GMAT Score Drop..700 levels to 510 in real GMAT ? ( How ? )

[poorvank]

Hi Ron/ Stacey,

I took my GMAT on 25th August and to my surprise, got a score of 510 ( Q 38/ V 22 ), which i cannot imagine in the wildest of dreams. Even if i would have given the GMAT without preparation, i would have still scored higher.

My practise test scores are given below:

GMAT PREP 1 ( 30th July ) - 680 Q 49 / V 32
GMAT PREP 1 Retake ( 7th August ) - 720 Q 49 / V 39
MGMAT 13th Aug - 720 Q 48 / V 40
MGMAT 15th Aug - 680 Q 48 / V 34
MGMAT 17th Aug - 700 Q 46 / V 40
GMATPREP 2 20th Aug - 640 Q 48/ V 28
GMATPREP 2 Retake 22nd Aug - 700 Q 49/ V 37

The last two tests were with the essays part. ( AWA was 5 previously )

Well, i had given GMAT last year and scored 580 ( Q 48/ V 22 )

This time i was pretty confident and calm.

I would like to give some background information on how i felt during the test.

AWA were fine. However, i felt that i got somewhat difficult essays from the pool of essays.

Quant: First question was ok but the second question was quite difficult from set theory. It took me some time to catch up with the test but i was going within the time limit. Around 13th-14th question was a probability question and i was getting mostly DS in later part of the test especially inequalities. I found the questions ok to handle but were not very high difficulty level.

Verbal: Started with two SC, third was CR, the couple of questions followed by RC. Around 10th question was a bold faced CR but i did not bother on how i was performing in the test. I kept on reminding myself that i have to focus on question at hand. On 14th question, got another RC and this continued. Around 25th question was a very long RC with difficult questions. By 30th question, had 16 minutes left. My strategy general was to have 20 min for last 20 questions and rush in between. Finished the test with proper focus on SC and next RC. Cr was a problem to comprehend especially with time constraint.

Clicked on the score and lowest ever score appeared. Gave my test in the afternoon in one of the metro centres.

Following are my questions:

1. Does a test centre with higher 700 test takers expected to have larger pool of difficult questions?
2. Knowing the fact, any particular strategy i should adopt for the next 4-6 weeks so that i am able to crack the exam( > 700 ).
3. How should i ideally consider the time for preparation for strengths and weaknesses ? ( My range of wrong questions in verbal was 8-14 questions )
4. How can i avoid making consecutive questions wrong as we cannot know whether any response is right or wrong?
5. Any other inputs especially for taking some private help are warmly welcome

Look forward to hear from you guys. Any other members please fell free to add your valuable inputs.

Poorv

[sree.kurup]

Hi Poorv,

i can empathize with you because I too had faced the same issue. While I had scores around 700 in all prep tests, I scored only 610 in actual GMAT.

From what i understand from your post ( and I too had the same strategy ) is that you had too less time in the last 20 questions. I guess that could have lead to score going down drastically probably because of a string of wrong answers.

I really doubt if GMAT questions are center specific. I would suggest better time management and skipping time-consuming questions uniformly to keep some time for easier questions in the end.

[captain18]

Hi Poorvank,
I to faced a drop in my score on the actual GMAT.
I was consistently scoring in the 640-680 range, but
ended up with a 600 on the actual test. I too, am
hoping to get a score of 670+, so have decided to
give the test again in a month's time. Maybe more and more
practice under similar actual testing conditions is the key. Also, I have identified my weak area, which is Quant. Looking at your actual GMAT scores, it seems that your weak area is Verbal, so try to strenghten your Verbal part. Lastly, I do not think that the pool of questions on the GMAT is decided by the test centre. Only one's test performance is linked with the difficulty of the questions.

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry you're having a tough time with the test.

If you took our course or one of our Guided Self-Study packages, then you're eligible for a free Post-Exam Assessment. This is a phone call with an instructor to figure out what went wrong and come up with a plan to re-take the test. If this applies to you, please send an email to studentservices@manhattangmat.com and request the Post-Exam Assessment.

