I just Beat The GMAT!

I just gave my GMAT and ended up with a score of 680. My quantitative score is 49 (89th percentile), while my verbal score is 34 (70th percentile).

I was targeting a score in the range of 720-730, but was never quite there.

FRIENDS, this is a long post, will appreciate if you can give me your thoughts and time. I have split the whole thing into sections, and given questions numbers, so please fell free to answer and pour in your suggestions. I will be overwhelmed if you can address my queries. Its a debrief along with the mistakes I made and also have my queries and concerns.


THANKS A TON FOLKS
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Before, I continue any further, I would like to thank all the members of the 'beaththegmat' forum for their wonderful support. It was amazing to be on this forum (will still continue to be) , I learnt a lot from all the back posts and also by interacting with verbal and math gurus. Thanks a ton guys, great work, its been amazing to have interacted with you all.

MY EARLIER SCORES
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Power Prep1 - 720 (Q -49 V-40 )
Kaplan CAT 1- 580 (Q -41 V-24 )
Kaplan CAT 2 - 570 (Q - 37 V-25 )
Manhattan Online Free Test - 680 (Q -47 V-35)
Kaplan Online Free Test - 660 (Q -44 V-39)
GMAT Prep 1 - 680 (Q -47 V-37)
GMAT Prep 2 - 700 (Q - 50 V-34)

PREPARATION
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I was preparing for close to 3 months, I would spend about 2-3 hrs everyday on my preparation. I referred OG11,OG10, Kaplan 800 and Kaplan 2006 and some SC and CR Sets. (Just listing the material makes me feel as if I don't have any more brains to get a better score even If I prepare and give GMAT again). Last two weeks I gave the above tests and revised OG 11 math and SC verbal, along with Manhattan SC guide.

THE D'DAY
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It was an afternoon slot at about 1:15 pm. I had a decent lunch and headed to the testing center. I was not very anxious as I had learnt to calm myself down. AWA section was a breeze, felt I had done well, it was the regular type of argument and essays. Felt good after the first one hour.

Took a break, and then headed for the quant section, First question I was stumped, read it about 5 or 6 times and I just couldn't break it down into mathematical equations, it was a P&L problem. I spent 5 minutes on the problem, I did not want to get the first problem of my math section wrong. Guess I totally blanked out during the first problem, just dont know why?. The third problem also hit me hard, somehow I wasn't relaxed. It was 8 min when I completed my first 3 problems. It was then that I consciously decided to calm myself down and started again, it was smooth sail after that. I don't know how I performed, except for a geometry question on which I spent about 5 min (33 question), I guess I timed myself well on the other questions. I guessed a geometry DS question in the end, guess the 39th or 40th question. Phew, Quantitative section was over with 30 seconds to spare.

Took another break had a quick bite, and then headed back for the verbal section. I have never been able to judge my performance in the verbal section because every time I give my verbal part, its been the SC or the RC or the CR thats been causing trouble. I would have not done well in one of the sections while the other two I would have done well. So even this time I couldn't judge where I went wrong. Verbal section was over with 45 seconds to spare.

Came out with a score of 680, not very pleased with myself.

AM I HAPPY WITH MY SCORE?
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Am I happy with my score? Frankly its about 50 points lesser than what I had wanted to have. Hence I am not very satisfied with my performance. I am thinking of giving it again after a month or too, please give me your suggestions folks.

HOW GOOD IS THIS SCORE
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1. How good is this score if I am targeting the top 15 B schools in the US. I have about four years of experience in the Information Technology industry. My job more or less is mostly a technical role and does not have any managerial aspect involved with it. So i'll be competing with a large pool of regular Indian or rather Asian IT professionals. I want to specialize in finance or consulting. I work for a top IT firm, very well renowned .

RETAKING GMAT
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2. If I were to take the test again what is the strategy I should adopt.

3. How long should I prepare?

4. What are the tests that I should take, now that I have exhausted GMAT prep, very recently?

5. Also the study materials have been exhausted, I referred OG11,OG10, Kaplan 800 and Kaplan 2006. I sometimes wonder even after referring to all the material over a 3 month period and even after taking about 5-6 tests, if my scores haven't hit the 730's - 740's , then is this all I have with respect to my skills. i.e. even if I prepare more will there be any improvement to my score?

TARGETING B'SCHOOLS
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I am looking at schools that cater to students interest in the area of Finance or Consulting or Strategy Management.

6. What are the schools that I can target at?

7. How do I figure out if I will be considered with my present score?

8. What are the factors that need to be taken into consideration before choosing the school to apply?

MISTAKES
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9. I still am not able to figure out where I stand section wise within the whole of verbal section, whether I am weak in SC, RC or CR, or is it all three. So this constantly puzzled me and I did not know where to focus in the end. I still don't know what the reason is?

Tip: Accuracy and knowing you strengths and weakness is very important.Also very important is to know how to find your strength and weaknesses. I myself need some help on this now!

10. My DS skills have always been on the weaker side. Especially if it involved geometry or number properties where one needs to consider different possibilities and choose numbers accordingly. Accuracy has also been a problem, I make atleast 3-4 stupid mistakes in the math section. How can I plug this gap?

