My actual GMAT score dropped dramatically (~100 points)

[Nia]

Dear All, Stacey,

I am writing you as I am seriously puzzled with what happened on my actual GMAT and I need your professional advice on what to do

I just took the GMAT and I scored 620 (Q49 V22) & IR 4. This is one of my lowest GMAT scores since I started preparing for the exam and I am clueless about what happened on the test day. This is my lowest ever verbal score (lower even than my score on the diagnostic test)!
(I’ve purchased the Enhanced Score Report but I cannot get the link due to some technical issues – I should get feedback from GMAC soon on this.)

My practice CATs (all taken under official test conditions: including essay, IR, only 2 8-minute breaks, no pausing or distractions, MGMAT laminated pad):

(Diagnostic) Manhattan, CAT 1 - 620 (Q48, V28) - 26/04/2015
Kaplan, CAT 1 - 760 (Q51, V40) - 03/05/2015 (I was in an exceptionally good mood while taking this one – when I reviewed the exam I realized that I was able to solve pretty tough Q & V questions + make some good guesses; I ignored the result)
Manhattan, CAT 2 - 660 (Q45, V35) - 16/05/2015
GMAT Prep, CAT 1 - 660 (Q48, V32) - 25/05/2015
Manhattan, CAT 3 - 680 (Q47, V35) - 31/05/2015
Manhattan, CAT 4 - 690 (Q45, V38) - 14/06/2015
Kaplan, CAT 2 - 710 (Q51, V31) - 21/06/2015
GMAT Prep, CAT 2 - 660 (Q50, V28) - 28/06/2015: Here I had a tech issue with the PC: the screen froze during RC, I’ve lost about 3-4 minutes and I had to recover from negative timing)
Manhattan, CAT 5 - 670 (Q46, V35) - 22/07/2015
GMAT Prep, CAT 3 - 770 (Q50, V44) - 24/07/2015
Manhattan, CAT 6 - 720 (Q50, V37) - 26/07/2015
GMAT Prep, CAT 1 - 660 (Q49, V31) - 28/07/2015: I had a time management problem on the Verbal section: I was too slow on 3 problems. I noticed it but I decided not to wait for the next RC as sometimes I was able to gain some time. The next RC was really tough and I couldn’t recover from the negative timing - I got 8 out of the 11 questions wrong as I had to rush. I attempted the 8 wrong questions for the usual time per question (as per Stacey’s advice https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... anagement/) and I’ve got 6 of them correct. Clearly, it was a time management issue – I was even happy to come across this one before test day – a good takeaway which showed me how small is the difference between 600+ and 700+ and how important is timing.

I felt quite ok during the official test, but I didn’t feel challenged by the questions as I did during the last 4 tests. BUT I was totally stunned when I saw my score .

I’ve come across the article “My Score Dropped! Figuring Out What Went Wrong” by Stacey and I went through the test day again in my mind:

1: Official Test Conditions: yes, always
2: Timing: my timing on the test day was impeccable: at no point of the test I had to recover from negative timing or to rush and I finished just on time (about 1 minute left per section).
AWA: I was inspired by the topic and I was able to write a pretty decent essay without spending all my mental energy on it.
IR: My strategy for the IR was to guess 2 questions randomly and to spend 3 min on each of the other questions and I did so. I had enough time and I didn’t rush.
Quant: I used another brilliant MGMAT advice: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... tch-paper/ (I’ve practiced this on all my practice CATs).
Though I was able to solve most of the questions for less than two minutes, I spent the extra time to check my work (I wanted to avoid careless mistakes as much as possible). I was forced to guess on only 1 question which I was not able to solve for less than 3 minutes. I solved the remaining questions with ease without guessing, rushing or backsolving . I finished 1,5 minutes earlier but I guess this is just OK.
The Quant section is my strength, but somehow I scored marginally lower than expected.
Verbal:
SC: I found the SC problems ok. I had to make only two guesses (for the remaining problems I was able to eliminate 3 or 4 answers).
RC: I didn’t spend more than 3 minutes on reading any of the passage, I engaged with the passages and I was able to understand the text pretty well (I also took notes). I had very good idea where to look for the specific details. I was a bit surprised by the RC passages as I didn’t come across any science text.
CR: I was always able to eliminate 3 answers on the CR questions and I guessed only once.
3. Stamina
Take the tests under official conditions? – Yes
Let go on the too-hard questions – Yes, I think I’ve learnt to play the “right” game and I wasn’t stubborn.
Have a consistent sleep schedule the week before the exam? – in general yes; the night before the exam I slept a bit less than usually but I felt awake in the morning.
Avoid taking a second test – I took my last CAT 3 days before the actual CAT.
Eat good “energy” food before the test and during the breaks, drink liquids to stay hydrated, and stretch or do light exercise to loosen up and get your blood flowing? – Yes
4. Anxiety
I was not all anxious, the test center was OK. People were nice & I felt comfortable.