So, let's see. We need to assume that your "true" scoring level was around 640 - that's what you got on the non-repeated GMATPrep taken with essays. Your official test score represents a significant drop from that level.

Read this article, do the analysis described, then respond to let us know what you discovered:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ent-wrong/

It sounds like we can identify at least one of the problems: timing. Messing up the timing badly enough can cause severe score drops.

Answers to your questions.
1) The Q database is the same worldwide. They don't vary anything based upon the pool of testers at a particular location.
2 thru 5) We need some additional data from you in order to help you devise a plan. (If you qualify for a PEA, you can also discuss this during your PEA.)

Read this article, then come back here to share your analysis:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Note: don't just post the data; tell us what you think it means. Everyone needs to learn how to analyze his/her own data. :)

sree - yes, agreed.
captain - if you would also like to get the same kind of help, please start a thread describing your situation and use the above article to analyze a recent test, etc.

[poorvank]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for your meticulous reply as always.

Well, i took some time to analyze based on your feedback and have the following points to respond.

I have not taken any course from manhattan but ofcourse, have ordered and have an access to selected question banks and 6 full length tests. Please advise if i could still avail the post exam assessment on genuine grounds. I shall be keen to have an action plan from one of the instructors.

Regarding the analysis part, i do feel that messing up with timing in the end may have resulted in series of wrong answers ( I had the time of 16 minutes in last 10 questions but did not manage it well ). Can you suggest some technique to help people to avoid a score drop. That is, if i answer a question in my strength area with 100% confidence, i can guess on weak areas etc. to avoid a score drop. Please advise.

Stamina may be another reason but i still don't think that it can play a major role in the preparation and by taking 4-5 tests full length, you can still avoid tiring during the exam. How critical do you think this factor is and how much time and with what strategy can this be overcome?

I have written Manhattan CATs and of course, there are few areas to improve upon. I think focusing on weak areas over the next 1-2 weeks should help. This should improve accuracy and speed. Please advise a sound strategy. If you would like to have more data, request you to let me know. For example, in CR, i feel pressed for time. Do you think working on speed with average of 1.5 min / q should help and ease out the pressure. How many questions do you think should be good enough to have a grip in terms of timing.

I look forward to hear from you.

Regards/
Poorv

[StaceyKoprince]

The PEA, unfortunately, is only for those who have taken a course (or tutoring) or one of our Guided Self-Study Packages (which is much more than just the online resources you mentioned).

Yes, it sounds like timing would definitely have been a problem. Read this article and start practicing what it says:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

Most people need at least 4 to 6 weeks to fix a significant timing problem.

As the article notes, you should expect to have to guess on some questions no matter how mch you study. Ideally, you want to choose the hardest questions *for you* as you move through the section and make those your guesses. Otherwise, as you found out, you end up having to guess on a string in a row at the end, including some questions you might otherwise have been able to answer correctly.

Read this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

Do you think anything like what's described in that article could have been affecting your stamina / processing ability during the test?

Re: specific advice, yes, please do give me more detail on what you found during your test review. For instance, you mention that you feel pressed for time on CR. Is that for ALL of CR? Or for certain question types? What about accuracy - is that the same across all of CR, or does it vary by question type? Which areas are your slowest? Which are the least accurate? Which are BOTH slow and inaccurate? (At the level of question type - eg, CR Weaken the Conclusion)

Re: your question about whether to work at an average time of 1.5 minutes for CR - no. You want to get yourself to 2 minutes on average. You're allowed to spend 2.5 on one question because you'll probably spend 1.5 on another. You don't want to spend 3m on one question because spending only 1m on another is a good way to guarantee yourself a careless mistake. And you don't want to spend 2.5m on half of the CR questions, because you can't guarantee that you really can do the other half in 1.5. There's a balance to be found there - read that timing article.

