Hey guys- congrats to all those with the happy stories and the high grades. My experience unfortunately was not to pleasant to say the least. I completed my test today and needless to say, very disappointed with the results.
Scoring in the 650 range in the practice tests (the last practice GMAT test taken before I gave my test today, I also scored a 660) and was shocked to find a score of 560!! I simply cannot understand what went that drastic. For the quant I did not feel any of the questions being too hard yet did guess on a few.
On the verbal part , I ran out of time towards the end and had to randomly guess- thanks to the ultra long and boring reading comprehensions pieces.
Anyways - looking for some solace, encouragement and advise from all the happy campers!!
What do you suggest?
How to best to prepare for the next attempt?
Cheers~
GMAT Forum
2 postsPage 1 of 1
- subhakam
- Course Students
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2010 9:16 am
- james.jt.wu
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 10:47 pm
Re: Dejected and Disappointed - bombed at my first attempt!!
Hi There,
I am sorry to hear that the test didn't go well. However, know that most people do not get their target score on their first attempt. Despite your best preparations there are just too many factors in play, especially when it comes to test anxiety and just overall comfort level with the real thing. Rest assured - you can and very likely will improve on this score on your 2nd try, especially if you ran out of time on the verbal section.
To help you more, can you give us more info on your performance?
- What was the split between quant and verbal?
- How does that compare to your usual scores on practice tests?
- Did you feel the issue was more content, or timing?
- Did you run out of time on both the math and the verbal section?
- Do you suffer from test anxiety?
- Anything you noticed on the real thing that you didn't expect?
My recommendation for what you should do will depend on the data you provide to the question above.
Now based on what you said below, it sounds like your main problem is timing. What most people don't know is that what really, REALLY kills your score is getting a STRING of questions wrong in a row. You were likely scoring in the 600s until the end of verbal when you had to randomly guess a bunch of questions since you were out of time.
I venture to guess that you will likely need to work on your timing alot by practicing more tests before your 2nd attempt, in addition to addressing any content weakness that you may have. One trick I find that is really helpful is to give yourself a number of free passes (say 5 free passes). These free passes are literally "throw-aways," meaning you just pick your favorite letter and move on. You use this when you are more than 2 minutes behind on any section. You don't do any work on these - no strategic guessing either - you just skim the question and pick a letter. This should take you 5-10 seconds, tops.
The point of using these free passes is that not only do they help you catch up on a section, but they also SPREAD your wrong questions far from each other so you don't get a string of questions wrong - which is the reason most people end up getting undesirable scores. Therefore, do NOT throw questions away in a row. Throw one away - do the next 2-3, then throw again if you are still behind. Again, you do this the moment you see you are behind by 2 minutes. Don't wait till the end to throw away or you'll just be getting a string wrong.
You MUST stick to the timing benchmark - even if you throw an easy question away, you can still recover at the end of the test by getting questions you should get right correct.
Hope this helps. You can do this!
James
I am sorry to hear that the test didn't go well. However, know that most people do not get their target score on their first attempt. Despite your best preparations there are just too many factors in play, especially when it comes to test anxiety and just overall comfort level with the real thing. Rest assured - you can and very likely will improve on this score on your 2nd try, especially if you ran out of time on the verbal section.
To help you more, can you give us more info on your performance?
- What was the split between quant and verbal?
- How does that compare to your usual scores on practice tests?
- Did you feel the issue was more content, or timing?
- Did you run out of time on both the math and the verbal section?
- Do you suffer from test anxiety?
- Anything you noticed on the real thing that you didn't expect?
My recommendation for what you should do will depend on the data you provide to the question above.
Now based on what you said below, it sounds like your main problem is timing. What most people don't know is that what really, REALLY kills your score is getting a STRING of questions wrong in a row. You were likely scoring in the 600s until the end of verbal when you had to randomly guess a bunch of questions since you were out of time.
I venture to guess that you will likely need to work on your timing alot by practicing more tests before your 2nd attempt, in addition to addressing any content weakness that you may have. One trick I find that is really helpful is to give yourself a number of free passes (say 5 free passes). These free passes are literally "throw-aways," meaning you just pick your favorite letter and move on. You use this when you are more than 2 minutes behind on any section. You don't do any work on these - no strategic guessing either - you just skim the question and pick a letter. This should take you 5-10 seconds, tops.
The point of using these free passes is that not only do they help you catch up on a section, but they also SPREAD your wrong questions far from each other so you don't get a string of questions wrong - which is the reason most people end up getting undesirable scores. Therefore, do NOT throw questions away in a row. Throw one away - do the next 2-3, then throw again if you are still behind. Again, you do this the moment you see you are behind by 2 minutes. Don't wait till the end to throw away or you'll just be getting a string wrong.
You MUST stick to the timing benchmark - even if you throw an easy question away, you can still recover at the end of the test by getting questions you should get right correct.
Hope this helps. You can do this!
James
2 posts Page 1 of 1