hi,
gave my gmat this saturday . n messes it up big time got only 620.
my essays were good n i got 49 in maths. its verbal where i got the beating. but i m not able to gauge what wen wrong got only 26 in verbal.i m not able to understand how can i get such a low score.
i gave all 6 MGMAt and both Gmat Prep . n always scored above 680 . even got a 730 in one of the Gmat prep. I never got a verbal score below 36. Can you please advise what i should do to improve next time . I have taken the appointment for 20th sept. I do not think that my basics are weak as i was scoring high in all practise tests. Please advise what to do now n how should i proceed. cannot see any way out to make sure to get a good score. please help.I still cannot believe my performance in verbal. :oops: :oops: :cry: :roll:
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9 postsPage 1 of 1
- manminder
- Christian
what score you looking for
Although 620 is not a good score to be competitive just by itself but none are, not even a 700 or 800 is a score that by itself will get you in...
What schools do you have in mind? Always think of GMAT as a part of a whole and there always areas where you can shine in your applications and not only the GMAT should be one of them.
Given that your low score was verbal I think it is not completely a low score if you look it a one way... you can always try to use Essays and other areas to Adm Com to see your verbal / communication skills.
Anyways, this is just my opinion, do not panic just take your 2nd shot and do not panic :shock:
What schools do you have in mind? Always think of GMAT as a part of a whole and there always areas where you can shine in your applications and not only the GMAT should be one of them.
Given that your low score was verbal I think it is not completely a low score if you look it a one way... you can always try to use Essays and other areas to Adm Com to see your verbal / communication skills.
Anyways, this is just my opinion, do not panic just take your 2nd shot and do not panic :shock:
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9361
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Can you give us more detail on what was different about your practice tests vs this one?
Did you take FULL practice tests, including essays, all in one sitting?
How was your timing? Did you run out of time or have to rush at any point?
Did you have something that really threw you or slowed you down? (Eg, a really long, hard RC passage, etc.)
Did you make sure to eat, drink, and walk around on the breaks?
Anything else at all that you can remember that might help us to figure out why your score dropped?
Did you take FULL practice tests, including essays, all in one sitting?
How was your timing? Did you run out of time or have to rush at any point?
Did you have something that really threw you or slowed you down? (Eg, a really long, hard RC passage, etc.)
Did you make sure to eat, drink, and walk around on the breaks?
Anything else at all that you can remember that might help us to figure out why your score dropped?
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- manminder
ya the first SC was a bit twisted one but i would have definately got it right. other than that i do not know. All the cr seemed quite easy and the options were quite clear.SCs were also easy . Though i rushed a little in last 10 questions. did those in 10 minunes. but i reall do not feel that the questions at last can really flip your score. i think it can only be questions at start. but i do not think i would have got them wrong.
RC were also easily cmprehendable.
yes i uesd my breaks completely. was really calm till the end of the exam.
I also gave three full length tests includung essays. got 690,710 and 680 in those.
w i realy do not know was it bad luck or what. Please help how should i proceed for my next attempt.
Also does it dimnishes ones chance to get into a B school if one gives GMAt 3 or 4 times.
RC were also easily cmprehendable.
yes i uesd my breaks completely. was really calm till the end of the exam.
I also gave three full length tests includung essays. got 690,710 and 680 in those.
w i realy do not know was it bad luck or what. Please help how should i proceed for my next attempt.
Also does it dimnishes ones chance to get into a B school if one gives GMAt 3 or 4 times.
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9361
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Okay, it is not true that the last questions don't impact your score. They can have a HUGE impact on your score, so if you were rushing on the last 10, that could be a problem.
First, you didn't say this happened to you, but I just want you to know: if you leave any questions blank at the end, you will get an automatic 3 percentile point deduction for every question you left blank. So NEVER leave anything blank - guess randomly if you have to!
Second, if you have a string of questions wrong in a row at the end, the typical impact is about a 2 to 2.5 percentile point drop per question. (This varies depending upon your scoring level, the specific questions you get, and whether any of them are experimental.) So let's say you got the last 4 in a row wrong. Whatever you were scoring before that point, your final score would be between 8 and 10 percentile points lower.
Finally, your score is more heavily impacted when you get lower-level questions wrong than when you get higher level questions wrong. So if you rushed on the last 10, you almost certainly got some lower-level questions wrong, ones that you probably would've gotten right if you hadn't been rushing. This means that your score was dropping, and you were being offered easier questions... but because you were already rushing, you didn't have the time to recover and make sure you got those even easier questions right... and so if you got some of those questions wrong, your score would drop even more severely.