[pradzy224]

Hi,

I am facing the exact same problem :'(

have given 3 mocks of MGMAT with almost my 100% preparation
I got

670 (47Q, 34V)
700 (44Q, 41V)
660 (47Q, 33V)

Real GMAT is almost at my door step now(24 Sep 2011) and I tried my hand in GMATPREP-1
before checking scores, I thought I did better than what I did in any of the MGMAT and yet I got 650 only :|
With 49Q and 28V.

Lets put aside quant for a moment.

When I got 34, 33 in verbal, MGMAT, I got 18 and 19 wrong in verbal respectively
In the GMAT PREP-1, I got only 15 wrong and yet I got 28 points only.
Well, I know its CAT, but with only 15 wrongs, I should alteast get the same if not more than what I got in MGMATs right?

Furthermore, I did mistakes in the initial questions in both MGMAT and GMATPREP verbal tests.

This is a serious dampener to my confidence 5 days before the actual test:(

[pradzy224]

With all the seriousness in the world, I gave the GMATPREP-2 last night and guess what... I got 570. Ya 570 it was.

Same story again with verbal -

48Q, 20V

Although, I have done some seriously silly mistakes in verbal, which I am sure, I wont replicate in the real exam, but 20 is abysmally low...

All the while people were telling me getting 650+ in MGMAT is as good as 680+ in the real GMAT. Well, I seriously doubt it now.

And whats more... Now I am quite under-confident with my chances of getting 700 in the real thing. Thanks to my 570 score last night... hakuna matata

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, pradzy - in general, we ask that you start your own thread so that we can keep everybody's "case" separate. We don't want to mix up details from different people. I'll give you a short reply here, but if you'd like to discuss further, please start your own thread (and you can copy and paste everything you've posted here so far).

So, let's see - GMATPrep has brought your confidence down. We need to figure out what's going on so that we can make sure that doesn't happen on the real test.

For your first GMATPrep, the overall 650 is generally in line with your earlier practice test scores. These tests all have a standard deviation (real test = about 30 points, MGMAT CATs = about 50 points), so you do have to expect some variation from test to test.

Your verbal score really dropped, though, so we do want to try to figure out why. That reason is *not* how many you got wrong. The scoring is not based on percentage correct. Did you have any strings of 4+ questions wrong? Did you have any timing problems? Did you have to rush at any point and did that cost you questions that you did know how to do or, at least, might have gotten right if you'd had normal time? GMATPrep, unfortunately, doesn't tell us the difficulty levels of the problems, but it's possible that you made a few more mistakes than usual on lower-level problems and that pulled your score down.

Now, your 2nd GMATPrep represented a really significant drop on the verbal, so you definitely want to figure out what's going on before you take the real test.

I have done some seriously silly mistakes in verbal, which I am sure, I wont replicate in the real exam

How do you know for sure that you won't? The only way to know that is to figure out exactly why you made those mistakes and to fix whatever problems caused them to occur. That typically takes time and effort, so you don't know for sure till you put that time and effort in. You *can* learn to minimize careless mistakes - but don't just assume that you won't make the same kinds of careless mistakes on test day. Sadly, we tend to make the same kinds of careless mistakes over and over - unless we make a conscious effort to change our bad habits. :)

All the while people were telling me getting 650+ in MGMAT is as good as 680+ in the real GMAT. Well, I seriously doubt it now.

The people who told you that were wrong, unfortunately. If you score 650 on an MGMAT CAT, you are most likely to score in the +/- 50 point range on the real test. The more you took the MGMAT CAT under 100% official conditions (including essays), the more likely you are to be able to score at or above that 650 score. If you skipped essays, took longer breaks than allowed, etc, you are more likely to score below 650. But it is NOT and has never been the case that everyone should expect to score 30 points higher on the real CAT than on our CAT.

So, where are you at right now? Are you planning to postpone your test?

You can also take a look at this article to help you brainstorm additional reasons why your verbal score might have dropped. Unfortunately you can't do all of the analysis because GMATPrep doesn't give us data, but you still might get some ideas:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ent-wrong/

Then come back and let us know what you think.

Also, take a look at this article, in particular the "careless mistakes" section:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/error-log.cfm