From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmiss the markmiss the markto not achieve something you were trying to do Their efforts to improve quality have somewhat missed the mark. → miss
Examples from the Corpus
miss the mark• All too often, national political coverage misses the mark.• Although it contains a grain of truth, this theory rather radically misses the mark.• In your recent coverage of Novell's letter of intent to purchase Unix System Laboratories you've really missed the mark.• The movie itself simply misses the mark.• The truth, however, is that most of the time it misses the mark.• As a welfare program, the minimum wage misses the mark because it worsens the status of the most disadvantaged youths.• In the electronic community, these efforts will either fall short or miss the mark entirely.• But the show missed the mark on other aspects of police work, the group said. 