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its a way of putting everyone on a level playing field. Its difficult to compare GPAs across different universities. This just makes the Adcom's job easier. You should look at GMAT as a way to justify your 3.4 GPA in university

hard to say, cuz there is no way to evaluate your school's difficulty. a 3.4 from standford comp sci is not the same as say metro college of new york's 3.4 in communication.

but if both people were put in front of gmat and the metro college of new york guy get a 760 on the gmat, and the standford guy get a 560. well we can see their performance on an equal playing field.

I just don't like how you are labeled stupid if you cant get a 500. If someone wants to go to school they should be able to.

Yes, I too agree that standardized testing has little bearing on your ability to become successful and work hard in life. Unfortunately, the GMAT makes the job for the people at the colleges easier because they have a standardized way to compare all applicants. I know of people who have received really high scores on their SATs, but ended up not really going anywhere in life.

What type of scores are you getting on your practice CATs? Are you scoring where you need in your CATs, but choking during the test? If so, you'll probably want to work on your confidence a bit. Please let us know how you've been studying.

Kaplan tutoring
Kaplan Cats
1- 520
2- 540
3-530

Actual 440.

Then took tutoring AGAIN.
did 80% of each sections in OG. and i honestly got the majority correct.
GMAT PREP 440
Actual GMAT 430

I honestly just need more than 2 minutes a question. Give me 5or 6 and you got yourself a 650. Or if it wasnt timed that would be good too.

love your post - I totally know what you are talking about. By the way when you wrote your GMAT were you able to finish all your questions on time in both quant and verbal (even it was just guessing). Or did you end up missing a bunch (that totally pulls down your score...) Better to guess than leave it blank, or miss it.

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People Never Fail ... They just Give Up

i did the test recently, nothing is more than OG. But the way the CAT measure your score is a bit weird. Of course you should not think about how it calculates your score and just try to answer the questions. Be sure that you answered many questions wrong, otherwise your score could not be that low.

Yeah i finished all the questions. If i didn't know the answer for a certain question after one try and knew that i wouldn't be able to figure out in the next minute or so i would just guess.

Since the GMAT Prep tests seem to be the most similar to the actual GMAT, why don't you wait until you can get that score to an acceptable level before you give the GMAT another shot? $250 is a lot of money to spend on a test so make sure you're absolutely ready for it. Study for another year if you have to. Business school will always be there for you. You've been diligent in your studies and haven't given up, so keep up the hard work! Did you read ngufo's debrief? If not, maybe you should because she too started at a low score, but with perseverance and support from this community, she was able to pull out a 700+ score. You can do it, you just need to pinpoint what you're doing wrong in your studies. If you can score that high on your Kaplan CATs, then you should have no problem scoring in the 600s.

I totally agree with awesomeusername - your scores for the kaplan are very okay (the kaplan by the way is not reflective of yoru final score in GMAT at all, they say its 50 -60 points below what you will finally get as the exams are too hard). Your your gmat prep scores however are fairly low. The gmat prep at the end of the day is a reflection of what you will score in the exam.

the princeton tests that I took, were very very helpful as well. As awesomeusername mentions, I started out in the worst way possible (knew almost nothing in maths and verbal - took me 6 months to get a 700+ score). I believe if I gave GMAT again now I wouldn't score more than a 400 again ....

Its about reading the concepts from the books, keeping all the formulae, and the tips in mind, getting your timing nailed down - its not a true measure of your caliber at all, for me I think it was more about how organized I was in my study approach, My ability to work from basics/concepts up, and finally a measure of my perseverance, and will to succeed. Its not fair I know - but well, if thats what it takes to get to a B school, thats a pill I was willing to swallow!

I hope you do read my debrief and find it helpful - I tried to jot down everything I could think of which was important there. (Its in the main forum right above beatthegmat/erics blog.

Take care,
-ngufo

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People Never Fail ... They just Give Up

I agree that GMAT sometimes seem unfair. But it is something that CAN be mastered. With proper practice, you can score 700+.

a) Did you practice with time constraints ?
b) Do you feel comfortable with all the concepts ?
c) Did you take full length tests ? AWA + Q+V ?

I am not trying to be harsh or rude ... I am trying to help you. But I want to tell that just by getting tutored or getting 80% rights in OG wont help. You need to practice a lot, outside the OG before you get to OG.

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Please visit my blog Gmat Tips and Strategies

i had to take the GMAT on that day because the school I am applying to was waiting for me to retake it and I only had until the first day of classes. Mind you im still waiting on them and classes started last Wednesday. My application is still in with the dean.. and the asst dean emailed me today saying they they hope to have a decision by the end of the day. I guess i'm borderline because of all the other great things in my application. So I'm hoping to never have to look at the GMAT again.

Like i said before my problem is the time constraint. And no i didn't study with time in mind because i was more concerned with being able to get the answer at all, ya know. Another thing is I probably get really nervous and feel like i have no time and have to speed through the questions.

I didn't take any practice full length because I'm good at essay writing. I got 5's each time. So i didn't concentrate on that at all. I don't think that it had anything to do with my math or verbal section. I wasn't fatigued or anything.

Private tutoring would prolly help me but it is so expensive and I dont have the money for it. I dunno...
Im just so tired of this long fought battle!

Using your same reasoning, you could also say a lot of other things are a scam. Think of how much you spent on undergrad compared to the gmat!