reason why it is not correct
- on all three types, if I cannot do the above, that answer choice stays in as a possibility until the end (or until I do articulate a valid reason why it is wrong)
- on SC, ideally, I should be able to articulate a specific grammar rule (there isn't always a grammar error in a wrong answer, but there usually is)
- on RC, I should be able to point to the specific word(s) and/or sentence(s) in the passage that provide the proof for the right answer
- on CR, I should be able to perform the appropriate "check" on the right answer:
-- Draw a Conclusion: must be true according to the info in the argument (this also applies to inference questions on RC)
-- Find Assump: must address conclusion and be necessary for conclusion; if the assump isn't true, then the conclusion is weakened significantly
-- Strengthen and Weaken: must address conclusion and must either make conclusion better (str) or worse (weak)

What did you do on the breaks? What did you have to eat and drink? How did you try to get yourself energized again before the verbal section started?

Finally, how did you do on the real essays? If you did well (5.0+), then try dumbing them down just a bit next time - spend less mental energy to leave yourself more alert on the verbal.