How did I prepare for the exam?

I know that GMAT is not a standard test nor a math/grammar test and I took it really seriously (my target is 90+ percentile).
Though I’ve studied all the curriculum thoroughly, I’ve put the biggest emphasis on strategy: timing, good study habits, educated guessing, stopwatch, 1-minute sense, error logs, etc.
I first started preparing for the exam a year ago but because of huge workloads I had to constantly interrupt my studies for long periods (>month). Finally, I’ve decided that it’s time and that I have to make all the time I need to prepare.
I started preparing for the exam in the beginning of May (after a 5-month break after my last study session I started from the very beginning without relying on any skills from my previous sessions).
In 99 % of my study time, I was practising on timed questions and for the questions I was not able to answer within the max allowed time limit I practised guessing. The only problems that I didn’t time were the MGMAT Challenge Problems.
I took a MGMAT CAT 1 to evaluate my weaknesses (though I knew more or less what to expect) and to be able to make a decent plan.
AWA: I knew that it is important never to skip the essay on a practice CAT (I always tried to mimic the official test conditions as much as possible) and though I didn’t have a template in the beginning, I always practised.
IR: I’ve prepared with MGMAT Interact.
Overall, my strategy was not to stress too much or burn out during those two sections - my first score with GMAT Write was 5.00 and I was usually scoring around 7 on IR – I am satisfied with both scores.
Quant: I have solid quant & analytical skills; in general, I enjoy solving math problems, especially the DS. Yet I needed to work a bit on some rusty skills: combinatorics & probabilities, statistics, coordinate geometry, sequences. I cope better with conceptual PS/DS than I do with heavy calculations so I had to get used to estimate more precisely. I took the time to understand those topics very well and to master them. I studied the Advanced MGMAT Quant book and I felt at ease with the Quant part.
I bought the new 2016 official guides and I was able to solve 95% all official PS/DS problems for under 2 minutes and to get them correct. For the remaining 5% I either needed more than 2 minutes (but not more than 3) or got them wrong. I focused mostly on the incorrect ones. I decided that even if some problems take me about 3 minutes, that’s ok.
Verbal: I am not a native speaker and I had to work hard to get my verbal skills into a good shape. Thursdays with Ron + the explanations in MGMAT Navigator + few valuable posts by Stacey helped a lot. CR is definitely a strength, RC is quite ok. My biggest problem was SC but I practised a lot and studied idioms + why a particular answer is a wrong answer. I had a good steady progress – my scores & timing improved a lot on all verbal sub-sections.

Questions:

Do you have any idea why my score dropped so dramatically?
When should I retake? (I am thinking to do it asap?)
How do I prepare for the next test? I really have no idea

Kind Regards

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that you had a disappointing test experience.

To answer your last question first, we need to try to figure out what happened so that we know how to combat the problems before you go back in there to take the test again. So ASAP probably isn't the right timeframe.

Your quant score was 49, so it kept up with your practice test scores, which were mostly 49-50 recently. (There's not a big difference between 49 and 50, so I don't consider that a drop.) The drop was in the verbal section - you scored in the 30s on our test and a 44(!) on a gmatprep, but dropped to 22 on the real test.

One thing I'm worried about is mental stamina. That is often one culprit when someone's verbal score drops, and I notice that you took the real test on...1 Aug? (You posted a little after midnight on the 2nd, so I'm guessin.) You also took 4 practice tests in the 10 days before the test. We generally recommend just 1 test in that timeframe, taken about 6-7 days before the real test (you said your closest test was just 3 days before).

I'm going to guess that you actually reviewed the questions from those tests (otherwise, what's the point of taking them, right?). So starting 10 days before, you took a test, then spent 1.5 days reviewing (which would be a LOT of work to do in that timeframe), then took another test, then reviewed...4 times. You would really have burned your brain out. That cycle would have taken you to 1-2 days before the test. What did you do during those last 1-2 days?

It looks like you read a lot of posts and articles here, so maybe you knew not to do much* during the last 2 days...but you might already have been too burned out. (Note: "not do much" = max 1-2 hours on the day before the test, just reviewing high-level strategies!!)

