ADVICE NEEDED

[Guest]

Hi,

I took my Manhattan CAT tests sometime last year (AUG- NOV) and took the GMAT and ended up with a disaster score. My manhattan test scores were

CAT 1 --> 640 , M44, V 33 , AUG 2007
CAT 2 --> 700 , M43, V 41, SEP 2007
CAT 3 --> 670 , M45, V 36, OCT 2007

GMAT PREP 1-> 720, Q 50 V 37, Nov 2007 3 days before exam
GMAT PREP 2-> 700, Q 50 V 34, Nov 2007, 1 day before exam


ACTUAL GMAT- 610 ( Q 50, V 22) , Nov 2007--> The test went smoothly and i thought i did well but when i looked at the score, i was shocked. Moreover , i do not know what went wrong .....

So i am back to the battle. I reset the question bank (the way suggested by the tutors so that the software will not try to give those questions that have come in past)

CAT 1 640 , Q43, V 35 ( MAR 2008)
CAT 2 700 , Q49, V 36 ( APR 2008)
CAT 3 660 , Q50, V 32 ( APR 2008)
CAT 4 760 , Q49, V 45 ( MAY 2008)

Though i am motivated to see today's score but i am afraid that this might not be representative as i have taken the test earlier and might know the answers for few questions. Some educated guess worked for me in today's test too. Tutors, i am afraid to take a exam date because of what happened in the past. Just because of the low score, i did not apply in any schools last year.Moreover the discussions that GMAT SC's are completely different now a days scares me a lot.

Tutors, Can you suggest me some approach because there is so much variance in my scores in a week, though i agree that i identified my weak areas from CAT 3 ( such as 3 main ideas wrong and did well in CAT 4 ( 2 correct out of 3). Can you suggest me some approach and comment if i am going in right direction...

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

From the scores you post, the problem you had on official test day was the verbal. Ideally, if we can, we want to figure out what happened. If you know what went wrong, you can take steps to minimize the chances of the same thing happening again.

When you took your practice exams, did you take them under normal testing conditions? Did you do the essays? Did you take the entire test at once and only take 10 min breaks between the sections? During the official test, did you take the full break both times? Did you have something to eat and drink to keep your energy up? Was it good energy food (complex carbs, proteins, fats), not bad energy food (simple sugars, caffeine)? Did you sleep and eat well for the two days before the exam? (Any "no" answers here could mean your energy level was compromised by the verbal section of the test.)

Also, what did you get on the essays last time around? If you got a great score (5.5 or 6), go for a 4 next time - literally dumb down what you do and take less time so that you keep yourself more fresh for the verbal.

When you've taken standardized tests in the past, have you had stress or anxiety issues that have caused you to underperfom? Were you more nervous about the verbal going into this test?

Is there anything else you can remember from last Nov that might shed some light on the situation? Just tell us everything you remember, even if you think it couldn't possibly matter.

Finally, your exam scores look great, so yes you're going in the right direction. That 4th one is a pretty significant jump - if you did see some questions that you remembered / recognized from before, you may have to discount that score a little bit on the verbal side. But you're doing well in your practice exams.

Because you had a bad experience the first time, you are going to be nervous no matter when you take it again. But if you want to go to b-school, you've got to take it again. So schedule it - get it on the calendar. With your practice test results so far, you don't have a reason NOT to take it.

[Guest]

Stacey,

Thanks for the reply.

I always took those exams in test conditions. Even for the Manhattan tests I drove the car as I would be doing before the exam and went to office to take those exams. During my preparation time last year, I completed the test with AWA only for GMAT prep tests.(not for Manhattan)

My AWA score was 5.0 in the actual GMAT. I will try for 5.5 this time and M 51 but I am very much afraid in verbal. As in every test, I used to know if sth is going wrong, But in Nov last year when I took the Exam, I knew that I shd not loose the calm in the exam and infact I did not. Even though I ended the exam without any worries with only 2 seconds left on the clock , I was still calm. RC looked fine to me and so were the CR. But score reveled sth else.

I am not sure if your students have pointed out that the SC questions were different in exam. I do not remember what does it mean but only thing I can say that in Manhattan test, whenever I read any SC Question, I can point out or guess in which part of the sentence can have the error. Though in my last Manhattan verbal test (CAT 4), I did only 1 SC wrong out of 15 but still the above forms that i mentioned above were not tested ; hence, I can not say if I have really improved in my weak area.

I took one of the private class with my tutor in my earlier city and he also pointed that there is some change in SC trends and since I am not a native speaker, its really difficult for me to understand which area I need to master in SC. It is just like all questions in Math for me are same as I have been doing them since childhood and I give equal time for each Q in Maths.

No stress or anxiety issues I faced during my tests. In my actual GMAT, I was behind time in Maths and had only 20 minutes for 15 questions but I completed the exam with 7 minutes on the clock and score was 50.

Between my CAT 1 and CAT 2 exam this yr, I also took GMAT PREP 1 my scores were :

Scored 690 , Q49, V 34 (10 W and 3 could not attempt in Verbal , Q No. 6,8,11, 13, 17, 26, 34, 36, 37, 38)
Finished on time with AWA. About to time out in Q 36, Guess 3 Q ,last 3 questions could not attempt .