Tip: Plugging the gaps should be done atleast 3 weeks before the actual test. Last 3 weeks should be for revising and taking tests. You cant afford to have too many gaps to fill in the end.

11. I took GMAT Prep in the last week, so thats when realty dawned on me with respect to where I stood. My best suggestion would be to prepare for a month, then take a few section wise tests and when you get the feeling that you are there with respect to your preparation , give your GMATPrep. Only if the score is somewhere close to what you are aiming at (say close to 50 points), then go ahead and book your dates. Still give yourself about a month and a half. 15-20 days to plug the gaps, then the rest of the time to hone you test taking ability and building your endurance level. Two and a half months should be good.

Tip: Fix a strategy, evaluate it a 100 times to check if it will work for you, see such forums for different strategies and also have a backup plan even for you preparation. This will give you a road map to take for the two and a half months and there is less chance you will fail.

12. Take a few test initially , after the 1 month preparation, and see how you are on time management. Don't keep the time management concern for the last two weeks.

Tip: DONT DONT DONT ever keep your GMAT Prep give you a feed back till the end. You need a feedback much before you book your dates. I curse myself, I should have taken GMATPrep earlier than I had actually done.

Thats it folks.. if you have reached till here, thanks a ton for you time and effort, hope I was useful in some way.

Thanks
gmatrant

Hi

Thanks for posting ur experience. It is always interesting. I have yet to give my GMAT so not sure how much I can help, but here are my two cents

1) Prep material = I started my prep ( though some what causally a month or so back) I was solving some question on the forum, reviewing the OG material etc. Though I was doing ok, till I actually gave the practice tests and realized I was way off:)) For the verbal, I seem to be quite well. I found the MGMAT SC to be really great. Combine that with the OG material and the other tests I think its perfect. I feel you should really track the kind of questions u are getting wrong. If you get a question correct but are not sure of it, go back and review to see the answer explaination. For CR I just got the Powerscore book as I read its good - but have yet to start, can let u know how it is once I am done. RC, I feel u just need to read and read and read some more. Improve ur concentration level to a point where after 1 read u more or less know the passage. Read it critically, try to understand what it is about. Anticipate what kind of questions may be asked (i.e tone of the passage, what the author is trying to say, main message etc) Watch where the details are but dont get stuck on them - just know where they are.

Quant is really my weakness. I have just ordered the MGMAT guides (spend a fortune just to get overnight delivery :(( ) but well I think they are great. Lets see how I progress. No real tips as this is my development area as well.

2) Regarding schools - Based on the feedback I received from Ross (UOM) I feel that the GMAT score is only one aspect of the application. They also have people with 650 in their class. So dont feel too bad about ur 680. But if u can give it again without affecting ur apps give it a try. At Ross they were pretty clear they are more concerned with the Quant score than the verbal.
Overall I feel u really need to sell ur rounded personality etc. Work hard at finding out ways to present ur profile as diff from the avg joe. Thats really imp.

Not sure if this helped, but best of luck

Ok a couple of question from my side. U mentioned that u were stumped by a couple of questions. What that because they were totally diff from what u saw in ur prep material? Can u talk a bit more on the difficulty level in the Quant and Verbal section VS OG and other prep material u saw

Thanks so much

Hi gmatrant,
Congratulations on that great score!! Sorry you dint get your target score.I have my test on the 20th of Nov and I thought it will be great if you can answer some questions from your experience.On the test, did you get any questions from GMAT prep?? And was the level of difficulty on the quant section the same as that of the ones in GMAT prep?? Your answers will really be appreciated!! thanks

Sorry for the late reply, had taken a break from all of this, now I am back.

Between folks, I got my AWA score as well and I got a 6 !. [Well looks like writing skills and verbal skills are two different things, my verbal score never reflected the same ]

Thanks a lot SALSAA, moneyman and ri2007 for you suggestions. SALSAA you pinpointed my weakness very aptly and it has really got me thinking.

I am planning to apply to one or two universities this time and try my chance with this score. I also felt doing so will give me a heads-up with respect to the apps process. How do I identify the schools to which I should apply? Are there any good sites that one can recommend that gives a listing of bschools, the average scores that they accept, overall rankings, placement statistics etc.

As for the other part, I also plan to simultaneously prepare for an hour every day for sometime and then plan to give my GMAT again during March or so. I should get a better score!

Regarding my preparation - ACT II

Did you not save any test exams that you took ? Is there any record of the questions that you were doing all this time ? If YES, then they should definitely pinpoint to the particular section that you are weak on. For Ex. The overall scores are a telltale sign of your Verbal issues.

- Well, No, I did not do any such analysis, guess thats the reason for this score. Can you guide me through this process of doing the analysis. Are there any tools (like format in which I should record the details, what details should I record) that will help me achieve the same.

I also want to improve my timing - esp the verbal section - and SALSAA was mentioning about "Manhattan GMAT online Stopwatch" - is this offered as part of the 6 online test series.

If I were you I'd ignore the quant for now and just focus on the verbal. Start with SC since that's the easiest to improve. I recommend the Manhattan GMAT SC book and Sahil's grammar notes (google it). Afterwards concentrate on CR. Don't guess on any questions. When answering questions try to explain your reasoning behind some answers as opposed to others. This helps expose some potential flaws.
RC can be viewed as just an extended CR.