You mentioned that you felt okay. Lots of times people do, because the adrenaline is giving them a lot of physical energy. But physical energy is not the same thing as mental energy. You also said that you didn't feel challenged during the test as you did during practice. That could indicate that you were making careless mistakes on the questions. If so, then it would make sense that you felt the questions were relatively easy or straightforward - because you were making mistakes without realizing it, and therefore seeing easier questions than you would normally see.

Here are some examples of what mental fatigue feels like, even when your body feels okay:
- You read something and then realize that you "zoned out" part-way through and you have no idea what you just read, so you have to read it again.
- You have to re-read something 2 or 3 times before you understand it (not just on a hard problem, but more regularly than usual).
- You start to feel that you just want the test to be over. You start to select answers or cross things off more quickly. You decide while reading answer B that you think it's probably right, but you know you're still supposed to check the others (on verbal), so you do read C, D, and E, but really your brain has moved on to think about other things and you're not really thinking about what you're reading. Then you pick B and move on. (Or: you don't even read C, D, and E. You just pick B right away.)
- Conversely, you start to feel that you can't make any decisions at all. You agonize back and forth and you're not sure about anything. (It doesn't sound like this happened to you, but I'm including it just in case.)

Another thing I'm worried about is timing - even though you said your timing was fine. On your last test, 3 days before, you had that big timing problem where you got really far behind in verbal. Is it possible that you reacted by overcompensating - speeding up too much on the real test, because you didn't want to repeat the experience from 3 days earlier?

If you had a combination of mental stamina issues plus some rushing because of what happened on your last practice test, then that could lead to a big score drop.

What do you think? Also, were you able to get the Enhanced Score Report data? If so, let us know what it says for verbal. Look especially at your performance on CR and RC, which were strengths going into the test. If your performance suffered there (maybe due to the issues described above), then that could have really pulled your score down.

[Nia]

Dear Stacey,

Thank you for taking the time to read my enormously long post and for helping me figure out my next move. I really appreciate your work and up until now, I didn’t find it necessary to ask any questions – your articles are each a masterpiece…

I am also somehow convinced that it is a mental “thing” rather than a knowledge/preparation gap (although I don’t get this vibe from my ESR). It could be a kind of fatigue although I didn’t feel any?! Indeed, I took 4 tests during the last 10 days before the exam, but the overall pressure and fatigue was not something unusual. I started my preparation in May and since then my schedule was tight: I woke up most of the workdays around 4 a.m. just to make the time to study (I work for one of the Big Four and working long hours is not something unusual  => only mornings work for me). Then during the weekends, I was usually taking a full CAT + spending additional 8-10 hours studying (around 20-25 hours weekly). Then I took the last 3 weeks before the exam off work. I didn’t study all the time – I travelled for 4 days, but during the rest of the days I studied around 8 hours on average (still, it took less energy than my regular schedule ). As for the time I spent reviewing each of the last CATs – it depends on the number of wrong questions and the outliers (e.g. questions that took me too much time or questions on which I spent insufficient amount of time) – I was thoroughly reviewing mostly those ones. I was spending the remaining time on the new OGs – I was trying to get the mood.

The day before the exam, I didn’t study more than 2 hours – a quick revision of my AWA template + some idioms + a small Advanced Quant warm-up. The day before I took my last CAT + reviewed it for not more than 2 hours.

Then during the exam: I felt 100 % concentrated, I re-read questions, but just to make sure that I am answering the right questions... I was not bored during the test, I didn’t rush (at least consciously) and my decision-making process was ok: often down to two answers and then re-evaluating each before taking a final decision.
Overcompensating: this is indeed a good point, I was also thinking in that direction, but I didn’t finish the verbal section much earlier than expected – I had around 1 minute left at the end – it could be that I spent more time on a specific question, but I was usually +/- 1 minute at the usual check points 58, 37, 18 – so I didn’t notice it.

And yes – I got the Enhanced Score Report.
A small typo – my verbal score is 25 (not 22), but it is still lower than my lowest verbal. Anyway, I will not bother you with the details for the other sections – they are not really interesting.

This is what the ESR says about my verbal section:
Verbal Section Performance:
Your overall verbal score: 25 (38th)
Sub-Section Rankings:
Critical Reasoning: 57th
Reading Comprehension: 58th
Sentence Correction: 24th !!!
Time Management:
Overall Verbal: 1.81
Critical Reasoning: 1.72
Reading Comprehension: 2.08
Sentence Correction: 1.39

It looks to me that I got wrong almost every SC problems?! According to the ESR I was getting the RC & CR questions right (and thus probably moving my score up) and then the SC questions wrong (and hence plunging my overall verbal score). What do you think – the RC & CR are quite close?!
My verbal score is not balanced and this renders me quite unsure about where the problem lies – if it was kind of stamina issue, then I would expect to have more balanced score?