In other words, as I said at the beginning, your score can be heavily impacted by those last 10 questions. The impact can be just as large as the first 10 questions - it's a myth that the later questions aren't worth as much or don't impact your score as much as the earlier questions.
So it sounds like you messed up your timing in a big way on the real test. You said you rushed "a little" but you also said you averaged 1 min per question for those. That's the definition of rushing a LOT, not a little. :)
This tells me a couple of things:
- You have some weak areas in verbal on which you tend to spend way more time than you should.
- You didn't fix those timing problems before the test - while studying, you were probably more focused on content and accuracy than you were on timing.
- You were stressed during the test (as we all are) and your bad habits got magnified (as happens to all of us).
Your bad habits will always be magnified during the stress of the test - that's just how things are. But if you know what your bad habits are, you can at least manage them - you can mitigate the possible disaster by stopping yourself from letting things get so out of balance. What to do? Go back and figure out where you tend to get sucked in - which grammar errors (if SC), which types of passages (if RC), which types of problems (if RC or CR). Learn how to make educated guesses on problems of those types so you have something to do that will let you get to an answer and move on. Learn how long one minute is so you can gauge how much time you've spent on a problem and you can stop yourself from getting sucked into spending too much time. Realize that, even if you get some question right in 3 or 4 minutes, all you've done is guarantee yourself a question wrong later in the test. Do that a few times, and you've guaranteed yourself a string of questions wrong in a row at the end. And there's nothing worse than getting a string of questions wrong in a row at the end.
(By the way, I'm willing to bet that you didn't just look up with ten minutes to go and suddenly realize you were behind and now had to do ten problems in ten minutes. You probably noticed earlier than that, and that magnified your stress level. The more stressed we are, the more problems we get wrong, even ones we should know how to do. So there's a pretty good chance that this timing problem hurt you on more than just the last 10 questions.)
First, you didn't say this happened to you, but I just want you to know: if you leave any questions blank at the end, you will get an automatic 3 percentile point deduction for every question you left blank. So NEVER leave anything blank - guess randomly if you have to!
Second, if you have a string of questions wrong in a row at the end, the typical impact is about a 2 to 2.5 percentile point drop per question. (This varies depending upon your scoring level, the specific questions you get, and whether any of them are experimental.) So let's say you got the last 4 in a row wrong. Whatever you were scoring before that point, your final score would be between 8 and 10 percentile points lower.
Finally, your score is more heavily impacted when you get lower-level questions wrong than when you get higher level questions wrong. So if you rushed on the last 10, you almost certainly got some lower-level questions wrong, ones that you probably would've gotten right if you hadn't been rushing. This means that your score was dropping, and you were being offered easier questions... but because you were already rushing, you didn't have the time to recover and make sure you got those even easier questions right... and so if you got some of those questions wrong, your score would drop even more severely.
In other words, as I said at the beginning, your score can be heavily impacted by those last 10 questions. The impact can be just as large as the first 10 questions - it's a myth that the later questions aren't worth as much or don't impact your score as much as the earlier questions.
So it sounds like you messed up your timing in a big way on the real test. You said you rushed "a little" but you also said you averaged 1 min per question for those. That's the definition of rushing a LOT, not a little. :)
This tells me a couple of things:
- You have some weak areas in verbal on which you tend to spend way more time than you should.
- You didn't fix those timing problems before the test - while studying, you were probably more focused on content and accuracy than you were on timing.
- You were stressed during the test (as we all are) and your bad habits got magnified (as happens to all of us).
Your bad habits will always be magnified during the stress of the test - that's just how things are. But if you know what your bad habits are, you can at least manage them - you can mitigate the possible disaster by stopping yourself from letting things get so out of balance. What to do? Go back and figure out where you tend to get sucked in - which grammar errors (if SC), which types of passages (if RC), which types of problems (if RC or CR). Learn how to make educated guesses on problems of those types so you have something to do that will let you get to an answer and move on. Learn how long one minute is so you can gauge how much time you've spent on a problem and you can stop yourself from getting sucked into spending too much time. Realize that, even if you get some question right in 3 or 4 minutes, all you've done is guarantee yourself a question wrong later in the test. Do that a few times, and you've guaranteed yourself a string of questions wrong in a row at the end. And there's nothing worse than getting a string of questions wrong in a row at the end.
(By the way, I'm willing to bet that you didn't just look up with ten minutes to go and suddenly realize you were behind and now had to do ten problems in ten minutes. You probably noticed earlier than that, and that magnified your stress level. The more stressed we are, the more problems we get wrong, even ones we should know how to do. So there's a pretty good chance that this timing problem hurt you on more than just the last 10 questions.)
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9361
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
9 posts Page 1 of 1