Study and Strategy questions relating to the GMAT.
AnitaX292
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GMAT score fluctuations

by AnitaX292 Sat Apr 27, 2019 2:11 pm

So I re-took the GMAT 4 weeks after the first attempt. I was shocked to see the score drop to 540. In my first attempt I scored 620. After my first attempt, I was scoring around 640, 680, 690 on my gmat prep exams. 690 (Q47, V37) was 1 week before the actual test. I thought my Verbal section in the actual gmat was going fairly well. But was shocked to see the score drop. I feel the gmat prep exams are somehow easier than the actual gmat. I tend to score better on the gmat prep and try to apply the same strategy on the actual gmat but the scores are way lower. First time I had some test center anxiety but I did not feel anxious the second time.

I am thinking of retaking it in 3 weeks? I was wondering how best to strategize the prep for the exam. Thanks
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Re: GMAT score fluctuations

by StaceyKoprince Mon Apr 29, 2019 6:41 pm

This test can be frustrating. :(

I wouldn't plan your retake date until we can figure out what went wrong. Once you have a good idea of what went wrong, then you'll know what you need to do to try to make it better—and that will help you to figure out how much time you need before you retake.

Can you give me some more details? What were your full scores for both official tests? (I want to know whether your score dropped about equally in the Q and V sections or whether one section was more responsible than the other.)

How did the tests feel? What felt the same and what felt different? How was your time management—did you have to rush to finish in either section? Did you leave any blank?

Or did you go too fast overall? Did you finish a section more than a few minutes early?

What did you do during the 4 weeks between the two exams? And what did you do in the 3-4 days before each exam?

Tell me anything else that you remember about either test—anything that felt different from one test to the other, or that felt different from practice tests—even if you don't think it's important.

Finally, you mentioned feeling some anxiety before the first test but not the second one. Sometime, test anxiety isn't obvious. Did you have any of the following symptoms (for either test date):
– Difficulty remembering the experience (don't remember the kinds of test details you would normally remember about a practice test; don't remember things about the testing center room that you would normally be able to remember after going into a new room or office space)
– Feeling like the large chunks of the text felt "foreign," like it was testing things that you'd never seen before; alternatively, feeling like the test only gave you things that are your big weaknesses (I once had a student tell me that her practice test had at least five combinatorics questions on it; when we checked, there was just one!).
– Feeling really distracted or having trouble concentrating—eg, you just read a paragraph and realize you have absolutely no idea what you just read and you have to read it again. Or you find yourself thinking about something other than the problem on screen right now—the last problem, or what your score might be, or even something unrelated, like whether you locked the door when you left your home that day
– The feeling that you were constantly agonizing between answers or other decisions—which method to use to answer a math problem, etc. (This often goes along with running out of time on the test.)
– The feeling that you just wanted the test to be over / didn't care as much as usual what answer you picked. (This often goes along with finishing the test or section really early.)
– Sweaty palms (or sweaty in general), upset stomach, dizziness, nausea
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Re: GMAT score fluctuations

by AnitaX292 Tue Apr 30, 2019 9:08 pm

For the first test, my scores were 620 (Q42 V 33). Second one was 540 (Q43 V22).

In the first test, I felt relatively more comfortable remembering and being confident about responding to this verbal questions. In the second test, I was doubting a lot of my verbal responses even for SC which was my strongest area. I was really wondering why. Overall in the second test I felt I was chasing time for the last 5-6 questions in quant and around 8 questions in verbal. I didn’t leave any blank in both the tests. I was fairly comfortable with the quant questions in both the tests. Although I scored higher consistently in the gmat prep exams, I felt the timing issue caused the drop in quant scores in the actual tests as I was rushing in the end. I finished both the sections on time.

During the time between the exams, I went through the error log, focused a lot on critical reasoning by trying to go through OG questions and brainstorming answers before reading responses. I felt this gave me a better hang of CRs and I was getting quite a lot of the CRs correct during my daily mini CR practice sets. I didn’t prepare as intensely as my first test. I took a few days break after I gave my first test and started reading through error logs, read through cR strat guide, read thru number properties and word problems strat guides. But overall I didn’t prepare as much and as intensely as my first test because I thought I was feeling burnt out during my previous prep. 3-4 days before the actual test, I reviewed the errors from gmat prep exams, a few error log questions and did 1 quant and 1 verbal timed practice set. All my practice sets were always timed. I did a total of 4 timed sets within the 4 weeks. I did review my errors in detail. I was improving on my Cr performance as well with consistently high accuracy rates in RC and SC.

I was just blanking out a lot in the second test in the verbal section with CRs, RC and SC. I was just wondering or finding it hard to nail down a response for a lot of the verbal questions and I thought the section was getting harder but it turns out I got a lot incorrect. As I was chasing time for the last 5-6 quant questions, I guessed on a lot of calculation intense problems.
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Re: GMAT score fluctuations

by StaceyKoprince Wed May 01, 2019 5:44 pm

Okay, so the drop came entirely from the Verbal side.