Any ideas / advices?!

Kind Regards,
Nia

[StaceyKoprince]

I studied around 8 hours on average (still, it took less energy than my regular schedule)

Less energy? Or less time?

Trying to create new memories is much more mental-energy intensive than retrieving existing memories. Mostly, at work, you are not trying to learn tons of new things. Most of the time, you are using skills that you already have.

So 8 hours of learning new things = probably 16-24 hours of doing things you already generally know how to do.

Your brain can only learn so many new things at once. If you overload it, then it will create a bunch of so-so memories that are sometimes jumbled together. Think back to an especially busy time your life. Most people think, "Wow, that was such a crazy time! I barely remember what was going on in the rest of my world / I can't remember what my friends told me about their lives / everything seems like a blur." It is a blur - because your brain was so overloaded that it couldn't save into long-term memory the kinds of things that you normally remember.

You can't actually learn for 8 hours straight every day*. Your brain might be okay with it for a day or two, in extraordinary circumstances, but by the 2nd or 3rd day, it's getting too overloaded and can no longer make such solid memories for everything that you're trying to cram into it. (*Wait! What about school? In school, we didn't actually learn the volume of material you were trying to learn every day.)

The day before I took my last CAT + reviewed it for not more than 2 hours.

That equals 6 hours of significant mental-energy-spending. (From the way you wrote, I'm not quite sure whether this was the day before the real test or the 2nd day before the real test. Either way, too close to the real test.)

Okay, on to your results. Okay, 25 is good! I'll take even a few more points. And, yep, the big issue there was SC; that's what pulled your performence down on verbal. So that is actually good because it tells us specifically where you need to pinpoint your efforts. The average timing across the three question types looks relatively normal, so that doesn't seem to have been a big issue.

Re: whether it was ultimately stamina or timing / rushing or underlying content issues (or a combination of all) is tough to determine for sure. Stamina can affect you unevenly. (Basically, your biggest weaknesses will tend to be the most affected.) But now that we know the problem was SC, that's where you're going to concentrate your efforts.

Talk to me more about how you studied SC before. You said in your first post:

My biggest problem was SC but I practised a lot and studied idioms + why a particular answer is a wrong answer.

What resources did you use to study? Note: I'm making a distinction here between studying and practicing. You practice from OG - but OG doesn't actually sit down and teach you all the grammar rules and meaning issues and etc. So what did you use to learn that kind of stuff?

If you weren't using some kind of resource designed to teach you grammar and meaning for the GMAT, then you'll need that for your re-take. (I don't normally recommend our materials directly -- I'm obviously biased! -- but I think it's pretty well accepted that our SC book is the best SC book available. You may also want to look into our Foundations of Verbal book. You may not need it for CR and RC, but you may need it for SC.)

And I still think there was some aspect of mental fatigue going on. Even if you were okay on the day itself, the study practices that you described would have made it harder to make good memories out of everything that you were studying. In addition, SC is the hardest one to study on your own (without a book / resource that's explicitly teaching you the rules and issues). If you're trying to learn everything in bits and pieces by reading Navigator explanations or forum discussions, you're not going to learn SC well enough to get a really good score on the test.

Let me know what you think about all of that.

[Nia]

Hi Stacey,

Well, I have to admit that I can only agree with you:

“Stamina can affect you unevenly. (Basically, your biggest weaknesses will tend to be the most affected.)”
“And I still think there was some aspect of mental fatigue going on. Even if you were okay on the day itself, the study practices that you described would have made it harder to make good memories out of everything that you were studying.”

I reflected a lot on your feedback and I am more and more convinced that it was kind of a mental fatigue and anxiety on a subconscious level (though I didn’t realize it during the test day..). I’ll explain in a moment…

“I think it's pretty well accepted that our SC book is the best SC book available.”

