Clueless on what went wrong

[zamradk582]

Hi,
I took my Gmat couple of days back and was appalled to see the score of 610(Q-47,V-27)

About me
I am a nonnative english speaker. But english has been the primary language throughout my academics and career .Education wise, I am from maths and science background.

About my preparation
I have been diligently preparing for gmat for last 3 months. I took few competitive exams in my country two years back, for which I had to extensively go through mathematics. So this time for Gmat I brushed up my quant concepts. I went through the Manhattan guides to understand the concepts of quant and verbal better. I also went through Powerscore CR and Aristotle SC.Once I felt that my concepts were good enough to take the mocks I purchased a mock test pack from Manhattan. My mock scores ranged between 680 and 740. I also purchased the extra gmatprep exampack,in which my scores ranged between 690 and 730. My quant score fluctuated between 48 and 50 and verbal score between 34 and 39.

I am absolutely clueless on what went wrong on the D day. I havent seen such a horrible score in any of my mock exams.I was jiterry while writing the real exam and I found CR questions a bit tough. Apart from these I didn’t find any anomaly or deviation from my normal mock scenario. I am not sure how should I go about my next gmat attempt. My moral has gone really down as the score that I got was least expected.

It will be great if you could help me to diagnose the root cause and to plan the preparation for my next attempt.

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that you had a rough test day - I know how demoralizing that can be. Our first task is to try to figure out what went wrong so that you know what you need to do the next time you go back in.

There are several common reasons that people experience score drops on the real test. Take a look at this article and tell us which reasons you think apply or might apply in your case:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... t-wrong-2/

Once we've diagnosed the issues, we can then talk about what to do in order to get ready for test #2.

[zamradk582]

Thank you Stacey for responding to my query.

After reading the article, I think the below points could be my problem areas.

1)Timing
I was running too fast in many places and at the same time very slow in few places. Even though I was able to control my timing during the mock I somehow couldn't replicate similar scenario in the real test. In quant I came across few really difficult questions which took a lot of my time.I had a feeling that I will be able to solve them but then I wasn't able to get through under the time crunch situation. That takes me to point 2.

2)Anxiety
I wasn't as calm as I had been while taking the mock tests. I constantly had this thought inside me 'What if I get this wrong'.Also on and off I had this confidence drop which led me to thinking 'Can I get the question right'.More of a performances stress. I guess it stems from my high expectations,in terms of score.
I was easily able to see the anxiety and timing problem while I was taking verbal section. I was inordinately speeding through the section. I guess in that futile running I got a lot of easy questions wrong.

3) Mock test taking frequency
I used to take 2 to 3 mocks in a week,except the week when I wrote the real Gmat. As per the above article it says to take only 1 per week. I used to be of the opinion that the learning happens through mocks.I realize now my approach wasn't right.

I am taking time now to revisit the basics in Manhattan guide. What else would you recommend. Should I start taking 1 mock per week or just focus on the basics for now.
And yes I have been trying to meditate and work on the anxiety front as well.

[StaceyKoprince]

In quant I came across few really difficult questions which took a lot of my time.I had a feeling that I will be able to solve them

Okay, this points to a mindset issue on the test. You're still trying to approach the GMAT like it's a school test (where you really did want to try to get everything right). As you found it, if you do that on the GMAT, it's going to hurt your performance.

Read this:
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning

Seriously, right now. Then come back, start a reply, and tell me why I told you to go read that right now.

This crosses over into your point #3: the way in which you were studying also stemmed from your "get it right / school" mindset. You need to start develping your Executive Reasoning mindset.

Read that first article every day for the next two weeks. Each day, say a couple of sentences aloud regarding how you should be thinking about this test.
Start using these principles to guide your study:
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

And these to guide your time management:
http://tinyurl.com/GMATTimeManagement

I wouldn't take a practice test for the next two weeks. Instead, use that time to start learning how to use the 2nd Level of GMAT study. Essentially, learn how to learn. Once you are better equipped to do that, take the time to analyze / learn from whatever you have been doing over the past couple of weeks. Once you feel that you've made substantial progress on all of the "big idea" stuff above, you can try another practice test.

And then the anxiety - yes, that's going to hurt you of course, especially if you were rushing. That would cause careless mistakes on things that you would ordinarily get right. I'm glad that you're working on the anxiety piece already. Have you read this?
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

Try that out and let me know how it goes.