You finished both sections on time, but you were rushing. How much were you rushing? Did you have to guess blindly in order to finish? On how many questions, approximately? Or were you able to look at each question? How much did you have to rush—do you think you were spending about...half of the time you would normally spend? Less? More?

I'm trying to get a sense of how much this could have caused your score to drop. The GMAT is called a Where You End Is What You Get test, so you can be doing really well, but if you miss the last 8 questions in a row, your score will drop a great deal—and where you end is what you get.

Your Q score kept up with your first test experience, even though you didn't study as much, so that tells me that your quant content is fine. You are, though, likely losing points on the Q side to this timing issue, which is really a decision-making issue. Read this (right now—then come back here):
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/2013/06/03/what-the-gmat-really-tests/

Are you taking the test with the business mindset? Or do you think you need to change your approach in order to do this in future?

Next, you mention "blanking" a lot on verbal or feeling like it was hard to decide. These are classic symptoms of mental fatigue and what's called performance anxiety. Everybody gets at least a little nervous; that's totally normal. But if you get too nervous, that can actually impair your ability to think / process—and that, of course, hurts your performance on the test. Did you also find that you were having to reread things more than you normally do? That's another sign.

Mindfulness training can help:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/2013/05/09/stressed-out-meditate-to-lower-your-anxiety-and-boost-your-gmat-score/

And now let's talk time management. Time management is really a subset of the business mindset. This article talks about decision-making with respect to time:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/2016/05/26/develop-a-business-mindset-to-maximize-your-roi-on-the-gmat/

(There's a webinar linked at the beginning—it has the same content as the article.)

And finally this article gets deeply into how to manage your time better across individual problems as well as entire sections of the test:
http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/2016/08/19/everything-you-need-to-know-about-gmat-time-management-part-1-of-3/

The last is a multi-part article. I would read just part one first, and then spend at least a couple of days trying to put what it says into practice. Then part two, the same, and then part 3. (In our courses, we assign each segment of the article at least a week apart.)

That's a lot of information. Take a look through it all, take some time to think about it, and then come back here to tell me what strikes a chord with you and what you think you need to do differently compared to how you were approaching the test before.
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Re: GMAT score fluctuations

by AnitaX292 Thu May 02, 2019 12:29 am

Both for quant and the verbal I had to guess blindly for the last set of questions I was rushing through because I had 1 or less than 1 minute left per question. For 1 or 2 quant questions in the end I briefly read the question and guessed . I was spending way less than half the time I would spend on a typical quant or verbal question. Some more details on the percentage of correct questions from my ESR: for verbal i got 75% (avg time: 1:50), 29% (2:20 min), 86% (1:52min) and 0% (1:12 min) correct in the 4 quarter split. For quant, I got 57% (avg time: 2:20min), 100% (2:20min), 29% (2min) and 57% (1:22min) correct in the 4 quarter split.

And yes, I did take the test with a business mindset where I knew which question I wanted to skip on quant. But as I was going through the questions, I lost track of that strategy and tried to solve a lot of the very calculation intense problems where I later realized that I should have skipped.

When I was blanking on verbal questions, yes, I had to reread some questions, especially SC which was suprising because that has been one of my stronger areas

I am still reading through the links you had suggested. I will come back and post on what I thought/what struck a chord.
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Re: GMAT score fluctuations

by StaceyKoprince Thu May 02, 2019 6:34 pm

Thanks for that data. I'm impressed that you still got 57% correct in the 4th quadrant of quant when you were only averaging 1:22. :)

Yes, so you see what happened on verbal—0% in the 4th quadrant means that you missed at least 9 questions in a row, possibly more (depending on whether you missed some at the end of quadrant 3). Some of those were experimental, but we don't know how many. In any event, you missed enough questions that your score would have dropped a lot, and where you end is what you get, so...that was your score. :|

You mention that you were prepared to use a business mindset but that you lost your way in the middle of the test and let yourself get sucked into problems that you later realized you should have let go. The mindfulness training can help you with this as well. Basically, when we get too nervous, we lose the ability to think as clearly / rationally as normal. We revert to our "deepest" training—and our deepest training was what we learned to do for 20 years in school, unfortunately for this test. So part of your task is to learn how to manage that performance anxiety well enough to be able to stick to your business mindset. And part of your task is just to practice that business mindset more, and more consciously, so that you can start to establish it as your "base mode" vs. the old-school mode. (The good news: The business mindset isn't just for the GMAT. It will help you in your job, in b-school, in real life!)

