Why Are You Missing GMAT Questions?

By QS Contributor Updated Jun 16, 2020

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Introduction
A knowledge gap
Narrowing down the choices too often and ‘guessing’ on GMAT questions
Fatigue is impacting performance

The most common target score among GMAT test takers test takers is a 700+, but only about 10% of those same people actually end up scoring at that level on test day. To attain a GMAT score of 700+, you don’t have to be a ‘genius’, but you DO have to put in the necessary effort to define WHY you’re not getting GMAT questions correct. Knowing the ‘root cause’ of your issues is a must before you can properly go about fixing those issues. Thankfully, the actual cause is never all that complex, but you really must put in the effort to properly analyze why you’re getting GMAT questions wrong so that you can fix the problem and improve your GMAT score.

Here is something of a critical-thinking prompt – take a moment to try to answer it before you continue reading the article:

Student Z is having trouble with sentence correction. He’s studied for a couple of months, but he still ends up getting most of his SC questions wrong when he takes his computer adaptive tests (CATs). Why is this happening? Off the top of your head, can you come up with any potential reason why he’s still getting so many SC questions wrong?

There really aren’t that many possible explanations. Here are some possibilities:

A knowledge gap

Student Z just doesn’t know the necessary grammar and idiom rules well enough to spot when they apply. If, in the verbal section, you cannot name the major grammar rule ‘categories’, much less the specific rules and varieties within each category, then it’s unlikely that you’ll score well on SCs (and by extension, in the verbal section).

Narrowing down the choices too often and ‘guessing’ on GMAT questions

Instead of using knowledge (in the same way that you would use a math formula to answer a quant question), Student Z just reads all five answer choices and chooses the answer that sounds best. That’s not actually a strategy though – it’s what you would do when you don’t have any other options. Working through lots of practice GMAT questions using this approach isn’t really studying either.

Fatigue is impacting performance

The verbal section of the GMAT comes at the end of a four-hour exam, so Student Z gets tired, has trouble focusing and ends up making bad choices. His grammar knowledge might actually be okay, but he can’t find the necessary focus to handle each prompt correctly, so he ends up giving up on verbal questions that are actually gettable (if he put in a bit more effort) and ends up takings lots of educated guesses instead of zero-ing in on the correct answer.

Each of these issues is REAL, and can be easily defined. The first two can be solved with more of a focus on learning the necessary grammar/idiom rules as well as the inherent patterns and style that the GMAT question writers always use. For the third, a shift in the physical and psychological tactics that Student Z uses will likely lead to immediate improvement.

With the proper resources, and the willingness to do what is necessary to succeed, you can improve your GMAT score in any area of this test. The GMAT is consistent and predictable, so earning a high GMAT score is something that most test takers should be able to accomplish. To be in that heralded group of 700+ test takers though, you might have to analyze your issues and find a new way to study.