Spoiler Warning: This episode discusses questions from the second free Official GMAT Practice Exam on mba.com. If you haven't taken that exam yet, there will be some spoilers.

What should you do after taking a GMAT practice test?

For the final installment of our six-week Summer GMAT prep series, GMC Zach and Menlo Coaching Director of Tutoring Hailey Cusimano go inside the results of a real student practice exam—and discover that the score itself tells only part of the story.

After beginning at a 545 and seeing her score fall to 515 after weeks of self-study, this student could easily have concluded that she simply needed more Quant practice, more Verbal practice, or more questions.

But a deeper review revealed something very different.

Across Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Data Insights, the same patterns kept appearing: overinvesting time in difficult questions, rushing when the clock became intimidating, getting lost in unnecessary details, and sometimes solving a problem correctly only to answer the wrong question.

Hailey breaks down how to spot those patterns, turn mistakes into actionable strategies, and use practice exams as learning tools—not just score predictors.

And the payoff? That same student eventually scored a 715.

If you're taking GMAT practice exams but aren't sure what to do with the results, this episode is your guide to finding the story behind your score.

About Hailey:

Hailey Cusimano is a 99th-percentile performer and a self-proclaimed standardized test nerd. Drawing from her years of experience as an instructor, she knows how to assess students' main obstacles and strategize accordingly, maximizing efficiency in short study windows. Plus, her enthusiasm is infectious, and most students find studying with Hailey actually becomes—dare we say—fun.

Helpful Resources:

Menlo Coaching: https://menlocoaching.com/

5 Traits of Successful GMAT Test Takers: https://tinyurl.com/insidethegmat

Purchase GMAT Official Prep: https://www.mba.com/exams/executive-assessment/prepare

Key Takeaways:

A practice exam is more than a test-readiness benchmark. It can reveal patterns in your decision-making, pacing, confidence, and strategy.
Don't automatically respond to a missed algebra question by doing more algebra—or a missed Reading Comprehension question by doing more Reading Comprehension. Ask why you missed it.
Spending five minutes on a question you ultimately miss can create problems well beyond that one question by forcing you to rush later.
"Silly mistakes" usually aren't random. Look for the repeatable process that made the mistake more likely.
One problem can appear across all three GMAT sections. In this case, reading precision, task orientation, and answering the exact question being asked showed up repeatedly.
More practice questions aren't automatically better. Review should produce an actionable takeaway you can apply to a different question later.
Don't try to become a subject-matter expert on every Reading Comprehension or Multi-Source Reasoning passage. Understand the structure and return to details when they're actually needed.
A rough practice score does not necessarily mean your preparation isn't working. Sometimes the data is exposing a fixable strategy problem.
Confidence and momentum matter. A bad stretch in one section can affect how you approach the next.
The goal isn't just to collect data about what you're getting wrong. It's to understand what needs to happen differently next time.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to using practice exams effectively
02:07 Case study: Student's initial struggles and data analysis
04:55 Time management insights and question pacing
07:55 Verbal and quantitative section analysis
12:51 Big picture data insights and strategic adjustments
18:02 Common question pitfalls and how to avoid them
21:58 The importance of mental resilience and confidence
26:58 Building effective review habits and strategies
33:00 Final tips for exam day success