Let me know what you think when you're ready!
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Re: GMAT score fluctuations

by AnitaX292 Wed May 15, 2019 4:25 pm

So I read through the articles you had suggested above and reflected on what I had done in the tests I had taken. I do use the yellow pad technique and have always been. I start the test fine and remember to have a business mindset and for the first few questions I guess, if needed, on those I am not sure about. But half way through, I've realized that I lose track of that business mindset especially when I see a problem in quant or see something in verbal and keep telling myself "I know this", "I've studied this" and "I should be able to find the answer", so I keep spending a lot of time and then either I find the answer or I realize I have wasted a lot of time. I did this in the test mostly in 3rd quarter of each section and then I realized that I'm way beyond the time on the yellow pad for that particular set of questions. I had lost around 4-6 minutes. And then I am catching up by guessing a few questions (some of which I know are easy and solvable, but due to time issues I am randomly guessing) on the next page of the yellow pad technique, then when I I am back on track on time, I come across a question which I am not sure about so I guess again. By then I think i would have guessed 4-5 questions in a row - only a few of which are truly questions i am not sure about and needed to guess.

By reading the articles I've realized that I need to really stay focused and decide within the first minute or so whether the question is solvable or not. If I don't remember the formula or the content for some reason, I should move on. I need to practice this mindset more consciously while practicing too. I think timing has been my main issue in both the tests. Now that it's been a couple of weeks, I sort of feel that I may have forgotten some content. So if I were to retake the test after some weeks, I am thinking how best to approach revising my quant/verbal knowledge. May be I can start revising my strat guides initially and then start doing the questions associated with them, each time focusing on applying that time sense? I am thinking I have to put in more effort developing that time sense more than the knowledge.
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Re: GMAT score fluctuations

by StaceyKoprince Mon May 20, 2019 6:28 pm

Okay, so this tells me that you know "intellectually" what you're supposed to do on the test as far as time management and the business mindset, but you haven't really practiced / internalized it enough to make it your default mode. So when you get "lost" in the test, you default back to school mode.

Have you ever worked with someone who...just seemed to manage to find ways to suggest work that was a waste of time? Like, everyone's working on the big deadline for the client presentation tomorrow and...this person thinks it's be a great time to update the marketing plan or analyze the budget? :)

Think of that person. When a question pops up that is a bad business opportunity for you, picture that person. Pretend s/he is literally knocking on your door right now saying, "Hey, I thought this would be a great time to do [something that's a waste of time]!" You aren't going to feel bad about saying no, right? You may try to let him/her down gently, but you're definitely going to say no because you have more important stuff to do. That's the mindset that you're trying to get to—not "Oh, I 'should' know how but I can't remember so I'm going to move on because I know that's what I'm supposed to do but now I feel bad that I can't remember, so I'm still kind of thinking about that problem when I've moved on to the next one..."

No! You're going to be thinking, "Awesome, I dodged that bullet! Time to work on something that's actually relevant / useful / worth my time."

I need to practice this mindset more consciously while practicing too.


Yes—and not just "more consciously." EVERYthing you do from now on is with this mindset. Every single time. You are *always* using this mindset. Whenever you are doing problems, you are always in Exam Mode; make decisions the way you would want to make them on the real test. (Later, when you're reviewing, you can try the problem again, or try another solution method, or look something up, or whatever. But first, you're in Exam Mode.)

Don't just go re-do the strategy guides. Have everything be driven from timed problems and timed problem sets from now on. That will help you to practice the mindset / time sense more, and your analysis of those problems will also tell you what you need to review in the strategy guides. When you realize "Oh, I missed this problem because I forgot this formula / rule," now you know to go look at that specific chapter (or part of a chapter) again. Be opportunistic—review what the data is telling you that you need to review.

Two bits of advice:
(1) Set up problem sets where you literally don't give yourself enough time—eg, give yourself 14 minutes to do 8 quant questions.
(2) Don't wait until you're behind on time to bail. It's not "Oh, I'm behind, so now I have to bail on something." Rather, it's "Ugh, I hate this problem, I'm bailing"—regardless of what the clock says. This could be on the very first problem. I once bailed on the last two problems in a row on an official exam because I knew I hated them both. I finished with like 6 minutes left! But it didn't matter—I needed that brain energy for the next section and I knew my odds were really low on those two problems anyway.

You can do it!
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Re: GMAT score fluctuations

by AnitaX292 Fri May 24, 2019 1:55 am

Thanks for the feedback and advice Stacey! I'll start with the timed sets as you suggested and review from there. How long do you think i would have to prep before I take the test ? Would 4 weeks be reasonable?
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Re: GMAT score fluctuations

by StaceyKoprince Mon May 27, 2019 6:09 pm

What's your overall goal? We know you can hit 620 on the real thing already. Are you trying to get...670? 700? 720?

It takes a good 3-4 weeks—at least—of daily practice to fully internalize the business mindset. So I would say 4 weeks at a minimum. If you're going for the 670 to 700 range, I think it would be reasonable to plan for 4 to 8 weeks since you have already been able to score in the upper 600s twice on a practice test. (Oh wait, one question: You took those two official practice tests under 100% official conditions? Didn't pause the test or allow yourself a longer break than normal or anything like that?) You can see how things are going and make your actual decision in a few weeks.

If you're going for something higher, then it's going to take longer of course—and I don't have a great sense of how much longer because you haven't hit that level on practice tests yet. So in that case, I would say don't plan even a date range yet; rather, revisit the question in about a month as you see how you're progressing.
Stacey Koprince
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ManhattanPrep