gmat scores discrepency

[cooper2248817]

I took over 15 cats before taking the test. I was scoring low 40s on my quant and mid 30s in my verbal consistently. Avg score was mid 600s. However when I took the test, i got a 30 on my quant and 27 on verbal- 480. I just don't understand how!! I think I kind of rushed through the math but still what a discrepency. Any suggestions?

[RonPurewal]

that's insane.

if we're going to advise you here, we need a few more specifics than you're giving us:
* whose CATs? ours? gmatprep? other companies'? all of the above?
* did you take these CATs under the SAME time restrictions, including break times between sets, as those imposed by the official exam?
* did you practice the same sort of time management on the real exam as on the practice tests?
* were you inordinately nervous, or did you handle test anxiety poorly?
* did you follow a specific timing plan, or did you just meander through the test without a timing map?

--

also, if you "think [you] kind of rushed through the math", then you almost certainly did rush through the math. that's an unusual problem - the vast majority of our students and posters have problems with spending too much time, not too little, on quant problems - but it's a problem nonetheless.
one general suggestion i can give is to TRY MORE BACKUP STRATEGIES before letting go of quant problems. by "backup strategies" i mean things like plugging in numbers, estimation, and other forms of process-of-elimination; you should try such backup strategies, if at all feasible, on ALL quant problems for which you can't immediately generate a working "textbook style" opener.

--

can you tell us a bit more about your exams / experience?

[cooper2248817]

My awas were fine.
My math section I felt I might have gone through a bit fast and because of this I might have made silly mistakes and fell for the traditional traps. I thought I was doing well since I got a couple probability questions but obviously it was otherwise.

The verbal section though I was confident on my SC(approx 90%) and CR( approx 70%) during practice test, but during the actual test i started to second guess, which resulted into a 27.

Overall I feel i have a good handle on the content however can not seem to perform on the actual test but can do so on the practice test. Maybe i was burned out with all the tests i took but on the test date I was very confident and was feeling good. I might just need to extremely focus on the quant section and use all the time wisely or just a bad test taker.

What do you recommend?

[StaceyKoprince]

Probability questions can come at any level, as you found, so that's not a real indicator of anything.

You need to figure out at a much greater level of detail what might have gone wrong. We already have an idea on quant - you went way too fast and got problems wrong that you'd normally get right. When that happens, you can't lift yourself to the level of questions you could do, so you don't even get a shot at the harder questions.

You said that, on the verbal you started to second-guess yourself on the real test. Meaning that you'd pick an answer, then second guess and change it - that sort of thing? In general, always stick with your first answer unless you absolutely KNOW that you made a mistake and that the first answer you picked is wrong. Otherwise, don't change it. You're more likely to end up changing to a wrong answer than a right one - and, anyway, if you're second guessing yourself, you don't really know what you're doing on the problem, so end it now and move on.

You may also have been burned out. As a general rule, I recommend taking 4 to 5 CATs over the length of a study program. 15 is way too many - you were going for quantity over quality. Unless you take the time to learn everything you can learn from one CAT experience (which typically takes 2-4 weeks of daily study), then all you're doing is making the same kinds of mistakes over and over again (with some marginal improvement through familiarity, granted). It's like saying: I want to learn how to play the piano. I'm going to pick 15 pieces and play each one once, as fast as I can. If I hit a wrong note, I'll go look at it, but I won't practice the same piece multiple times to learn all of the intricacies I can learn for how to play that one piece, plus what I can extrapolate about playing piano in general.

Ron also asked a bunch of good questions but I don't see the answers to those questions in your response. Can you address those? That will help us to advise you better!

[cooper2248817]

* whose CATs? ours? gmatprep? other companies'? all of the above? Princeton review, mgmat, and gmat prep
* did you take these CATs under the SAME time restrictions, including break times between sets, as those imposed by the official exam? yes
* did you practice the same sort of time management on the real exam as on the practice tests? went a bit too fast on the math so i guess no
* were you inordinately nervous, or did you handle test anxiety poorly? not really, i felt really good all 4 hours, tried to stay positive
* did you follow a specific timing plan, or did you just meander through the test without a timing map.
I follow the following pattern for quant:
1st 10- 30mins
2nd 10- 20 mins
3rd 10- 15mins
4th last- 10mins

verbal no specific time mgmt....i tried to pace myself.

