Took the GMAT today.. quite disappointed

[happygill85]

Hi guys.. I must admit, I am probably least like most of you, I didnt follow the class schedule to the point, but nonetheless, I did go to all my classes, I read all my books and attempted the practice questions in each book.

When I started, I was in the mid 500's and I took about 10 practice exams, and they were consistently above 600 - 650. Given that this wasn't my best, and I was applying to a school with a deadline sooner than most of the schools I'm applying to, I wanted to take the test for the first time and be ok with sending a 650. I was told that the MGMAT practice exams are harder than real gmat questions..

So this morning.. when I finally went in to take my exam ( I was anxious to take it and I've always been a good test taker ) I was wondering why Math was so ridiculously easy. I thought I was getting everything almost right.. I was consistently at 80% percentile of my practice exams --- to my great disappointment - I scored at 20% percentile in math.

My verbal started off lower than math, I'm pretty good and I love math - so I put in a lot of work into my verbal. I was consistently scoring around 70% on my last 5 practice exams - to my surprise I scored at 23%!

I felt VERY VERY disappointed, I was in disbelief. I thought for a second it was a joke - it was my first time taking the exam, so I really dont know how the grading screen is set up. I thought it was a sample / demo - but when they gave me my print out - I couldn't hold it in. Today was a very bad day for me.

Do you guys have any suggestions, in terms of maybe inquiring to see my exam answers? Do you know if I can ask them to look at it? Or does this happen in reality?? But being 200 points off from my average CAT score - is REALLY REALLY REALLY ridiculous. I dont know what to say, but I hope to hear from you guys..

Thank you..
P.S. I'm going to start again tomorrow to study - and I plan to work only on all the official guide questions, then the two books - Verbal and Math advanced .. and take the CAT exams in the middle of all this. I also plan to buy more practice exams - I tried to reason to myself that maybe the practice exam questions were repeating and that's why I was doing well on my CAT's. I appreciate any input.

[jenniferpupa]

Did you go in for a post-test assessment?

[happygill85]

No I didnt. I am taking it again tomorrow, but I've made my mind on which school I will go to. I had an interview with their Director of Admissions and she's aware of my score. I think I am happy with however I will do this time around, as long as I go to school this year.

What are your plans now?

I think depending on how I shape my next 6 months, I will definitely retake the exam even when I'm in school already. I just want to get a good score and prove to myself that the first score didnt do justice. I'll keep you posted on that.

[jenniferpupa]

I, too, received a score much different than any of my practice tests - almost like it was a fluke. How did you go about studying again for round 2?

[happygill85]

Honestly, when I scheduled the second test - I thought to myself that I will take a practice test everyday for a month. Unfortunately, with the job that I do, I work 70 hours a week including Saturdays. It was impossible for me to do that.

I really didnt study - and today I dont regret it. I think the big reason why I didnt perform well was anxiety - I was really nervous the day of the first exam. I think I've learned the material and it didnt come to me that day because I overworked myself the last few days before I took it.

I purchased the gmat focus exams - for math. I took one so far, and I did well. I am planning on doing the 2 that are left of those exams today -
I will go through my CAT exams - and practice questions from before - I will focus on data sufficiency primarily on new questions.
Then I will take 2 practice exams ( 1 today ) and 1 tomorrow morning.

Depending on how I do on those, I will most likely review more tomorrow half day - my exam's tomorrow afternoon.

When are you retaking yours? Are you planning on going to school this year?
If you know where you want to go - I think you should spend time in connecting to those schools - I find that I got comfort in knowing schools want me regardless of my score - because there are stronger points of my application that I probably overlooked. So that helps too!

[jenniferpupa]

I'm curious if you score tomorrow what you were scoring on your practice tests. Feel free to let me know afterwards!

I, too, think a lot of it was nerves. But it was also creating a mastery and then not getting questions on what I mastered. And then i got three questions about compound interest and never really paid attention to that in the class.

Good luck!

[sanyalpritish]

Good Luck.. Hope you get a Gr8 score.

Which school do you wanna apply

[ryan.taliaferro]

I was scoring between 650 and 700 on practice exams, and today I took the real thing and got a 590. I felt like the quant on the real test was easier than the MGMAT quant, and that the verbal was slightly tougher. Overall I felt good about the test and was shocked to see my score. So, you're not alone.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Also, is there anyway to see where you went wrong on the real test? I didn't hear anything about it from the test center but on this thread it sounds like you might be able to...

Thanks

[Scott.Wachs]

I took the gmat yesterday. i scored 44 in math which was very about average with what i've been scoring. But for the second straight time I bombed verbal. I scored a 27. On practice exams I haven't scored below a 30 since my 1st Cat exam. This also happened on my first try of the gmat. I scored a 42 on math and 22 on verbal. I felt very confident about the verbal this time. All i was really looking for was above a 30. The last three practice exams I scored 37, 33, and 36 in verbal. I see that this has happened to others.

Any suggestions?

[vo10]

I am so glad that I am not alone on this! My practice test the day before the exam was a 690 and I got a 570 on the exam. Needless to say...I am crushed!

How do you go about requesting a post test assessment? I find it ridiculous that all of my practice exams were over 600 (with two over 670) and I bombed the actual exam.

Please provide any help that you can. I have no time to study and must retake the exam.

[ccataries]

I've taken several companies' practice tests including Princeton Review, Kaplan and MGMT. I think MGMT offers great materials and is a good source for practice tests, though I find that the practice CAT scores I received were slightly inflated. When I took the GMAC prep CD practice tests, my scores were more within the range of my real score.

I would subtract 50 points from MGMT practice tests.