I took all following test with AWA and under time conditions with breaks..The scores and distribution are mentioned below:

CAT 1 640 Q43, V35 (MAR 2008), 4W/13 in SC, 6 W/14 in CR, 6W/12 in RC ,(2Qns couldn’t attempt)
CAT 2 700 , Q49, V 36 ( APR 2008) 7W/15 in SC, 4W/14 in CR, 7 W/12 in RC
CAT 3 660 , Q50, V 32 ( APR 2008) 7W/14 in SC, 5W/14 in CR, 8 W/12 in RC
CAT 4 760 , Q49, V 45 ( MAY 2008) 1W/14 in SC, 5W/14 in CR, 5 W/12 in RC

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for the data. Re: your practice test results, it's much more useful to list the average difficulty levels and average time spent. The number correct actually tells us almost nothing without that other data!

You mentioned your timing for the math but not for the verbal. How was your timing for the verbal on the official test?

Also you said you took all of the tests under exam conditions but that you did NOT do the essays on your MGMAT tests last fall. Exam conditions means ALL of the conditions, including the essays - so you were not prepared for the stamina issue. You said you did take the essays on GMATPrep, but you did those just a couple of days before the exam, which means two things:
- you didn't build up stamina (that must be done over time, not just a couple of days before)
- you tired yourself out right before the real test by taking two tests within three days and doing the essays for the first time.

So, the single biggest factor here was likely mental stamina. You were not prepared to be "on" for the entire four hour period and, to make things worse, you tired yourself out right before the real test, which hurt your ability to be alert and "on" even more.

NEVER take practice tests within three days of the real thing. You will tire yourself out. I've made this analogy before and I'll make it again: if you were about to run a marathon, would you run a practice marathon the day before? This test is a mental marathon - prepare accordingly! Do what you need to do to ensure you have the appropriate stamina next time around.

Re: your concernw ith SC, the test is always evolving, but it does so extremely slowly (as it must, since it is standardized). While it is the case that certain grammar topics can go in and out of favor (meaning the frequency of appearance goes up or down a bit), it isn't the case that the SC section has changed substantially in the last 6 months or a year such that what people used to study is no longer useful - grammar is still grammar and the most commonly tested 80% hasn't changed much in either appearance or frequency.

There are always unusual things that can be tested on any part of the test, and we tend to remember the few things we weren't sure of or that threw us off in some way. Remember again that you only need to get about half of the questions right, even to get a 700, so missing a few questions on less commonly tested topics won't prevent you from reaching your goal (as long as you don't allow that to cause you to be nervous and impact your performance on other questions).

It's also the case that there are thousands of questions in any adaptive test's database, but you are only getting around 15 SCs on one test. Luck is, unfortunately, a factor - do you happen to know the few more rarely tested idioms or other items that you happen to get?

We will have a new Sentence Correction guide out sometime later this year with some fairly substantial changes, in areas, compared with the last guide. One of our instructors has spent the last year doing some great research in this area. I don't know exactly when it will come out though - probably not before August (and maybe later). I just mention that in case you want to know - but it isn't the case that there's something so substantially new that you haven't studied and that's why your score dropped so much on the test. Something else was going on.

Also, don't try for a 5.5 on the AWA - go for a 5.0. That's good enough for any school and it will allow you to save much needed energy / brain power for the multiple choice portion of the exam.

[Guest]

Stacey,
Thanks for the suggestions. I think my verbal was going ok in the real test. As per your advice, I am sending my Post test experience to Student services and i will work on your advice of not taking any test three days prior to real test.

Today I took my CAT 5th test (after two weeks as I was taking them in every week earlier) and the result is disappointing in Verbal again. I completed the test with AWA under real test conditions (I took the test in Manhattan test center). Scored 710 today(M 51 V 36). My CAT 4 verbal score was 45. Now you can see a huge inconsistency in my scores. Today’s verbal score is same as I had in Oct last yr. My verbal scores(already mentioned in my earlier post) for the last five tests are : (35, 36, 32, 45, 36) and My math scores are (43, 49, 50, 49,51)

I found one RC much longer than expected in today’s test. I do not think such lengthy RC will ever appear on real GMAT. I did 2 RC completely wrong. I think crossing 40 in verbal will become a dream for me.javascript:emoticon(':(')
Sad
Appreciate if you can advise my next steps.

[enggbs]

Stacey, Any suggestions. Sorry i did not enter the user name earlier.

[StaceyKoprince]

Was that really long RC passage the Lysosomes passage? That one is ridiculously long. :)

Yes, as you're finding, it's harder to do well in verbal when you're doing the essays at the beginning. You will have to build up the stamina so that you can perform as well even after doing the essays (and you may never do as well as your best verbal score when you weren't doing the essays - just as you'll never run as fast at the end of a marathon as you can if you're only running a half-marathon). It's just going to take practice! You may want to do timed sets of questions every third day - sort of "mini tests." Do one essay, maybe 10 math, 20 verbal (90 minutes). Then spend the next two days reviewing whatever you need to review based upon your performance on those questions.

(Note to others: I'm suggesting an uneven split on math and verbal because this particular student has extremely high quant scores already. For most people - you'd want to do an even split.)