I have to say both you and Ron have been very helpful. Thank you soooooo much in advance!!!!!!

[StaceyKoprince]

So your timing really hurt you. In quant, you spend 3 min per for the first 10 questions and then you were left with 10 minutes for the last 7 questions. Here are some important things to know:

The earlier questions are not worth more than the later questions.

Each quant question is designed to be done in about 2 minutes by people who are near that level of difficulty.

Generally speaking, if you don't know how to get a question right in about 2.5 minutes, the longer you go, the more likely you are to get it wrong.

Generally speaking, if you spend less than 1.5 minutes answering a question, the less time you spend, the more likely you are to get it wrong.

(Note: that last one is not necessarily true if you get, say, a very easy - for you - experimental question. But then, it's experimental and doesn't count toward your score, so it doesn't matter in the end anyway.)

So. You spent extra time at the beginning, which didn't actually help you as much as you thought it would, because when you really have to spend that long on a problem, it just indicates that you don't really know how to do the problem. And then you ran out of time not just at the end but pretty much for the 2nd half of the test - for the last 17 questions, you averaged somewhere between 1 and 1.5 minutes per question.

Here's more important information:
If you have a string of 5 or more questions wrong in a row, the penalty will average approximately 2 to 2.5 percentile points PER QUESTION. The effect actually accelerates - so the more wrong you have in a row, the higher the cumulative effect of the score drop.

Given that you spent 25 min on the last 17 questions, it's highly likely that you had at least one string of 5+ in a row wrong - especially b/c you knew you were running out of time, which adds to the stress / pressure, which makes you more likely to make mistakes! So you can start to see how much the timing hurt you - you weren't really helped by spending more time early on, plus you were really hurt by spending less time later on.

You also mentioned that you went "too fast" on the math - I'm not sure if you meant just at the end (ie, you didn't have enough time) or if you meant you went too fast through the whole thing. Either way, though, it's not surprising that it really hurt you. Timing is a major factor in your score.

You mentioned that you feel you know the content. I'll have to defer to you there because there's no way for me to know whether you're right about that. If you are, then your major issue is test-taking technique (including timing). If not, then you need to work on both technique and content.

Also, just a little bit more on the burnout / study habit thing I mentioned last time. It sounds like you may have been going for quantity of study over quality of study. Quantity can actually hurt you - if you're doing something in a not-so-good way, then doing it a hundred times will just reinforce the bad habit. This time around, slow down a bit and focus on the quality of your study!

[cooper2248817]

Thanks for all your help and input. Since your last message, i have been spending more time reviewing and learning from my mistakes then focusing on quantity. I must say I have learned a lot. I also started to keep an error log on frequent mistakes which I often refer back too and now am solidifying my content. Do you have any suggestions for timing strategies?

On a side note, you guys are a lot better and know what you guys are talking about. I took the princeton review course and their focus is entirely different from that of yours. I wish I had started here sooner! Keep up do good work!!!!

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for the kind words. :)

With respect to timing, I find one of the hardest things is to know when you've spent too much time. Even harder is to stop yourself from spending too much time before you go over the mark. So it's useful to learn about how long one minute is without looking at a watch or stopwatch.

If you don't have one already, buy yourself a stopwatch with lap timing capability. When you go to do a set of problems, start the stopwatch but turn it over so you can't see the time. Every time you think one minute has gone by, push the lap button. When you're done, see how good you were - and whether you tend to over or underestimate. Get yourself to the point where you're within 15 seconds either way on a regular basis (that is, you can generally predict between 45 sec and 1min 15 sec).

Now, how do you use that when doing problems? If you're not on track by one minute, make an educated guess and move on. (The general idea is that if you're not on track by the halfway mark, you're unlikely to figure out what's holding you back AND have time to do the whole problem in the 1 min you have left.) Note: you can use this for SC as well. If, by the one minute mark, you find yourself simply vacillating between two or three answer choices, forget it. Pick one and move on.