Again, I can only agree… Initially I wasn’t convinced that a particular SC book is the best one and thus I used books from the 3 (yes 3 – I knew that SC was definitely a weakness and I decided to work hard to improve) leading GMAT prep companies (including the Manhattan SC guide). When I started studying with the Manhattan SC guide I realized that I wasted my time with the other two books…. The way the Manhattan’s SC guide is written is unique. It really helped me to figure out the right strategy while teaching me the GMAT SC rules...
As you recommended, I revisited all SC concepts but almost everything was still fresh in my memory.
Then I decided to retake the GMAT not long after my first attempt – my intention is to apply for round one and my deadline is approaching. Moreover, I know that I will have pretty tight schedule in the coming month or two and I am afraid to lose some inertia.
My second attempt (yesterday) yielded better results – 710 (Q49, V37). Much better, though I am not fully satisfied, because I my verbal score was heavily impacted from negative timing – I had 10 questions left for less than 11 minutes. The first three were RC questions – I answered to all three questions for around 1.5 minute (without guessing) but I still had to rush through the remaining SC & CR questions. My enhanced score report also confirms my conclusion – I scored in the 91st percentile for RC and in 73rd and 76th percentile for SC and CR respectively (certainly I got few of the last SC/CR questions wrong).

Honestly, I don’t believe that my small study sessions (around 4 in total) in the last three weeks made any difference for my score improvement.

Finally, Stacey, I would like to sincerely thank you for your time and for sharing your knowledge & experience! Your advices and articles influenced my entire GMAT preparation and approach.

Kind Regards,
Nia

[StaceyKoprince]

Wow!! That is fantastic!! I'm really happy for you - congratulations.

And you still got a V37 even with those timing issues - amazing!

Yep, I think your experience indicates that it was a mental fatigue + anxiety issue. I'm glad that you were able to rest your brain and then get in there again to show what you knew how to do.

Good luck with applications - let us know how it goes!

[RohitB841]

Dear Nia/Stacey,
Wow! This is the most useful blog I have ever found. I'm in the exact same situation as Nia. I don't wish to mention all my score history and attempts, they are almost exactly same as Nia.
My question to you both is (and especially to Nia): What exactly did you do to take care of anxiety? Can you please elaborate in as much as detail as possible?
What I'm doing is giving more and more mocks thinking that would make me more familiar with the real exam circumstances and will help me take care of that subconscious anxiety.

PLEASE SUGGEST and GUIDE...

[StaceyKoprince]

I can tell you things that other students have told me worked for them:

(1) Go take the real test with no expectations other than to just take the test and get used to the testing room / environment. You have no scoring goal for this test. You're just acclimating yourself to the room / experience / environment. If you hate your scores, you can cancel them (though I wouldn't cancel if they are within like 150 points of your goal—seriously!).

(2) GMAC has a video on their website that shows what the testing center is like, what the check-in procedures are, etc. I have had some students report that it helped to watch this a crazy number of times (like 30+) to "numb" themselves to the whole ramp-up, so that it doesn't make them nervous as they start. One said that, when she went into the real test, she almost felt like laughing because everything was just like it was in the video.

(3) Read this: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

Try some of the exercises linked in that article or try this one:
https://soundcloud.com/user-91744640/15 ... s-practice

That last one was recorded by my colleague / fellow GMAT teacher Logan Thompson. He recommends doing this 2x a day if you know you're experiencing a lot of anxiety and just once a day if your anxiety isn't higher than average.

[Nia]

Hi RohitB841,

I'm very sorry to read that this occurred to you...

Looking back, I can say that the period was challenging for me in many different ways, including personally and professionally. I thought I knew myself (I never let something get to me before) and I thought that can just make it again. But my biggest learning is that for this test you have to be 100% present and concentrated (I took many many other tests after having a sleepless night and still scoring super high).
Not long after I cancelled my first score, I decided to give it another try. What did I do differently? Not much in terms of curriculum; I was just much more relaxed and calm – at the end I didn’t have anything to loose – if it hadn’t worked out, I was planning to study for another 1-2 months. As of one point this test isn’t really about how much you know – it’s much more about your mental and emotional state. I took some time off and went to the seaside (my kind of mediation) to recharge.
I scored 710 – I wasn’t entirely happy, but this was good enough to start working on my application. Anyway, I couldn’t make it for R1 (too much work & too ambitious timeline). Since I was applying to only one very top BS, I decided to give it my best shot. My application was ready few weeks before the R2 deadline and I decided to retake the GMAT without any significant prep – I already had an ok score, didn’t have much time to prepare extensively (just refreshed my memory from my notes) and I scored 730 – another proof that it’s really not a matter of studying harder / or more once you already know the concepts.

Hope this helps.
Best of luck!
Nia

P.S.: You probably read it many times, but GMAT is really only one part of your BS application and as long as you are within the average range for your BS + can show your strengths with the rest of your application, it should be ok.

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience, Nia! I appreciate it.